D.C. Code § 42-1603
Because that diverse people in times past have let their lands and tenements to divers persons, that is to say, some for term of life or of another man's life, and some for term of years, the said tenants have oftentimes let and granted their estate which they had in the same lands and tenements, to many persons, to the intent that they in the reversion, that is to say, their lessors, their heirs, or their assigns, might not have knowledge of their names, and after the said first tenants continually occupy the said lands and tenements, and thereof take the profits to their proper use, and in the said lands and tenements commit waste and destruction, to the disheritance of them in the reversion: It is ordained and established, that they in the reversion in such case may have and maintain a writ of waste against the said tenants for term of life, of another's life, or for years, and so recover against them the place wasted, and their treble damages, for the waste by them done, as they ought to have done for the waste committed by them before the said grant and lease of their estate. Provided always, that this ordinance hold not place, but where the first tenants before the lease and grant of their said estates, in the manner and form above-said, were unpunishable of waste; and also where after the said grant and lease the said first tenants of the said lands and tenements take the profits at the time of the waste done, to their own proper use.
D.C. Code § 42-1603