My wife and I stayed in this apartment during a three-and-a-half month transition between our old home and our new one. On the whole, it was not a good experience. The day we moved in we immediately found that the dining chairs were so loosely assembled that they moved almost like rocking chairs; we tightened the screws on two of them ourselves in order to use them comfortably. We also immediately found that the bedroom window could not open; the crank mechanism was (and still is) missing. We contacted the building management people, who said that the window had been like that for a long time and they could not get the parts to fix it. We ultimately escalated the problem to Zeus, which, despite sending us many soothing emails, never succeeded in getting the window fixed while we were there. Because the window couldn’t open, the bedroom had no fresh air and was continually stuffy and stale. Next, the lighting in the apartment was bad. The living area is dark, lit only by one very small desk lamp and one grossly inadequate 60 watt floor lamp. The dining area is lit by three small track lights, but the adjustable switch for them was defective, so that the lights would often either flicker or turn themselves off unless the switch was set just so. The refrigerator was a problem, too. The door would not stay open where we wanted want it to; it either swung by itself all the way to the extreme open position or swung shut onto us. As for the location of the apartment, yes, it is quite convenient; there are several good restaurants within a block or two, as well as a supermarket, a drugstore and a cleaners. But Wisconsin Avenue is terribly noisy. Emergency vehicles – police, fire, ambulances – go by with sirens blaring at all hours (there’s a police precinct house nearby and a major hospital not far away in Georgetown), and there are also a lot of loud trucks from nearby large construction projects. Also, the street seems to attract large numbers of cars and motorcycles that like to show off how loud their exhaust pipes can be.
That said, the building is not without its good features. The people who work at the front desk as well as the maintenance person (Raul) are uniformly friendly and helpful. (The on-site staff are all building personnel, not Zeus employees.) The rooftop terrace is an excellent place to gather or to watch sunsets from, especially in the autumn months when we were there. The ground floor lounges are also nice, though for some reason hardly anyone ever uses them. And the Washington Cathedral with its lovely and peaceful garden is just a couple of blocks away.
As for the Zeus people, they communicate via email and try to win you over with apparent responsiveness. They write frequent and polite emails asking if everything is ok, promising that problems will be fixed, telling you how much they want you to have a good experience, etc. They mean well, and for routine things, like replacing light bulbs and clearing sink drains, they get the job done. But those things don’t correct or compensate for the inadequacies of this apartment.
So on the whole, I really can’t recommend this apartment. For what you pay and the extravagant descriptions Zeus gives the apartment, living in it for an extended period as we did is a real letdown. It might not be bad for very short stays or for people who are hardly ever in the apartment. That wasn’t our case, however. We were very disappointed and could not wait to leave.