No hands in the Bread!
The old rule of thumb is, "if it's too good to be true, then it probably is", as is the case with this establishment. But speaking of rules....this place is full of em. It's not that I'm against following rules in any situation, but one would expect when they are a guest at an establishment, you might be treated with some amount of respect as a customer. Not at the ol' Allen Lee. This was the first thing I noticed when I checked in, and it continued to permeate my stay over what was a week that more or less put a huge rain cloud over my time in DC.
First off, don't even think about questioning the staff, or asking for them to address any problems you might have found with your room. They have lots of posted rules, but the one overriding policy can be summed up like this "we have your credit card number, don't rock the boat and don't argue with us or we will screw with you". I've never been treated so rudely in my life, and any push back is met with rather angry tones and a very dismissive attitude. I got to witness this on several occasions as there was usually a rather loud disagreement between one guest or another and whichever slow minded, socially devoid numskull they had behind the counter for the day; and god forbid you have to deal with "the rat"...or something like that. I heard him say to one patron, "don't ever turn your back on the rat" as the patron walked away post altercation. This was the same guy that kicked me out of the lobby at 12:00 a.m. (the only place you can get a wifi signal), even though there was no rule posted to that end; all I got was "we can't post all the rules". And make sure you use the tongs for the "continental breakfast", which consists of two loaves of bread, some jam and butter. They make it very clear that tong usage is mandatory. I'm so glad they care about cleanliness when it comes to the bread line, but the rooms crawl with cockroaches and have a sense of filth about them.
One other major item of note is that this place IS NOT A HOTEL!!!!! I don't care what the website says; it's false advertisement. It seems to be a flop house, or a boarding house for refugees or something. I found on the web that they have some contract with DC services for people in between stable living situations. Lot's of random and weird characters abound in this fire trap of a building that feels as if it's about to collapse. I am not knocking anyone for being down on their luck or those facing hard times in life, but if I am staying in a hotel I don't want to have to take any belongings of worth me everywhere I go for fear of theft; which was ever present. 
At the end of the day, this place seemed like the type of place you would go to score a bag of something and/or maybe get a quickie for the exchange of a few dollars. If you don't have much of value with you, don't mind being treated like a piece of crap, and all you plan to do is sleep there (covered in plastic for your own protection and good luck sleeping as there is yelling going on every night between the fine cadre of guests and constant sirens outside given the proximity to a hospital), then this is the place for you. My suggestion, stay a ways out at a cheap Days in and buy a week long metro pass. The extra time on the train would be well worth avoiding this nightmare. The Allen Lee.....or as I will forever refer to it, The Scampering Flee. NEVER AGAIN!