Sarasota Slumlords Score Major Win
In Sarasota, as in Bradenton, slumlords who rent to illegal aliens and druggies (because they never complain about poor housing conditions) do major damage to the neighborhoods they infest. For a brief moment, it looked like Sarasota might just institute a rental inspection and certification program, but it got body-slammed by slumlords who turned out to shout down the bill when city commissioners voted on it.
I’m sure a similar effort will come to Bradenton and surrounding Manatee County, since we have at least as many slumlords as either the City of Sarasota or Sarasota County. A major frustration faced by code enforcers here is that they aren’t allowed to enter residences without an invitation from either the landlord or the tenant — and neither a slumlord nor an illegal tenant will ever give that permission.
An old friend in the handyman business who does a lot of work on low-income rentals tells me, “You wouldn’t believe the way some of these people live. Holes in the floor, rusted-out plumbing leaking shit…. and they’re scared to complain. Damn landlords are cheap as dirt, barely want to pay to patch anything up at all. I guess they think it’s just Mexicans so they don’t need to care about anything.”
You’d think legitimate landlords would want a program that required annual property inspections. It would give them an excuse to make sloppy tenants do at least some housecleaning, and having decent — at least habitable — units in a neighborhood would raise property values. But no.
Even though the proposed inspection fees are tiny, and maintaining a property is always cheaper in the long run than letting it run down (and eventually fall down), the Sarasota slumlords presented their opposition to the idea of decent rental housing as tenant-oriented; they were facing large tax and insurance increases, so they couldn’t afford to do maintenance without raising the rent.
As if rents around here aren’t going through the (poorly-maintained) roof anyway.
Hopefully, if and when we have a similar humans vs. slumlords thing here in Bradenton, I’ll be in town and can tape some of the event or at least grab still photos of the slumlords so I can share them with you.
July 18th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I object. Rob you blindly classify all landlords as slumlords I have not seen you at a single meeting of the either the sarasota or manatee landlords meetings where are open to even you to voice your concerns.
July 18th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Actually, I only classify landords as slumlords if they don’t maintain their properties and rent primarily to illegal aliens and/or druggies. Note that in the above-linked article the landlords were fighting minimal inspection standards that any decent property would pass without a problem.
I’m sure the legitimate landlords you’re talking about are in favor of habitability inspections, not trying to stop them. After all, if they get slumlord next to one of their properties, they suffer, too.
July 19th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
You have it backwards. You read everything the Trib post as fact so you say things like slumlords. Actually I workd for onefo the landlords mention in the article and your more than welcome to look at there property on rentinmytwon.com
They were not against code inspections but forced code inspections which would cost way too much for the landlords. It not the cost of the inspection but the cost of having to wait 6 weeks to get an inspection done before you can move anyone in.
I am not the advocate for this cause and it would take way to long to explain. But the bottom line was there was not a single landlord in sarasota that wanted this.
Robin, you are simply out of touch I see you write this blog postings and you go off on your mary way. Yeah are there slumlords, damn sure of it you pointed out a view of them.
I said it in the past and I say it again If you have grievence with any landlord then you need to send copy of all the info you have to me at RobertSnyder at Gmail.com I will hand it over to the president of both the Sarasota and Manatee landlords associations. They dont want the slumlords any more then you do.
P.S. It takes 6 to 7 weeks to get a code inspection done in Sarasota do the the lack of inspectors. They been in the process of hiring new inspectors for the last 2 years and have not hired one.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:12 am
Greetings,
I ran across your article about the proposed rental inspection program in your area, and wanted to give you a heads-up about how “well” a similar rental inspection program has been going here in Garland, Texas.
I’ve posted some basic info with reference links at a new website: http://garlandlandlords.com. Garland landlords and tenants JOINTLY sued the City and forced the City to stop insisting they had the right to enter and inspect houses without the tenant’s or owner’s permission (or a warrant): http://garlandlandlords.com/amend.pdf. The City just passed a “reform” of the ordinance that once again requires inside inspections, so we’re heading for another lawsuit unless the judge makes it unnecessary by finding the City in contempt.
I hope for everyone’s sake your City Council does their homework on this before rashly copying another city’s ordinance on the assumption that it’s all going well, or that it’ll accomplish anything other than raising rents and driving investors away. They might want to read The Milwaukee Report on the feasibility of this kind of program: (http://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/publications/workshops/2002-2003/spring/PA869/domestic/MilwRental-2003.pdf ). It very accurately forecasts many of the exact problems we’ve experienced.