> One place I desperately miss is this little cafe in Chinatown (might have been called Chinatown cafe?) In a skinny brick building that always felt like what I wanted a downtown cafe to feel like. Rip to that shop.

I liked that place (and strong agree about the vibes), but I kind of stopped going after 2 or 3 times in a row of them being unexpectedly closed during the middle of the day. It was just too far of a walk to head down there and then have to turn around and come back.

> Sweet Science was pretty cool.

Sweet science now has a new-ish location in NoMA. They still have all the fancy brewing vessels displayed, but I'm not sure if they actually use them ever.

That kind of makes sense -- cherries and almonds are related.

(That's also why whole almonds look a bit like plum pits)

> that Safeway is mediocre at best lol. Produce is marginal. Understaffed, so huge lines at 5pm when everyone is off work. It’s fine in a pinch, but we usually trek to Whole Paycheck or Trader Joe’s.

I really can't stress enough just how bad that Safeway is when it comes to fresh produce/meat. I live within a 5 minute walk of it and still often opt for the giant that's like 15 min away. (Or take the metro to Whole Foods in Shaw.)

> I’m still upset that City Vista priced out the hardware store that used to be there though.

I know! It's been an empty storefront ever since, too. (It was very briefly some sort of golf place, but unsurprisingly that folded almost instantly.)

Yeah, like holy shit people seem to be bad about realizing this. From what I've read there was a noticeable uptick in crime over the last two years across the entire country, including both cities and rural areas, in democratic and republican dominated areas.

Given the timing and scope, the default assumption here should be that its pandemic related, and like you say -- we're seeing signs that violent crime may be dropping now.

e: Wikipedia has some per state data on homicides -- in that list almost every state had a noticeable uptick from 2019 to 2020. Hopefully someone is doing actual analysis of this data somewhere, but certainly eyeballing it seems to agree with what I've read. (With Puerto Rico being an outlier, but I have no idea how Covid affected them.)

I have some I bought at a Safeway in the last ~year or so? It's not the normal size of a spice jar -- it's a short one, and was located on a shelf that only had other small spice jars.

It's one of the standard brands they carry (Morton & Basset)

> I'm seeing too many reviews online about shiny new buildings in and around DC with paper thin walls and crappy front doors that let you hear everything in other units.

FWIW, my building has a ton of reviews complaining about those things, but I've lived here for 7 years (in 3 different units) and haven't actually found this to be too much of a problem. (Folk in the hallway can definitely be heard too clearly, but from other units I haven't ever been disturbed.)

But maybe I've just been lucky -- I definitely understand not wanting to gamble on this!

> which I think is drying our hair and skin excessively

I was in a different city with quite soft water for Thanksgiving, and holy shit did my hair and skin feel better while I was there. It's got me looking for ways to deal with this.

I've seen a lot of folk on reddit mention something called a water stick that you install into your shower for softening, but I'm kind of unclear if that would actually help with DC's water or not.

(I get the impression a whole house system is generally better, but since I currently rent an apt that isn't an option -- but something that just sits attached to the shower line might be.)

I'm curious if the fact that it already shocked someone makes a difference, though? That implies its actively unsafe, not just potentially so.

I think its still worth it for the OP to reach out to the OTA for advice.

Not Quite Almost Christmas Time

> Awesome thanks! My rent increased but the notice only went out with 60 days notice, should have been 75 days of I read it correctly!

This is technically correct -- per the DC code, if you're required to give 60 days notice before vacating the property, they're required to give you 75 days notice before a rent increase.

However, if your lease ended 12/1 and they gave you the notice on 9/2, they actually gave you 90 days notice. So the rent increase is allowed by those rules.

Secondly, if you gave them notice on 10/8, you're on the hook til 12/8. Thus, the extra 8 days they're requiring you to pay. That would be true even if the rent increase was incorrect some how.

Finally, they are required to try to mitigate damages in a reasonable way. That is, they do have some responsibility for attempting to lease the apartment once you've given notice that you're leaving; they can't just have the apartment be empty for months after you've gone and charge you without attempting to let it. However, I don't think that really applies to your case, right? It's a relatively short notice and you're only on the hook for 8 days.

D.C. Code 42-3505.54 (b)

Make sure to read til the end of the section. (It's a single sentence, so I'm confident you can manage.)

If OP's lease required e.g. a 60 day notice (and they pretty much all do!) that isn't true at all! That's confirmed by the OTA doc that was previously linked.

> The law is somewhat different for a tenant who wishes to move out upon the expiration of the written lease term, i.e., before the tenancy becomes month-to month. In that instance, the lease may require more than 30 days-notice of a tenant’s intent to vacate, but only if the lease also entitles the tenant to a written notice of a rent increase that is at least 15 days longer than that. For example, if the lease requires the tenant to provide a 60-day notice of intent to vacate, the lease must also entitle the tenant to a 75-day notice of a rent increase. If the lease fails to do so, the tenant is only required to give the housing provider a 30-day notice of intent to vacate.

Any chance you could add the 'sources' links here, since they're illegible in the image?

Ducks are migratory.