Council Planning Committee Continues Rental Health and Safety Discussion

The Planning Committee of the Bellingham City Council will continue its discussion of the health and safety issues with respect to rental housing on Monday, 25 February at 10:30am in council chambers at city hall.  The topic for this meeting will be the creation of a list of conditions that could be subject of an inspection of a rental unit.  You can view some of the documents that will feed the discussion by clicking here, here and here. 

I have asked Council Member Weiss, who chairs the committee, to also add the problem of mold to the lists.  Also, under the category of electrical systems, I suggested the inclusion of the hidden problem of aluminum wiring.  This topic arose after a fire in a duplex unit on 24th St. in early 2012.  The unit was found to have aluminum wiring.  See the story at my blog entry here.  Former Fire Chief Boyd told me at the time that aluminum wiring scares him to death.  Many homes build in the 1970s were wired with aluminum and some of these homes are now rentals.  Renters are sitting on a powder keg.

A Window into Rental Conditions

A short while ago, I connected with a young man (whom I will call Warren) whose job it is to clean apartments and other rentals at the end of lease periods.  Warren offered a window into the type of health and safety issues one finds in such rentals.  His accounts are all the more disturbing in that this cleaning company has standards that tend to make problem landlords, looking for a cheap deal, go elsewhere for their cleaning services.  What Warren sees then are mostly the "good" rentals.

Topping the list of the problems is mold.  For a good number of us who are not sensitive to mold spores, the presence of mold may just be a nuisance or an eyesore.  However, mold may also indicate a persistent problem with plumbing or general humidity which could eventually be destructive to plaster, drywall and flooring.  For some unfortunate few, mold is a chronic irritant to the lungs and may produce more serious problems.  The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America* has this to say about mold:  
 

"Mold spores can deposit on the lining of the nose and cause hay fever symptoms. They also can reach the lungs, to cause asthma or another serious illness called allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. Sometimes the reaction is immediate, and sometimes the reaction is delayed. Symptoms often worsen in a damp or moldy room such as a basement; this may suggest mold allergy."

Also related to mold and, moreover to filth, is rotten carpeting.  Warren described to me an instance where a landlord, who has about 8 rental units in Bellingham, pulled carpeting from a dumpster to save money and had it installed in a rental unit.  He then asked Warren to clean the carpet which, of course, was dirty with stains of unknown origin from its stay in the dumpster or its previous use in a dwelling unit.  The only upside was that the dumpster carpet was less filthy than the carpet that had previously been in the unit.  Warren also indicated that common areas in apartments are often the site of the most filth since renters only pass through these places and often ignore the problems.  He was once called in to clean a common area hall carpet on which someone had vomited a week before.  Nobody had complained for days while the residents used the hallway as usual.

Since Warren and his colleagues use electrical equipment to clean various parts of rentals, the ability of the system to handle the load is important.  It is not unusual for the circuit breakers to trip while these cleanups are in progress.  These incidents indicate an outdated electrical system.  Such systems can easily be the cause of electrical fires.  Four WWU students were burned out of their home in 2011.  They had repeatedly reported to the landlord that the circuit breakers were tripping.  Renters are more and more apt to bring with them a host of electronic devices such as televisions, computers, printers, game consoles and DVD players, not to mention telephones that need charging regularly.  Other tenants buy electric space-heaters to deal with heating systems that work poorly thus putting tremendous demands on the electrical system.

The lack of three-pronged (grounded) plugs is also a problem for Warren and his fellow workers, so each truck is equipped with plug adapters which, in effect, defeat the purpose of the three prong grounding.  Worse yet,  Warren noted, is the lack of the proper ground fault interrupters in the bathrooms and kitchens.  More commonly known as GFIs, these plugs are designed to sense a change in current in the hot and neutral wires.  This type of plug will trip a breaker within the device and stop the current flow.  This is especially handy when it is a person who becomes involved in the current flow - commonly known as electrocution.  A typical GFI plug for the kitchen or bathroom costs less than $20 and can be installed in minutes.

Warren has also run into situations in which a toilet has overflowed at one point with the water travelling through the floor and into another unit.  This, of course, contaminates everything that has been soaked with this "black water"  (what we call sewage).  Repairs (mostly cosmetic) have then been made to the flooring around the toilet without further repairing or removing other contaminated material such as drywall or insulation.  

As part of their services, Warren and his colleagues also haul junk from rentals, usually from unused basements where material has been gather dust for years.  Some areas, he has found, have been contaminated with cat urine which has a distinctive odor.  The problem is not so much one for the renters but for those who have to eventually clean these areas as they are exposed (if not wearing proper protective gear) not only to dust and animal urine but also fecal matter from mice and rats.  Dried fecal matter can become airborne and when breathed in can be the transmission vector for many diseases, among which is the Hantavirus that can be fatal in humans.  Nonetheless, renters need be alert for rodent infestations.  I reported on one such infestation, of an especially egregious nature, in the York Neighborhood in 2011.

As the summer ends and the August/September turnover of leases (mostly students) begins, Warren is called in for his cleaning services.  His experience is that landlords, not wishing to lose a day of rent, will schedule the move-out and move-in within a single 24 hour period.  New renters often sleep in their U-Haul trucks parked in the driveway of the rental so that they can move in on a moment's notice. This allows little time for cleaning crews to do a good job and practically no time for the incoming renters to adequately inspect the unit, even if they knew in the first place what they were looking for in the way of health and safety problems.  

I invite my readers to take a second look at the survey of rental conditions conducted by several WWU campus groups in  2011.  The results confirm the experience of Warren and his fellow workers.


*Blue type indicates clickable links.
 

Carbon Monoxide Alarms Now Required in Rentals

An alert student journalist at the Western Front recently wrote an article on a Washington State requirement to install carbon monoxide monitors in residential properties.  Daniel Miller, who is interested in issues regarding rental conditions, wrote that as of January 1st of this year all residential properties must have one of these detectors in each  dwelling unit.  Single family dwellings that were owner-occupied before 2009 are excepted.  You can read Daniel's article by clicking here.

The requirement has been on the books for some time now, however, it appears that not everyone is aware of the mandate.  You can read the relevant portion of the Revised Code of Washington (19.27.530) by clicking here.  The intent of the legislation was expressed in a footnote to the law's text:

"The legislature recognizes that carbon monoxide poses a serious threat. According to national statistics from the centers for disease control, carbon monoxide kills more than five hundred people and accounts for an estimated twenty thousand emergency department visits annually. Specifically, Washington state has experienced the dire effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. In the storms that struck Washington in December 2006, it was estimated that over one thousand people in the state were seen at hospital emergency rooms with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, and eight people reportedly died of carbon monoxide exposure. It is the intent of the legislature to implement policies to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future."

One wonders how many of Bellingham's 17,000+ rentals have been furnished with these alarms.  The onus is on the landlord to provide these appliances, however, the tenant is required to ensure that the batteries in the devices are operational.  Again, ignorance of the requirement on the part of both the tenant and the landlord could have fatal consequences.  An effective rental health and safety ordinance in the city of Bellingham can go a long way towards ensuring this and other codes are followed in our rentals. 

City Council Planning Committee to Discuss Rental Health and Safety Options

On January 28th at 10:30 am, the Planning Committee of the Bellingham City Council will take up the topic of rental health and safety.  The committee is scheduled to receive a briefing, in the form of an overview, on the subject by the council's Policy Analyst, Mark Gardner.  You can read the agenda bill item by clicking here.  Attached to the agenda bill is an excellent study, entitled Options for a Rental Housing Licensing and Quality Inspection Program,  prepared by Mark Gardner several years ago at a time that the council was considering action on rental licensing and inspections.  No action was taken as a result of the study, however, the study remains an excellent source of information on rental licensing and inspection programs in general.  A discussion on rental health and safety will follow the briefing.

Council Member Jack Weiss has been offering a draft plan for a rental health and safety measure for several months.  He has been meeting with stakeholders on both sides of the issues and has presented his plan to various neighborhood associations.  It is not clear at this time whether Councilman Weiss will ask the committee to consider this draft proposal.  In any event, since the topic of rental health and safety is the only agenda item for the committee, the members will have more than one hour for discussion.

The latest version (click here to read that draft) Councilman Weiss’ proposal to establish a program to ensure the health and safety of renters has changed since I reported on his initial draft in late October.  You can read my blog entry on that version by clicking here.  Gone is any reference to changing or eliminating the so-called “rule of three” which limits the number of unrelated people in a rental unit in areas zoned single-family.  This prohibition has nothing to do with the safety and health of renters but does have some impact on the zoning and density issue.  Councilman Weiss may bring this issue to the attention of council later this year in the context of zoning and density.

A few weeks ago I attended a York Neighborhood meeting where Councilman Weiss presented the revised draft of his rental health and safety measure. After he spoke, he took questions from the residents of the neighborhood and from  some neighborhood landlords.  Many of the landlords' fears still arise from the lack of detail in proposals to date.  This is quite natural until one has the language of an actual ordinance.  

For example, people have concerns about historic preservation and the effect of inspections on the appearance of the home.  This derives from lack of info regarding the kinds of safety codes that will be enforced.  As soon as possible the council ought to produce a strawman/sample checklist, based on that of Pasco or some other jurisdiction.  (You can read more about the Pasco checklist here) This should allay some fears that an inspection program will occasion wholesale remodeling of rental units or run contrary to historic preservation goals.

There is a continuing theme in the discussion about rental health and safety to the effect that 98-99% of landlords are good landlords or that there are only a few bad landlords.  Much of this comes from the landlords themselves. As you know, I have challenged this assumption on many occasions in this blog simply because there is no empirical evidence that these statements are true.  I have heard mentioned that the basis for this assumption is that the city receives few complaints, as if this were an accurate measure. Studies have shown that complaint-based systems (such as we have in Bellingham now) do not work for a variety of reasons.  Any action taken on the basis of data from a complaint-based system is destined to fail due to the inherent problem of under-reporting.  People do not complain due to ignorance, fear of retaliation or other perceived negatives.

I have been working on this issue for years now and I have yet to hear, from landlords or opponents of licensing and inspection, any reference to a study that supports the contention that all but a few landlords are good and their properties are, therefore, safe or that there is some methodology for weeding out the bad landlords and their properties in a targetted manner.  I confess that many or even most landlords may be well-intentioned but that does not translate into safe rentals.  Not only must landlords be well-intentioned but also they must be knowledgeable. 

The actual data that I have discovered and reported in my blog indicate that wherever inspection programs have been initiated, 10%, 15%, 30% or up to 50% of the units are found to have life-threatening health and safety issues. But percentages cloud the issue.  15% (which is about the level of unsafe rentals found in Pasco during their initial inspection round) sounds like a low percentage but when the number of units that may actually be affected is calculated we are talking about more than 2,500 bad rentals (again based on Bellingham’s rental stock of 17,000+ units).  Since many of these rentals have multiple occupants, the math suggests the number of renters affected could be minimally 4,000 to 5,000. Such projections are the reason for which we must have a very active inspection/verification program.  Randomized programs may not fit the bill and may produce a false sense of security in having "done something".

With nearly $400,000 in annual fees accruing from licensing/registration, we should be able to perform such inspections with ease.  The $400,000 is based upon a yearly, per unit fee of $24, however, this number is not written in stone.  We should first look to the purpose and structure of a desired rental inspection ordinance and then calculate the overall cost to execute that program.  Dividing a cost estimate by the number of rental units will then provide a per unit fee structure.  Pasco inspectors were able to look at 8-10 units per day.  We should easily have sufficient capacity with two inspectors and an administrative assistant to keep records.  This is hardly the “huge” bureaucracy that some landlords fear and we can always readjust depending on the actual number of problem rentals that are discovered.  All this must be cost estimated by the city's financial officer. 

Another seemingly rational comment from opponents is that not only rentals should be inspected but also owner-occupied homes/units.  The argument is a red herring. The reality is that rentals are offered to the public for money, whereas owner-occupied homes are maintained by the owner to his/her own level of comfort with the risks that may be posed to the family.  Health inspectors do not poke about your home kitchen but spend much time inspecting restaurant kitchens that serve the public.  These inspection costs are borne by the restaurant owners.

There were also several comments regarding the fines for non-compliance proposed in the draft.  Councilman Weiss correctly pointed out that the proposed fines conform to the recent legislation on rental licensing and inspection passed in Olympia a short time ago. (You can read about that legislation by clicking here.) In any event, all should know that any proposed ordinance must be reviewed by the city attorney to ensure conformity with existing law.

I plan to attend the committee meeting scheduled for 28 Jan at 10:30am and urge everyone on this email list to do the same.

A Second Look at a Bad Rental

Last May I was contacted by the mother of a student renter in the Lettered Streets neighborhood about a problem of a burning odor emanating from the dryer.  The problem turned out to be a severe buildup of lint in the dryer's vent system.  You can read again about that issue by clicking here.  

Recently, I had contact with the mother and her daughter who indicated that there were additional problems with the unit, some of which were in the category of health and safety, and that she had some photos.  Shortly after, the daughter contacted me by email to which the photos were attached.  I have included these photos below along with the account this student had sent me.  Here are her own words:

"I lived in a duplex last year in the [Lettered Streets neighborhood]. Myself and my two roommates rented through [a well known property management firm]. (NB:  The owners of the property, built in 1904, live in Seattle.)  It was a long year with lots of problems.

Seeing that it was a old house my mom said that I needed to get the furnace checked out. I sent an email to Ashley (the property manager) saying that I wanted to get this checked out. Barron finally came to check out the furnace (Oct/Nov 2011). I have a picture of our old furnace filter next to a new one. (above left)  The furnace filters where not changed since 2008. I spoke with the Barron employee and he said those need to be changed around every 6 months and the furnace needs to be serviced every year.

We had countless electrical problems while living there. We had to be very careful about what appliances we had on at all times. The first time the fuse broke I can remember calling the [management]and getting no response not knowing what to do. A maintenance worker left his cell number for us to call him so I ended up calling him to ask what to do. He told me to flip the switch at the fuse box. I included a picture of the fuse box. (on left) We also had a big light outside of the apartment that was suppose to light up the parking area (which got very dark). I called to have that checked on because it did not work and we would have liked it on for safety reasons. A electrical company came out to look at it and told me it was illegal wiring and they could not fix it. 

We had problems with mold, carpenter ants, wasps, and billing. The people who work for [this management company] have no sort of organization in that office. We were sent a bill for Barron coming and servicing our place, and late fees for not paying that bill. It was extremely frustrating trying to rent through them.

As if this was not enough one of my roommates was drying her clothes and took them out and they smelt like smoke. (Again see my blog entry of 25 May here) I contacted [the management] about the problem and wanted the vent cleaned out. It was about a 10ft vent from the dryer to the outside of the apartment. When the man came and cleaned out the dryer vent I was shocked to see how much lint buildup there was stuffed into that little vent. .. I spoke with the man who worked for a air duct company and he told me it looks like it had been a VERY long time since this was cleaned out. I am aware that this type of build up often results in a house fire....

After the dryer was cleaned out there was not a cover put back on the outside of the vent. (see photo at right) A couple of weeks later I was drying my clothes and it started to smell...The worst smell I could have imagined was coming from the washer and dryer closet. I cleaned out the washer/dryer but still smelt it. I called my mom to come over and investigate. I believe a animal came in from the outside of the house at this dryer vent output and died because it was not covered up. As if all of this was not terrible enough I had a dead animal in the walls of my house! We called [the management] and told them this they said they could get someone out there "maybe". I believe called on a Thursday. No one came until Monday only to be told to wait until the animal dries out because it will not smell anymore."

So the solution to the problem according to management was to wait until the dead animal dried out so it would no longer smell.  Presumably they had never heard of flies, maggots or other carrion eaters, also known as vermin.  Not mentioned in the accounting above was another electrical issue with an open electrical junction box on a wall with the wires just hanging out.  (see the photo at right)  Exposed wiring can be a danger not only for electric shocks but also as a fire hazard.

So let us recapitulate the problems with this rental unit:

-Dangerous buildup of lint in the dryer ventilation system

-Filthy filters in heating system

-Furnace apparently not serviced in 3 years

-Faulty electrical system that cannot bear normal appliance loads

-Exposed wires at an open electrical junction box

-Dead animal in dryer duct work

-Illegally wired outside safety light

-Mold

-Vermin

-Service calls billed to renters

-Poor response times on maintenance issues 

       

Luckily the young student renter in this case had an alert mother who is herself in the real estate business and sees firsthand the threats to health and safety.  Others are not so fortunate and become victims of these shady rental management firms who prey on ignorance and fear in a tight rental market.   The Seattle couple who owns this property may be ignorant with respect to the issues with their rental unit, having turned over the reins of management to a local property firm.  Since there is this buffer  between the renter and the owner, few renters have the time, the energy and the know-how to devote to discovering the identity of the owners to alert them to the situation with their rental.  After all, one presumes that there are probably not too many rental owners who purposefully chose a lousy, incompetent and inept property management firm.
 
These issues can be solved by an effective health and safety inspection and registration of all rentals in Bellingham.   These large property management outfits will then be found and be forced to do the job for which owners pay them.