A while back, I wrote a little piece, with photos, about the contrast between two slumlord-owned properties and the slumlords’ own houses here in Bradenton. A couple of reader comments added to that story were along the lines of, “They don’t look so bad to me, and I don’t consider the owners’ homes mansions.” Mmm. I didn’t have permission to show the insides of those properties, or even to take photos of the exteriors from anywhere other than the sidewalk, so I couldn’t give you full impact. In any case, those two properties are finally getting fixed up. So I have pictures of a new slum for you, and these are interior pictures. Take a look at them. Then ask yourself, “What kind of sleazebag tries to profit from renting out an apartment in this condition?” and, “Why aren’t there laws to prevent this?”

Here’s a bunch of pictures I took inside that apartment. Click on the thumbnails to see them full-sized.

Who in the world would pay $640 per month for a sh**hole like this?

That’s a heck of a question, isn’t it? The answer is: “Druggies, illegal immigrants, ex-cons working day labor, and others who don’t have much choice.”

The person who’s been living in this tumbledown joint got out of jail not long ago, with no money, no credit, no driver’s license, and no job. He slept on the streets and in homeless shelters for a couple of weeks, working as much as he could for a temporary labor agency doing construction cleanup. Then he got a ratty motel room that cost him $200 per week, and stayed there for several months.

His next home was the place in the pictures, which has two semi-okay rooms, and two rooms (pictured) with the ceiling falling in, and so many air leaks that the heat (which is tenant-paid) barely warms the place on cold nights. The theory was that he’d pay rent, and that the property owner would pay him for repairs he did. Except he’s been expected to pay the rent, but hasn’t gotten paid (or money taken off the rent) for all the repairs he’s done — which, at the property owner’s request, he started in the other unit in this duplex, which is now sort-of rentable in that it has intact floors and ceilings, if not much else going for it.

In November the tenant held back his rent so he could pay a deposit on an intact apartment a couple of blocks away. He hopes to move by the end of January. His current slumlord duns him for money every day, and pushes aside his complaint that *he* should get paid for his work with threats that a nasty call to his new landlord can kill his move. (I’ve heard some of the threats the slumlord has left on the tenant’s voice mail. They’re not pretty.)

And our beleagured tenant can’t complain to the city about poor living conditions, because if he does, says the slumowner, the new landlord will be called and that deal will be killed. That would mean going back to the motel, because there’s no place else vacant nearby for less than $800 per month. (We’ve looked hard.)

Except… the largest cheapie motel around has finally been bought by the city as part of its renovation plan, and the second-largest has been sold and is about to be closed and renovated by a private investor, so in real life, losing the chance at the one decent, afforable apartment he’s found would put our man back into a shelter (or out on the street), with no place to store the tools he needs for the handyman work that’s slowly pulling him out of the gutter.

Even if our friend makes it into the new apartment, the neighborhood as a whole will not be any better off. Someone else, just as desperate (and probably not as nice), will move into the dump he’s leaving behind.

The outside doesn’t always reflect the inside

This is not a horrible-looking place from the outside. And that’s all the city building inspectors are allowed to look at under current law. They aren’t allowed to go inside rental units unless tenants complain about their living conditions.

So smart slumlords make sure they rent only to people so marginal that they are afraid to complain. This keeps a neighborhood permanently dragged down, and makes it hard for the city to improve it, no matter how hard it tries.

I know our (mostly Republican) elected officials around here hate to tamper with “property rights,” and that a high percentage of their bribes — I mean “campaign contributions” — come from developers and landlords, but there are plenty of places in Bradenton that don’t meet even the most minimum health standards imaginable, and we need to clean them up if we’re serious about this city being a decent place to live.

PS - The owner of this slum property is a Realtor who lives on Anna Maria Island, where the median house price now tops $1 million.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 7th, 2006 at 9:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.