Baldriges to Sell Georgetown Home, Cite ‘Dirt and Drunks’

Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige and his wife, Midge, have put their $208,000 home in the fashionable Georgetown district on the selling block because they’ve had enough of the area’s “dirt and drunks.”

Baldrige has lived in the 120-year-old row house since he joined President Reagan’s Cabinet in 1981.

Baldrige’s spokesman, B. Jay Cooper, said Wednesday that they are selling the house, located about two blocks from a heavily commercialized area, and are hoping to move to an apartment elsewhere in the city.

When the Citizens Assn. of Georgetown asked the Baldriges why they had not paid the $25 annual membership dues, Midge Baldrige wrote to one association official:

“Just so you don’t keep wondering, we are not going to renew our membership because we are selling our house in Georgetown. Alas, the dirt and the drunks, who wake us up every weekend at 2 a.m., are driving us out. Too bad . . . Midge Baldrige.”