D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed suit against the owners of two Northwest Washington apartment complexes, alleging the landlords let their buildings rot for years, racking up more than 120 housing code violations, and then stuck taxpayers with the bill after a gas explosion displaced dozens of tenants last year.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in D.C. Superior Court, names John Steininger and Herminia Steininger as defendants. The couple owns apartment buildings on Columbia Road in Columbia Heights and Lamont Street in Mount Pleasant, two neighborhoods where working-class renters can least afford to gamble on whether their smoke alarms work or their walls are free of rodents.
The D.C. Attorney General's Office says the Steiningers allowed both properties to fall into "extreme disrepair," jeopardizing the health and safety of their tenants, and that the couple has never repaid the District for the hundreds of thousands of dollars it spent relocating families after the September 2024 explosion.
The numbers tell a bleak story. Since 2018, the D.C. Department of Buildings has cited the two Steininger properties with more than 120 combined housing code violations. The violations include broken windows, rodent infestations, inoperable smoke and fire alarms, and water leaks, the kind of basic failures that make a building dangerous long before anything explodes.
Fines exceeding $140,000 have been levied against the Steiningers. And as of the lawsuit's filing, the AG's office says none of the cited problems have been addressed.
Not one.
That is seven years of documented violations, six figures in fines, and, if the AG's allegations hold, not a single repair. The tenants living in these buildings were not dealing with cosmetic annoyances. They were living in units where the fire alarms did not work and the rodents had the run of the place.
The situation came to a head in September 2024, when a gas explosion severely damaged the Columbia Road building. One woman was injured. Dozens of tenants were displaced from their homes. The District stepped in to rehouse the families, absorbing costs that the AG's office describes as "hundreds of thousands of dollars."
The Steiningers, WTOP reported, have not repaid the District for those relocation expenses. The lawsuit seeks that repayment, though the exact dollar figure the AG's office is pursuing has not been publicly specified.
AG Schwalb framed the case in direct terms. In a press release accompanying the filing, he said:
"These landlords neglected their properties and legal obligations, forcing their tenants to live in deplorable conditions and leading to a dangerous explosion that displaced dozens of residents and cost the District hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Schwalb was not the only District official to weigh in. Brian Hanlon, director of the D.C. Department of Buildings, the agency responsible for citing the violations in the first place, said his office is "proud to support this lawsuit."
Johanna Shreve, the District's chief tenant advocate, put the cost in broader terms. Landlord neglect, she said, "causes chaos and grief for tenants, and drains taxpayer dollars that are badly needed elsewhere."
That last point deserves emphasis. When a landlord refuses to maintain a building and the roof eventually caves in, or a gas line fails, the tenants pay first with their safety. But taxpayers pay second, because the city has to step in with emergency housing, inspectors, and legal resources. The landlord who pocketed the rent and ignored the violations walks away from the wreckage while everyone else picks up the tab.
Several questions remain open. The Steiningers have not publicly responded to the lawsuit or the AG's allegations. No statement from the couple or their legal representatives appears in any available reporting. Whether they contest the claims, the violation history, or the repayment demand is unknown.
The complaint itself, filed as a civil action in D.C. Superior Court, does not appear to have a publicly reported case number yet. The specific causes of action and the full scope of relief the AG's office is seeking beyond repayment remain unclear. It is also unknown how the 120-plus violations break down between the two properties, or what the current occupancy status of either building is.
The precise number of displaced tenants, described only as "dozens", has not been specified. Nor have the exact injuries sustained by the woman hurt in the explosion.
Cases like this expose a familiar failure loop in urban housing enforcement. A landlord collects rent. The city documents violations, in this case, for seven consecutive years. Fines accumulate. Nothing changes. The building deteriorates until something breaks catastrophically, and then the public bears the cost of the emergency while the landlord faces, at most, a lawsuit filed years after the first citation.
More than 120 violations since 2018 means the D.C. Department of Buildings knew these properties were falling apart. Fines north of $140,000 means the city tried, on paper, to compel compliance. But the buildings stayed broken, the tenants stayed at risk, and the explosion still happened.
The question is not just whether the Steiningers will be held accountable now. It is why seven years of documented failure did not produce accountability sooner, before a woman was injured, before dozens of families lost their homes, and before taxpayers were left holding a bill that runs into the hundreds of thousands.
Enforcement that arrives only after the explosion is not enforcement. It is cleanup.
