NE 42nd St & University Way NE

It’s not easy to find the Dollhouse Apartments. The small, graffiti covered front door is barely noticeable, tucked between Finn MacCool’s and Than Brothers on the Ave. Inside, the world’s longest flight of stairs leads into a series of eerily dark hallways, lined with mismatched doors and chipped paint.

The building has a bit of a reputation in the U-district. Its nickname: “The Heroin Hotel.” “There were a lot of junkies and a lot of weirdos [living here]. Ave Rat kids could kick in the door, [there were] sketchy people living on the top floor selling drugs” says Jordan Michelman, a longtime Dollhouse resident. “All those people are gone now. “

While the management seems to have cleared out some of their problem tenants, the building has received several inspections from Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD).

According to DPD spokesman Alan Justad, the Dollhouse’s owners were fined $1,000 in 2004 for a series of violations. Recently, Justad’s office received a complaint about a broken stove in one of the units and went to check things out. The inspector found a number of smaller violations—the report says exit lights had been vandalized, the front door handle was loose, there were holes in the walls, and the stairwell doors didn’t close—but he wasn’t able to check out the whole building. Those problems have been dealt with, Justad says, but he adds “we can only see the units made available by the owner or tenants.” Inspectors also visited the building in 2001, but DPD was unable to provide information on the reason for the visit.

Still, residents seem to love the Dollhouse. Michelman, a UW graduate, has stayed in the building for the last 2 years. “For me, there’s something about living there that feels bohemian. I like living somewhere where there’s weirdos going through my garbage. We don’t have cable in the building but the frat guys at the bar beat each other up pretty regularly so that’s pretty good entertainment,” Michelman says.

The Dollhouse is currently managed by Circle Point Homes, and a property manager told me “we’ve gotten all of the old tenants out, so I think the [Heroin Hotel] nickname it had should be going away.”

Photo by Argon Design via Flickr