Demanding more of landlords

Demanding more of landlords

I write in response to the controversy between the realtors and the city regarding the new landlord registration process.

As a precinct committee person for Ward 6, precinct B, I can tell you that our precinct has many rental properties. Some of them are well kept. Lots of them are not. One of the properties that comes quickly to mind involved a landlord whose house was in deplorable condition. The roof was caving in and the yard was a sanitation nightmare. The landlord was actively seeking a tenant at a rate of $400 a month. Thanks to city inspectors that landlord now is cleaning up this particular property. What is appalling to me is that I worked with this landlord at a job from which I retired and had known the landlord for years. I could not believe that someone could actually think that there are those of us so poverty stricken and desperate to accept shelter in a place so deplorable.

The mayor’s office with this registration program sponsored by city council will help in some small way to prevent this problem from escalating further. Our precinct has many more houses such as this and did not get this way overnight. This is a result of years of neglect by landlords as well as the city’s failure to cite.

Of course there are tenants who don’t know how to keep up a property. I charge that this is largely due to failure on the part of landlords to oversee their activities since many properties are owned by absentee landlords.

It would be good if there were some programs in place like the first time buyers’ program that required classroom training for home occupancy. Many of these tenants have only lived in public housing and are not aware of the limit of landlord’s responsibility. Many of these tenants expect the landlord to cut grass, cut bushes and shrubs, fix leaky toilets, and/or roofs without ever having been notified that something is faulty.

City council and the mayor’s office should be commended for this step toward the 20th century — not the 21st. I have lived in cities where there was an active rent-control program that required much more of landlords. Let’s hope that we can come up to the mark.

DELORES WOMACK, Youngstown