Tenants’ Union: Rental Inspection Proposal Caters to Landlords

I have one thing to say to the tenants union.  Triple net lease.  That is where they are forcing in city residential leases to go.  If you want to live in Valhalla, you’ll have to pay for it.

As someone who rented more than a dozen places in nine cities before buying a house, which I then rented out for five years before returning to it, I don’t think the city should be inspecting rental properties to begin with.

The tenant is the inspector. If problems arise later, the landlord is responsible for maintenance. If the landlord fails to maintain, the tenant can have the work done and deduct the costs from his lease payments. This is how it worked everywhere I lived, and it’s how it still works. For the five years while I was a landlord, my answer to every tenant’s maintenance request was “Yes.” The only time I was ever upset was when a tenant failed to tell me about a problem. I wanted to know earlier rather than later, before something little turned into something big.

A city inspection program will nothing other than add an unnecessary cost that, one way or another, would be passed on to tenants. Someone needs to ask Nick Licata why he wants to drive rents even higher in the middle of a depression.

“The tenant is the inspector. If problems arise later, the landlord is responsible for maintenance. If the landlord fails to maintain, the tenant can have the work done and deduct the costs from his lease payments. This is how it worked everywhere I lived, and it’s how it still works. For the five years while I was a landlord, my answer to every tenant’s maintenance request was “Yes.” The only time I was ever upset was when a tenant failed to tell me about a problem. I wanted to know earlier rather than later, before something little turned into something big.” 

Not all landlords are so friendly, and tenants in a tough economic position or lacking knowledge of the legal system may not have the means to defend their rights or the knowledge that they can.

These inspections are absolutely a good idea for Seattle. All landlords should be held to basic health and safety requirements. I lived in a unit with a sloping floor, faulty wiring, and black mold all over the windows. When I asked him to make a repair, he just apologized that I had to deal with it. 

Even a hair salon has to get a license to conduct business, it is crazy that property owners don’t have too. Would we want all of our restaurants where we eat not be inspected by the health department? How is a tenant supposed to get relief when there is black mold creeping up their wall and the landlord tells them its their fault?

The tenant has the problem fixed and deducts the cost from his rent check.

Were you too stupid to read your lease and see that you had the right to make repairs and deduct them from your rent check?

It’s in every lease. If a tenant can’t read his lease, that’s a real shame. But I don’t think the city needs to create an inspection requirement and drive up rental costs simply to address the problems of illiterate tenants. Who, I might add, would be the biggest losers when rents go up to cover the cost.

Actually, from the study the city did the cost of licensing a landlord would be something like 20-40 bucks a year. What, that’s like a 3-4 dollar rent increase?

http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Compliance/RentalHousing/SupportingMaterials/default.asp

What’s to stop a landlord from not renewing your lease if you do that? Pretty crappy situation to be in, let me tell you. Not to mention a landlord can evict you for trying to do repair and deduct, and if they file and eviction lawsuit you have that on your record forever.

Hey, why not just link to Wikipedia and tell me to find it there? If you have a link specifically to the $20-$40 a year cost, provide the link.

In any case, inspections are redundant. What tenant can’t look at the apartment before he rents it? And it’s a basic part of renting apartments that, if the landlord won’t fix something, you can have it fixed and take it off the next month’s rent.

Licata and the tenants union are trying to justify their existence. Nothing more.

It does not work that way. Most landlords will just say mold is the tenant’s fault for not cleaning it up, or not ventilating the room enough, eviction court is not a friendly place for tenants. More often then not its assumend the tenant is the guilty party. and also you have an eviction on your record then, forever, even if you win. No one will rent to you. Pretty raw deal.

And not to put too fine a point on it; its not your lease that grants you the right to do repair and deduct, its state law. I don’t think you know what you are talking about.

My lease said no such thing, and these repairs were more extensive than could have been fixed with one or even two month’s rent. I would be extremely hesitant to do repair and deduct, knowing that the landlord could file an eviction against me in retaliation. 

FrequentPoster: But I thought you liked to read? It’s on page three: $28 bucks
http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cms/groups/pan/@pan/@enforce/@rentalhousing/documents/web_informational/dpdp020539.pdf

Many landlords put time and money into maintaining their property- but landlords get a bad rap from the ones who are careless and put the burden on the renter to discover and fix the problems. Landlords who are against the inspections must be afraid they won’t pass them.

Million dollar houses have sloping floors.  Faulty wiring could mean anything.  Clean you’re f ing windows bad renter.  If you think city inspections do anything but line the pockets of inspectors talk to the owners of the new apt building that had to be condemned, even though it was “inspected”
   

Million dollar houses have sloping floors.  Faulty wiring could mean anything.  Clean you’re f ing windows bad renter.  If you think city inspections do anything but line the pockets of inspectors talk to the owners of the new apt building that had to be condemned, even though it was “inspected”
   

You honestly can’t see any other issues that a landlord might have?  TIme? Money? Dealing with city pricks descended from Napoleon?

Hm, to my knowledge, Napoleon was impotent.

“Not to mention a landlord can evict you for trying to do repair and deduct,”

Nope. That’s not true. They can evict you for being behind on rent but as long as you send a certified letter notifying them of your intent to bill and deduct they can’t evict you for just that. The name of the game as always is document, document, document. In this case if the repairs were as extensive as you say, why did you sign the lease in the first place?

But moving away from childish anonymous comments and back to the serious topic of inspections, renting property is a business and landlords who take their business seriously shouldn’t have anything to hide from the “city pricks,” or people trained to make sure that the property meets the standards renters are entitled to expect. It’s basic consumer protection. I agree with the commenter who mentioned that if the people who make our food have to meet basic quality standards, why shouldn’t landlords?

Yes, that’s exactly how it works. You are the one not understanding the process here. You either cerify letter to the landlord or read-recipt email documenting the problem to them, if after two requests they don’t take care of it you send them a thrid notfiying them of your intent to bill and deduct under State law. IF YOU ARE A GOOD TENANT they are not going to risk losing you over cleanliness issues. Black mold can be a very severe problem but as a tenant that’s something you have to look for in rental houses, particularly in Seattle where an overwhelming majority of rentals are old places … you’re the one assuming the risk by signing the lease and locking yourself into the place, it’s on you to do the due diligence before signing on the dotted line. Caveat emptor.

Well, mold usually is the tenants fault.  Eviction court is not a friendly place for anyone.  If you are there, you have already lost, no matter what side you are on.  A tenant has to be pretty f ed up to get evicted.  Evicting a tenant is expensive, emotionally and financially.

Several people here are acting as if an inspection system would mitigate these issues anyways — it won’t … bad landlords will always be bad landlords and the City’s ability to effectively enforce these toothless provisions would be minimal at best. No law will ever protect you as much as foreknowledge and doing your walk through inspection with a fine tooth comb.

I once refused to sign the lease paperwork for two weeks on a house because the owner had painted the bedroom windows shut in violation of code. I knew that once I moved in there and they had my deposit and rent that they were going to be a lot less likely to fix that, so I simply refused to sign the lease until they had fixed every issue to my satisfaction BEFORE I moved in. They fixed it all within 48 hours because they needed my tenancy much more than having to pay the mortgage on that place for another month and find another tenant who could pass a credit check and come up with the damage deposit, etc.  It’s one of the few times you have leverage as a tenant — use it. Or be prepared to walk away. 

I agree … if something gets all the way to eviction court there are other things going on far above property maintenance issues.

I actually agree with you, that is the best way to approach repair and deduct. But landlords often disagree with tenants who use the process and issue an eviction notice anyway, and if they file the lawsuit you are still stuck with an eviction on your record. I wanted to use repair and deduct at my place when my landlord wouldn’t fix the gutters and water was leaking in my unit, but thought better of it because i didn’t want to screw up my record. Also: things break after you move in all the time. And not everyone has the luxury of moving into a perfect unit

Then why are tenants getting evicted all the time for asserting their rights? Just because you can explain the correct process doesn’t mean that’s how it actually plays out in real life. What if the black mold is caused by a leaking roof? How is that the tenant’s fault? What happens when the judge believes the landlord that it was tenant’s fault for not cleaning it up?  It’s not a matter of good or bad, I just think you’ve never directly experienced dealing with an abusive landlord, or a skeptical judge. Also, just because you sign a lease doesn’t mean the landlord is off the hook to make sure the place they are renting is safe, but that’s the whole point of inspecting these places, to hold slumlords accountable.

We shouldn’t be making it easier to protect slumlords.

That mindset is exactly what will allow slumlords to continue business as usual. That’s like saying we should just let the banks regulate themselves because its not worth trying, and look where that got us. That’s circular reasoning.

And also, not everyone has the luxury of “walking away,” a lot of people don’t have anywhere else to go and need to move in as soon as they can or risk being on the street.

it sounds like you two just haven’t met the ‘right’ landlord.

I get the feeling your landlord and you kind of deserve eachother.
Have you even read the Seattle tenant landlord handout?

I get the feeling your landlord and you kind of deserve eachother.
Have you even read the Seattle tenant landlord handout?

I get the feeling your landlord and you kind of deserve eachother.
Have you even read the Seattle tenant landlord handout?

i think the point is that they would inspect for really serious health and safety violations. like if the stairs are so rotten you could fall through, etc. 

That is what they say, not what they will do. I have a
building that is inspected by the housing authority every 9-11 months. They are
petty, belligerent, and ignorant. 

quit with the black mold scare and wash off your stupid
wall. Turn up your heat a little, open the window, move things away from
outside walls, turn on the bathroom fan. How about we license tenants to be
sure they shouldn’t just move to the zoo where they can be properly cared for.

the law they are talking about would allow the landlord to choose the inspector, they could choose the city to do it, or a certified private inspector. so landlords would be free to choose as long as the inspector is legit

Black mold is a serious problem. It sounds like you might be the type of landlord this law would protect people like me against.

I’m a renter who’s lived in Seattle as such since the 1980s. Am I to understand that this proposal would result in physical inspections of all residential rental properties in Seattle on an annual basis, and that such inspections would take place inside the living areas of those properties? If so, then it certainly sounds like an intrusive and overreaching way to help out what is probably a very small minority among the renters of this town–a group that somehow feels it cannot make complaints about property conditions to the landlord or manager. And to appease this small minority and provide cover for them, as it were, the rest of us are all supposed to give up some of our privacy–allowing inspectors into our homes when we have no need or desire for them (on top of paying higher rents to help pay the costs of such intrusions)? Rather than something to cheer about, it sounds more like yet another slap at those of us who don’t own our homes. Just because we rent doesn’t mean–and SHOULDN’T mean–that we throw out all sense of self-dignity and privacy rights in the process. If the Tenants Union (to which I used to belong) wants to represent just a small minority of Seattle’s renters with its own unique wish list, that’s fine by me. But it shouldn’t be advocating policies that have a detrimental effect on the rest of us renters whose interests it chooses to ignore in the first place.

Didn’t you know, the whole point of government is protect idiots and the rest of us have to pay for it.

Sounds like hard work….

“ why are tenants getting evicted all the time for asserting their rights”

Do you have evidence of that?

A landlord is never obligated to renew a lease, period.

You missed this extensive repair need when you moved in?

The inspections will be for all kinds of things, including building code compliance. You start inspecting every rental unit in the city, including all those mother-in-law apartments, and then forcing code compliance, and you’ll cause enormous chaos.

If you wind up with that sort of landlord, you can deduct repair costs. If the place isn’t habitable, you can move out in the middle of the month. You’d need to document it, but you can do it.

This proposal would apply to all rental units. There would be no exemptions for, say, a person who rents out a room in their own house, or who rents out a mother-in-law apartment in the basement. Those are typically the cheapest rents, and the evil landlord is typically someone who is just getting by.

So now we’re going to send a city inspector to these places every year. That inspector will be checking everything, including building code compliance. Sounds fair, right? Yeah, well tell it to someone who’s scraping to pay the mortgage on that house built in 1928. The one with the French drains that don’t work all that well if there’s more than 4 inches of rain. The one whose wiring isn’t up to date by current standards, so you can’t operate an iron and the dryer at the same time. And with lead paint in a bunch of places, not replaced on the theory that adults don’t eat the paint chips. And on and on.

Those and other faults are covered by the rent being not $750 a month they get for a decent one-bedroom in a big apartment complex, but by the $500 being charged for a lot more space. This is how it really works. You send the inspectors in there and start triggering multi-thousand dollar repairs, and you’ll have a shitload of units disappearing from the market, and a bunch of others never coming on. Is that what Licata and his brainless lickspittle worshippers want?

Look, it won’t matter to me. I don’t rent out my place anymore. I doubt I ever will again. Not because anything bad happened, but because my circumstances are different and are highly unlikely to change in a way that would have me being a landlord again. If the baristas of Seattle can no longer find that bargain place with the flaws that they can live with, it will be no skin off my nose. You and Licata can congratulate the living shit out of yourselves for having raised the bar.

Does a single one of you Seattle Smugsters live in the real world?

Oh fuck you, ya stupid goddamn twit. The answer to some slumlords is to force the inspection of every single rental unit in the city? Holy fuckin’ Christ you are an idiot. There are other ways to go after slumlords than to penalize every landlord, and to cause the withdrawal of hundreds, and maybe some thousands, of cheap but adequate accommodations, and the resulting increase in rents here.

Have you ever once thought anything through in your entire brainless life?

Get some Clorox and some sponges, you dumbshit.

I wonder where the City is going to get the money to hire all those inspectors. 

The inspections would be on a 3 year basis, or longer for places that pass the first time around. Assuming your place was not dangerously not up to code, the cost would be for that one time inspection. The fee the city’s study came up with for licensing the landlord was $28. According to the census data that I read, over 27,000 people live in substandard housing in Seattle. That’s a lot.

Yes. That was my point. It is very simple for a landlord to retaliate against a tenant by not renewing your lease.

Hmm. They can’t hire any more police because Mayor McDope doesn’t want to inconvenience his friends, the downtown drug dealers. But they can hire 25 unnecessary rental housing inspectors, to be financed by fees that will be passed along to renters. Who, as we all know, are well able to afford new costs.

You’re just making that up, liar.

So what? A tenant has no right to a lease renewal, ever.

Do you have evidence of that

Evidence? The progressives don’t need no stinkin’ evidence.

Much of what you stated here is incorrect. People should really read the ordinance that was passed: http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~scripts/nph-brs.exe?s1=&s3=&s4=123311&s2=&s5=&Sect4=AND&l=20&Sect2=THESON&Sect3=PLURON&Sect5=CBORY&Sect6=HITOFF&d=ORDF&p=1&u=%2F~public%2Fcbory.htm&r=1&f=G

The law would only require 20% of the units to be inspected for larger buildings, and it would be every 3 years, and they would only inspect for health and safety concerns. 

Also, the law would only require 20% of the units to be inspected for larger buildings, and it would be every 3 years, and they would only inspect for health and safety concerns.

Actually they outlined what they would inspect, mostly minimum healthy and safety concerns, you should really read up before posting misinformation: 6.440.050 A: http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~scripts/nph-brs.exe?s1=&s3=&s4=123311&s2=&s5=&Sect4=AND&l=20&Sect2=THESON&Sect3=PLURON&Sect5=CBORY&Sect6=HITOFF&d=ORDF&p=1&u=%2F~public%2Fcbory.htm&r=1&f=G

They’ll be doing building code inspections, liar. It’s in the link you provided.

You fucking liar. The link you gave makes it clear that they’ll be doing building code inspections. There’s a long list of things they’ll inspect for, and a whole bunch of them are straight out of the building code. By the way, I don’t see anything about your favorite horror, black mold.

You utter morons! You’re going to require small-time landlords to get a city landlord license, and to invite building inspectors to their property to comb through the place looking for building code violations. Show me a house built before 1950, and I’ll show you a house with code violations. Mark my words, this will cost hundreds of people many thousands of dollars they cannot afford to spend. There will be all kinds of horror stories emanating from your oh-so-tender effort to help the downtrodden.

So, in the name of helping some goddamn “tenants union” and this Licata fool feel so much better about themselves, you’re willing to scare a bunch of small-timers away from offering exactly the kind of accommodations that people at the margins can afford. And then you’ll sit here and fuckin’ lie about it.

You’re from the government and you’re here to help. You lowlife, scumbag piece of typically smug Seattle shit, which of course doesn’t stink. You truly make me want to puke. Oh yeah, you’ll help the poor alright. Right into a homeless shelter. Jesus H. Christ, get a clue.

“a lot of people don’t have anywhere else to go and need to move in as soon as they can or risk being on the street. ”

Failing to pay attention to the fine print before signing a rental agreement or contract is not the City’s problem. And it’s baloney that “a lot of people” are even in that situation. 

Yes. They will inspect for the minimum health and safety provisions in the building code. That is what I have been saying.

Again, if you read the link, you’d see the inspections would cover the minimum health and safety provisions in the building code, not the entire building code. They’re not going to ding you for cosmetic problems. Of course they are going to use the building code to base their inspections. How else would they do it? Ouija board?

Ignorant tenants with entitlement issues are a serious
problem.  While studying mycology I don’t
recall the thing uneducated scare mongers refer to as “black mold”.  “black mold” is like a “sea gull”.  Neither one actually exists.  Please go back to school and come back when
you have figured out how little you understand.

So why did you rent it? Im a landlord and I can guarantee that you, as the renter, will be paying for these inspections, wheather they happen or not, via higher rents.

The building code doesn’t deal with cosmetics. In the real world, if you send building inspectors to every rental unit, you will trigger major repairs that many small landlords cannot afford to make. The result will be the wuithdrawal of many rental units, and resulting price increases on those that remain available.

All of which will simply drive up costs for the people who claim to want to help.

Yes. They will inspect for the minimum health and safety provisions in the building code. That is what I have been saying.

Spin it, baby! At least you now admit that you want to have every single rental unit in the city checked for building code violations. You are completely silent on what this will do in the real world here: force the withdrawal of many units from the market, driving up rents. But you will feel oh so good!

By the way, I didn’t see anything about “black mold” in the inspection regs. Methinks the inspector will tell you what I did: Get a bottle of Clorox and a sponge, ya moron.

The really nasty mold stuff that’s in the news is a different animal. Happens mostly in the tropics, associated with new construction, high humidity, and long summers. Our mold? You wash it off. You sound like the one tenant of mine who literally couldn’t screw in a lightbulb.

Cost vs. benefit, technological leverage, and the nature of “quality” and its variations.

The mechanization of agriculture, food processing, and transport makes food a mass-produced product. (And all you organic locavores, it’s the same way for anything you don’t grow in your garden.) There are major returns to safety inspections, and very low costs per unit.

Food inspections are something that individuals cannot readily perform themselves, given that germs are invisible. And food quality tends to be more binary: You cannot tolerate “a little bit of botulism” in the soup, like a home dweller can tolerate this or that item or system being less than ideal.

Finally, with housing, there are more backup systems. Appliances are UL certified. Circuits (and many appliances, like hairdryers that no longer electrocute you if they fall into the bathtub because there is GFI on the cord) usually have GFI function. Space heaters shut off if they are tipped over. These things aren’t foolproof, as when people operate a Hibachi indoors and die of carbon monoxide, but they provide a substantial degree of backup protection. But if the chicken has salmonella, or the burger has e coli, there’s much less you can do about it.

Rental housing is not mass produced, especially the mom & pop variety. Inspections and corrections are expensive on a per unit basis. Safety is an elastic concept, and is more likely to be closely connected to individual actions, such as operating a barbecue indoors or getting drunk, passing out, and dropping a lit cigarette onto a foam mattress. Or failing to buy a sponge and a bottle of Clorox and clean off the mold on the basement wall. Or leaving garbage where the rats can get to it.

Quality of housing is, to a big degree, consumer-selected. When I was in my 20s and had little money, I chose to pay $190 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in a marginal neighborhood. The roaches? Every few weeks, I put down boric acid myself. If I wanted a roach-free apartment in a better ‘hood, it would have cost me $400. I chose to save my money and put up with the roaches.

Seattle could inspect every rental unit, and bring “quality” up to a level that would please Licata and his friends. It could insulate idiots from wiping down the walls. It could require strict code compliance to a level that most homeowners don’t even meet. And it could then watch rents soar, and homelessness increase.

What about slumlords? Well, there are other ways to get them.

For example, each landlord could be required to staple a brochure to the lease explaining a tenant’s rights, including a city government phone number to call with complaints. It could require that the tenant sign that brochure, and that the landlord keep a copy, on the pain of a fine of $500 or one month’s rent, whichever is higher, with the amount fo be split 50-50 between the tenant and the city.

That would take care of the worst, without hassling every single landlord in the city, and driving up the rents by enforcing a housing quality level higher than what lower-income tenants can afford. But this would have a downside. It would recognize that, like people who eat at McDonald’s instead of Canlis, there are markets for varing levels of quality. Licata and his friends would lose that special thrill that comes with smugness. And that, my friends, is something they cannot stand!

Cost vs. benefit, technological leverage, and the nature of “quality” and its variations.

The mechanization of agriculture, food processing, and transport makes food a mass-produced product. (And all you organic locavores, it’s the same way for anything you don’t grow in your garden.) There are major returns to safety inspections, and very low costs per unit.

Food inspections are something that individuals cannot readily perform themselves, given that germs are invisible. And food quality tends to be more binary: You cannot tolerate “a little bit of botulism” in the soup, like a home dweller can tolerate this or that item or system being less than ideal.

Finally, with housing, there are more backup systems. Appliances are UL certified. Circuits (and many appliances, like hairdryers that no longer electrocute you if they fall into the bathtub because there is GFI on the cord) usually have GFI function. Space heaters shut off if they are tipped over. These things aren’t foolproof, as when people operate a Hibachi indoors and die of carbon monoxide, but they provide a substantial degree of backup protection. But if the chicken has salmonella, or the burger has e coli, there’s much less you can do about it.

Rental housing is not mass produced, especially the mom & pop variety. Inspections and corrections are expensive on a per unit basis. Safety is an elastic concept, and is more likely to be closely connected to individual actions, such as operating a barbecue indoors or getting drunk, passing out, and dropping a lit cigarette onto a foam mattress. Or failing to buy a sponge and a bottle of Clorox and clean off the mold on the basement wall. Or leaving garbage where the rats can get to it.

Quality of housing is, to a big degree, consumer-selected. When I was in my 20s and had little money, I chose to pay $190 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in a marginal neighborhood. The roaches? Every few weeks, I put down boric acid myself. If I wanted a roach-free apartment in a better ‘hood, it would have cost me $400. I chose to save my money and put up with the roaches.

Seattle could inspect every rental unit, and bring “quality” up to a level that would please Licata and his friends. It could insulate idiots from wiping down the walls. It could require strict code compliance to a level that most homeowners don’t even meet. And it could then watch rents soar, and homelessness increase.

What about slumlords? Well, there are other ways to get them.

For example, each landlord could be required to staple a brochure to the lease explaining a tenant’s rights, including a city government phone number to call with complaints. It could require that the tenant sign that brochure, and that the landlord keep a copy, on the pain of a fine of $500 or one month’s rent, whichever is higher, with the amount fo be split 50-50 between the tenant and the city.

That would take care of the worst, without hassling every single landlord in the city, and driving up the rents by enforcing a housing quality level higher than what lower-income tenants can afford. But this would have a downside. It would recognize that, like people who eat at McDonald’s instead of Canlis, there are markets for varing levels of quality. Licata and his friends would lose that special thrill that comes with smugness. And that, my friends, is something they cannot stand!

Right, not everyone has the luxury of moving into a perfect unit. And you want to force the city to require units to be perfect, which will raise rents. Then what, you brainless twit?

That’s a flat lie. They are building inspections that will check for code violations.