About 1,600 federal employees who work at the General Services Administration have been forced to relocate from their office on F Street in Washington, DC, to the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building, roughly two blocks away. Workers say the new building, which also houses staff from the Office of Personnel Management has mice, a caved-in bathroom ceiling, and drinking water that needs to be run for five to 10 seconds before it is clear.
The federal workforce has been rocked by changes made by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) since January 2025. DOGE effectively fired tens of thousands of workers and forced those who remained to commit to in-person schedules and, in some cases, zero-based budgeting. GSA, the agency in charge of the federal government’s IT services and real estate assets, was hit early by DOGE, and in addition to major workforce cuts also rolled out plans to sell hundreds of federal office buildings. A year after the cuts, GSA announced it planned to hire about 400 workers.
“We’ve all been through a lot, but this really made me finally understand that they don’t care about us,” says one GSA employee who asked to remain anonymous, as they aren’t authorized to speak to the press. “We’re left wondering what else is going to collapse or break—do we need to look at the ceiling before going to the bathroom? Can we actually trust the water is safe to drink?”
Photos obtained by WIRED show a toilet in a men’s room on the third floor covered in debris from the ceiling, a gaping hole in said ceiling, and a dead mouse caught in a trap. Workers said the mouse wasn’t “entirely shocking” since many federal buildings allegedly have vermin, but the ceiling pushed them over the edge. An additional sign in the office recommends workers filling up water bottles to “run the water without your bottle for 5-10 seconds and wait for the water to run clear.”
GSA and OPM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
GSA leadership, including administrator Ed Forst, has told employees they should expect to work in the OPM building—which is slated for “accelerated disposition,” or a quick building sale—until December 2028. Their prior building, located at 1800 F Street, is undergoing extensive renovations. The initiative is part of a “government-wide effort to reduce underutilized space and fortify the federal real estate footprint,” according to a GSA press release.
While Musk himself has stepped back from his public role in the Trump administration, DOGE affiliates have continued working in government, embracing austerity measures and AI initiatives. Others have gone back to the private sector, working in AI, data centers, and manufacturing.
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