link: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/booming-rental-market-makes-it-easier-for-neglectf/nbSXQ/
Category: Tenants having their voices heard over landlords.
Level of Problem: Local
Who: Families and Individuals
How: Landlords are not being held responsible for the poor living conditions their tenants are living under. Many health violations and codes are being broken, resulting in tenants living in danger.
My Views: I have lived in a house that was owned by some one else renting to us and the living conditions were not the best. The house had holes and the ceiling was falling apart, and that landlord did not take care of any of it. With renting a place the tenant should not be expected to fix appliances and pipes and ceiling because the place is old... that is the landlords job. I remember moving out of the house i was living in and the landlord had a 1 day turnaround for the new tenants to move in. That place was a wreck! I only lived there for 2 months and i moved into it being awful and after living there i saw the place just falling apart. Tenants do not take care of houses as well as a landlord should. Reading this article and hearing about tenants moving into house with roaches crawling out of the refrigerator seems wild! I would have turned right back around and said no way! Well the City of Austin is trying to stop this and fix it to being acceptable to tenants. Landlords are held responsible for safety and living conditions to be livable. The landlord that was talked about in the article stated that after a tenant complained about their ac not working, that many Texans go months without air conditioning, so can you! People these days!!!
I am glad the City of Austin are standing up for the smaller voices and making a change to renters.
It is really refreshing that landlords are now having to be responsible for the way that they handle business. I have had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with two separate landlords that had no idea what a healthy condition of living was, and did not even respect me enough to respond to my emails, letters, or phone calls. One of my houses had such bad foundation problems that when it would rain, my entire house would start to flood and have standing water in it up to 3 inches high, depending on how much it rained, and the landlord did absolutely nothing about it. I believe that there should be more severe punishment for the mistreatment of tenants, especially because of how much money landlords can manipulate out of people. The better business bureau should have more jurisdiction to dole out punishments for repeat offenders, and there should definitely be some sort of database that potential tenants or buyers can turn to, that gives good information about who they are wanting to rent houses or apartments from. After having to deal with two shady landlords, it makes me happy to know that steps are being taken so that other people do not have to deal with the experiences that I did.
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