Quimby on 23rd

"Not the best apartments, there’s a reason why it has the lowest rent around. They do try to have a nice community with parties and events throughout the year. Brenda, the concierge is fantastic. Maintenance is very responsive."

"Moved here for a job at the Pentagon. Terrible experience from the night I l moved in. Extremely overpriced, below average apartments. They try to squeeze every penny they can out of you. Falsely advertised as “luxury” apartments. Used to converse in the dog park with neighbors about how overpriced yet terrible the living conditions were. Several neighbors moved to competing buildings down the street just to get out of there. This should be your last resort if you need to move to Arlington. Moved out a few months ago and my life has significantly improved. Only good was the rooftop dog park and how nice my neighbors were."

"If you're thinking about moving here, just don't. I lived at the Buchanan for three years because it's in a convenient location and I didn't want the hassle of moving, but eventually I couldn't take it anymore. I felt like I had been lied to from the moment I moved in and started discovering all the things they would never mention on a leasing tour. To begin with, moving in and out is a total pain because the "service elevator" is as small or smaller than the regular elevators and is only accessible through a long maze of basement corridors connecting it to the dual loading dock/trash area. That elevator is frequently reserved though and unavailable. The catch with the other elevators is that there is no way to get to them which doesn't involve going around a narrow corner and up stairs, so if you have anything more than a handful of things with you it's very hard getting in and out. When you do finally arrive at the elevator, sweaty and exhausted from hauling anything to it, you'll be greeted on the inside by the most cringey faux-human corporate pandering about whatever minor holiday is happening. Granted that's not the worst thing, but as it became obvious that the management didn't give a darn about their residents it got harder to bear the saccharine hypocrisy of the signs they'd put up. Then, once you finally make it up to your apartment there's a good chance that it will be over 80 degrees with nothing you can do about it. That's because the AC is only on for a few months each year, with long stretches in the fall and spring where the units are boiling hot. That was easily the worst part of living there. When everyone else I knew was rejoicing at a warm week in March or April, I was dreading that it meant nights on end with unbearable heat and little sleep. Even when the AC was on, I had to use it sparingly in my bedroom because the unit sounded like a diesel engine. I tried getting maintenance to fix it six times during my first year, but they always insisted that it worked just fine, despite the fact that the other HVAC units were virtually silent. The roasting months also produce mealy-mouthed emails from management all saying that they're so sorry but there's just nothing they can do (i.e. "It would be expensive and we don't care"). There are myriad other issues I will only briefly mention. When I first moved in it was easy for guests to visit, but it has become increasingly hard and a total pain, whether you want to bring people to the pool or even have them park there. The area around the building has gotten rougher and less safe. The fire alarms go off all the time for no reason. Then the one time there was a fire they never even told us what caused it. The whole place reeks of weed. There are few days when something important isn't out of order. Etcetera etcetera. The last straw for me was when they destroyed the one perfect part of the building, which was the lobby. The lobby had beautiful carved wood panelling, marble floors, and crystal light fixtures. So what did they do? Rather than spending money to fix any of the thousand issues which would have made residents' lives better, they spent who knows how much on painting the whole lobby a bland grey, tearing out the beautiful old marble and replacing it with cheap white tile that always looks dirty and putting in ugly, glaring lights. The whole life of the building was disturbed for months by the construction and the end result was hideous. I had had enough and scrambled out as soon as my lease was up. In conclusion, this is a garbage building run by morons masquerading as luxury living. Stay away from it."

"Update: As expected, the property has not reached out despite their comment below... I couldn’t leave this property fast enough. The location is close to the metro but right off a busy road where there’s constant loud cars until 3am and right above the Bowlero that has constant violence (armed robbery), screaming, and rowdiness. Our apartment flooded twice because of the AC unit. An apartment on our floor caught fire and we were never told the reason. Our appliances were brand new but constantly breaking. We had to submit at least eight maintenance requests for our dryer before the building finally called in a technician to fix it, each time they would tell us conflicting ways to handle it. Maintenance was constantly showing up unannounced to access our unit. I had construction in my room which displaced me for a week and was not completed until a month later + construction below us that was so loud it shook our apartment and lasted nearly three months while we attempted to work from home with little support or information from the management. The parking is a constant pain ($$ and dealing with building staff) if you want to have guests over, despite there being plenty of guest parking and the garage being filthy. The floors are uneven, we had plenty of cockroach issues, the AC wouldn’t be turned on until late May which meant weeks of the apartment being so hot it was unlivable and then they would switch to heat when the weather was still in the 80s (September-October), homeless people slept in the hallway/lobby, and pooled water on the floors of all the main floor hallways. The pool was the highlight of the building, but we were recently told guests aren’t allowed despite the pool rarely being used. We were drawn in by the fact that the apartment was newly updated but that was a mere bandaid on the wound. They will suck so much money out of you and that has only increased with the new property company adding new charges mid-lease (I.e. ten dollars per month for a delivery service that we had very little say in). Also be sure to double check EVERY charge they give you, they often “accidentally” charge hundreds of dollars that we have had to question and refute. And to top it all off there’s extremely inconsistent communication between building management and tenants. If you’re able to get them on the phone or via email, it won’t be a pleasant experience. Overall, an extremely traumatic apartment complex experience, not even close to “luxury” living."

"I enjoyed living here, there’s definitely some great things about this building but also many issues that need to be fixed. Let’s start with the good things though! The apartments are spacious and have proper amenities. The pool is well-maintained and the gym is well-equipped, you don’t need a gym membership anywhere else! The common spaces get cleaned every day so it’s never dirty. The staff is very nice and helpful and I’ve never had any issues with the package service. The apartment is located near many restaurants as well and is a 10 minute walk from the metro. As for the issues with this apartment complex, it’s an old building that’s not managed very well. There are water outages almost every two weeks, so you don’t have any water between 9AM and 4PM. Nothing to cook, flush the toilet, brush your teeth...And usually you get notified about this really late, like the day before or maybe 2 days beforehand. There are also emergency shut-offs or unexpected leaks in the pipes, so you’re without water without any explanation. Last time this happened they didn’t even send a notification and the property manager wasn’t there, so we could only guess why there was no water. They’re also doing some renovation which is great, but they didn’t hire the best contractors so the work is slow and dirty. There’s still paint on my door that’s not cleaned up. The contractors also broke my internet cable and although management told us they would pay the replacement bill for us (about $200), we only saw our money after the bill was due, about 3 weeks after the incident. We did notify them about the incident immediately and sent several reminder emails. When we finally paid the bill ourselves and went to the office to ask for our reimbursement, there was a new property manager and she told us she couldn’t help us as the incident occurred under the old manager so “it wasn’t her problem”. After some debating and us standing our ground, we did get our money reluctantly. People also smoke in their apartments and the staircases and I feel like no one checks on that. So yeah, there’s some good and bad things about the Buchanan. If you wanna live in Crystal City, my advice would be to look at different apartment buildings as well as I noticed those are managed better."