‘Worst of the worst’: DC attorney general sues over conditions at Ward 5 apartment building – WTOP News
Human waste in stairwells, no working elevators or air conditioning, exposed electrical wiring and unrepaired fire damage.
Those are among nearly 200 unresolved housing code violations that prompted the D.C. Attorney General’s Office to sue the owner and manager of Delta Pearl, an affordable apartment building on Florida Avenue, NE in Ward 5.
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The building’s owner is developer Buwa Binitie, who previously served as board chair of the D.C. Housing Finance Agency.
“We are suing for the extreme neglect of the property that is endangering the health and safety of the tenants,” said Joanna Wasick, who leads the attorney general’s Housing and Environmental Justice Section. “What we have learned from the tenants and seen ourselves in our investigation is that those conditions are truly shocking.”
Wasick said the building also has problems with fire alarm and sprinkler systems, broken locks on exterior doors and a rodent infestation.
Trash has become such a problem that one tenant told investigators the building’s trash chute was once clogged all the way to the seventh floor.
“When our office brings a lawsuit, it is always because the conditions are so bad that people’s health and safety is at risk,” Wasick said. “We bring lawsuits only against the worst of the worst properties in the district.”
The attorney general’s office also filed an emergency motion asking a judge to order the owner and property manager to make immediate repairs.
For Shawana Taylor, who has lived on the third floor of Delta Pearl since January 2025, things changed quickly.
“When I first moved here, it was very nice. I actually was playing the song to myself, ‘Moving On Up,’” Taylor said. “The building smells like a dead body because there is dead rats all in the walls that have not been cleared out.”
Taylor, who pays $1,906 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, said broken locks allow people who don’t live at the property to get inside.
“They are staying in the building, sleeping in the building, having sex in the stairwell, used condoms. They’re using the bathroom inside,” Taylor said. “This is the worst.”
In a statement to WTOP, building owner Dumas Collective acknowledged the conditions are serious, but blamed prolonged court delays and widespread rent delinquency for pushing the property into a severe financial crisis.
The company said roughly two-thirds of Delta Pearl’s tenants are behind on rent and that the property is carrying more than $1.8 million in unpaid rent and resident balances.
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