The D.C. Superior Court will hear a case April 13 involving a house currently rented to at least two AU students at 4335 Van Ness St. NW.
The District alleges that the woman who owns the house, Margarita Metaxatos, does not hold a permit to rent out three properties: 4335 Van Ness St. NW, 4808 44th St. NW and 5183 Linnean Terrace NW.
D.C. law requires a renter to have a one-family rental license to rent out single-family homes, such as the Van Ness property. The fees for such a license total at least $173.
The District filed a harassment complain and a motion for a preliminary injunction Jan. 9.
The injunction would halt all “illegal business activity” at the three properties, according to court documents obtained by The Eagle.
If approved, the injunction would order Metaxatos to immediately obtain the required license; place rental proceeds from the properties in escrow, or money held by a third-party on behalf of two other parties; and submit monthly reports to the Attorney General’s Office each month.
The reports will list the tenants’ names, summarize any calls to D.C. Police, report that no illegal activity has occurred on the properties, confirm Metaxatos is not harboring fugitives from justice and state that no illegal items such as drugs or weapons are contained anywhere on the properties.
Metaxatos denied The Eagle’s request for comment upon advice from her attorney. Her attorney also declined to comment.
The injunction and court case come after the 4335 Van Ness St. house, leased by at least two AU students, has been a source of contention between the residents and their neighbors.
“To my knowledge, the neighbors were getting desperate when they realized there were no real grounds to have us removed and began attacking our landlord as an alternative,” said Will, a resident of the 4335 Van Ness St. house and a 2011 graduate of the School of International Service. “She’s a sweet old woman and fortunately has all of her paperwork in order so I’m told it won’t amount to anything other than harassing my landlord.”
Will and another resident, John, a senior in the School of International Service, asked to remain anonymous to ensure future employment is not affected.
The Van Ness neighbors’ dispute
Kris Persinger, a Van Ness Street neighbor, said he and his wife have had issues with the house for the past two years.
Persinger asked that his wife not be named in this article.
“[John] and others often claim we are the only ones who have complained about them and that’s simply not true,” Persinger said. “Fifty neighbors have signed a petition stating that they have been disturbed by the party noise coming from [the house] and are against the use of it as a fraternity meeting house.”
Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3E councilman Jonathan Bender said there are occasional problems with students living in the neighborhood.
“Unfortunately, there seem to be about six to ten student houses a year that cause serious chronic problems for folks living nearby,” Bender said.
Persinger said the noise level from the students’ house can be unbearable for his family.
“We have endured party noise so loud we can hear it in the back of our house with the windows closed and earplugs in,” he said.
Persinger said police have been called to the house on numerous occasions for noise complaints.
He and his wife co-wrote a petition and collected 50 signatures from disgruntled neighbors asking AU to discipline the students’ actions.
Persinger wrote in the petition that he has found “used condoms, beer bottles, cigarette butts and those telltale red plastic beer cups in our yards and others.”
Will denied the claims.
“Frankly, we haven’t done anything wrong,” Will said. “They believe we have and are convinced of it to the point where [Persinger’s wife] actually has a camera pointed on our house, which, if you want to talk about harassment, a little blinking red light knowing you’re being filmed around the clock, I mean, that’s harassment.”
Persinger said the placement of the camera on their house is legal under D.C. law.
“Any business or homeowner can install security cameras on their property,” he said. “We found that once we began gathering photo and video documentation of the problems at [the house], the police, the University, the Zoning Commission and the D.C. Attorney General were in a better position to help us.”
Persinger and his wife began contacting police instead of the tenants regarding noise complaints upon learning about the new D.C. noise ordinance, passed in March 2011.
The law states, “It is unlawful for a person to make an unreasonably loud noise between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. that is likely to annoy or disturb one or more other persons in their residences.”
Persinger and his wife also worked with Associate Dean of Students Michelle Espinosa, who handles student conduct issues, on issues of noise violations.
Espinosa said neighbors reported some issues with the house during the 2010-11 academic year, as well as in September 2011. She said she has not heard anything from the neighbors since late September or early October.
Espinosa also said she met with the two current AU students who live in the house in late September, who agreed to stop hosting social events in the house.
John has held the lease to the house since the fall of 2009, he said.
John and Will said tenants of the house have normally held one or two parties per month and have notified neighbors in advance, while trying to keep the noise down during these events.
He said they have not held any social events in the house since September 2011.
Neighbors claim property is “fraternity house”
The petition, which The Eagle obtained a copy of, states that the house is used as a fraternity house, citing:
• pictures of the foreign service fraternity Delta Phi Epsilon (DPE) brothers in front of the house,
• sightings of DPE brothers with their paddles coming and going from the house,
• an article from the Washington Examiner about the house
• and the house’s designation as a “dive bar” on Foursquare, a social networking site.
“The house is not currently, and never was a fraternity house,” John said.
Multiple DPE brothers said the fraternity does not own or lease a house for fraternity use.
The University does not fund any off-campus housing for student organizations, Espinosa said.
“We traditionally have military or former military students living here, but it’s just a lease, and I happen to have a lot of friends who are military,” John said.
The house is also not affiliated with AU Veterans, according to John and Espinosa.
Will said veterans tend to have a special bond due to their shared experiences.
“The fact is that members of the military see themselves as part of a brotherhood and fraternity,” Will said.
Students, neighbors attempt to solve problem
John and Will said they have tried to work with the neighbors regarding noise, designating Will as the official point of contact in February 2011.
Persinger’s wife has been the official point of contact for neighbors upset with the noise, according to John and emails between the two parties that The Eagle obtained.
“We decided, better to work with them than against them,” John said.
John and Will have spoken to neighbors before recent parties to let them know they are having guests and have implored them to call if the noise becomes too unbearable.
The students and the Persinger household ceased communicating with each other in September 2011 following a dispute over a social event.
Will and John said they have tried to maintain an amicable relationship with all of their neighbors, ensuring that anyone can contact them via phone or email at any point in time.
However, Persinger said he believes these issues should be solved more preemptively.
“We did try to work directly with the students to curb their noise,” Persinger said. “The problem with that system is that first we were disturbed and then we had to ask them to quiet down. Why should the burden be on us to get out of bed and call or email them to be quiet?”
Fox's "A.U. Party House"
Fox 5 aired a promotion Jan. 22 during the NFL playoff games for an upcoming story that labeled the house “A.U. Party House.”
Will and John said the promo came as a surprise to the house’s tenants.
“We were watching the Giants-49ers game like everybody else, and we saw ‘A.U. Party House’, and then it zoomed right into our house,” John said.
The students made several attempts to contact Fox 5 following the promotion.
John said Fox 5 reporter Sherri Ly contacted him eight days after the promotion aired. He declined to comment on Fox 5’s story, but asked that the station not include the residents’ address and names in its story.
The promotion said the Fox 5 piece would be aired in February, but it did not give a date.
Fox 5 denied The Eagle’s request for comment on this story and would not confirm if the piece will still air.
Persinger’s wife worked for Fox 5 as a senior investigative reporter from 1997 to 2005. Since then, she has worked as correspondent for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” according her website.
