Fairfax County is looking for a cleaning firm to make some of its vacant housing supply fit for human occupancy, including units left filthy, stinking and trash-covered after the tenants were evicted.
It’s one of the downsides of the county’s massive effort to buy and preserve affordable housing. Some of the apartments and town houses are in poor shape when they come under the control of housing officials, requiring yard cleanup and removal of garbage and abandoned furniture, according to bid documents. Others are even worse.
“Some units, generally units from which households have been evicted, will be in extremely poor condition — extensive dirt, strong odors and general [unsanitary] conditions,” county procurement officials warned in a request for bids this month. “In no way should this job be compared in terms of the time or effort involved in cleaning offices or the average home.”
County housing officials could not be reached Friday to discuss the condition of the units.
Fairfax County says it has preserved 2,235 dwellings since 2004, either buying the dwellings outright or partnering with nonprofits to hold down their rents.
The program was initiated as home prices began to soar in Northern Virginia, forcing low- and moderate-income families out of the county.
The problem of festering vacant units is of heightened relevance with the rash of foreclosures in the county. The Board of Supervisors approved a plan in June to buy, rehabilitate and sell some of the most blighted foreclosed homes, many of them in similar condition to the run-down rental units.
The county has an existing cleaning contract with D&A Maintenance Services of Lanham, which was granted in 2003 and expires at the end of the month.
