Time To Get Medieval?
A few weeks ago, in one of my usual internet searches for local tenant news stories, I ran across an article that saddened and enraged me.
A three-month old baby in Louisiana died in her home from blood loss due to rat bites. There were holes in the walls and holes in the floor. Evidently, the landlord spent FEMA money earmarked to repair the house on something else, but the authorities were still trying to determine if they should file criminal charges against the parents! Judging by the comments I found on various websites, most people want to blame the tenants for this tragedy. “They should have been watching their kid.” Or this particularly vile response from an especially moronic Examiner reader: “It’s always someone else fault, isn’t it? Why not blame the landlord …? Yes, he may be a slumlord. His rental house is probably a dump. But it’s a matter of common sense and personal responsibility. Natalie’s parents must have had the option of moving out and finding a better place. Or taking it upon themselves to fix up the home.”
William Randolph Hearst would have been pleased with this commentator—another dupe so mired in her own petty, vindictive, little world that she will buy anything and crap on anyone less fortunate to make herself feel better. How about a little compassion?
I mentioned last week that many tenants opt to live in these hovels because they’re afraid they’ll be evicted if they complain or that they can’t afford to move.
Why not blame the landlord? It’s a good place to start. I don’t know if Natalie’s parents informed the landlord about the conditions in the house. I don’t know where his culpability began. All I know is that he must have known something. He freakin’ applied for FEMA money to repair the house! The news article notes that the landlord was unavailable for comment. If he won’t comment I will.
We don’t live in the middle ages. Or do we? As I have already noted, it wasn’t until 1970 that California codified what constituted a “tenantable” dwelling and finally in 1986 the California legislature passed the law allowing a tenant to avoid eviction for nonpayment of rent on an uninhabitable dwelling.
We do not live in the New York City tenements in 1881 when the New York Times graphically reported that a baby died from rat bites. Or do we? Note that the report stated that the family was “poor but cleanly” but the landlord who rented the dwelling to them was not mentioned at all.
What happens to landlords who are convicted of habitability crimes? Not much, it seems, just like medieval times. I did a quick search of the web to find articles about landlords who have been punished criminally in the United States.There a few instances when landlords have been sentenced to jail for code violations, but it is interesting to note that most of the articles that chronicle criminal sentences for landlords come from Great Britain and Canada, not here. Is there a health care comment in that? This example while rare is, unfortunately, typical: An Ohio landlord was sentenced to ninety days in jail for renting a trailer that he knew had faulty wiring. Five tenants died in a fire caused by that faulty wiring.
Or the Bronx landlord who was was finally sentenced to nine days in jail and fined $156,000 for failing to address 2,268 open violations at this building. Ninety days in jail when five people are dead? Nine days in jail for endangering the lives of hundreds of tenants? There are plenty of pot smokers in the United States spending far more time in jail. “Oh, Dave,” some of you more legal-minded folk out there are saying. “You’re a lawyer, you should know that you can’t charge people with crimes if you can’t prove their intent. That slumlord in Ohio didn’t intend to kill five people.”
Bad Landlord
Well, I say, that’s the problem when you apply medieval legal doctrine to modern problems—a conundrum unique to landlord tenant law.
In other words, we must change our core assumptions about the landlord tenant dynamic. Rather than relying on thousand year old common law to assess a landlord’s intent when he takes a tenant’s money, only to put the tenant in peril, we should pass laws to define that transaction as theft.
If a tenant dies during the commission of that theft, the landlord is guilty of murder, pure and simple. It is only a matter of writing laws to define the crime, just like we did when we mistakenly defined smoking marijuana as a crime. When tenants can get sick or die due to a landlord’s fraud, it is no mistake to define that as a crime.
Tenants need legislative protection from unscrupulous landlords and should be demanding it every minute of every day. Oh, you say, it will cost too much money to enforce new laws to curb murderous landlords. In California we spend $170,000,000 a year to to enforce marijuana laws. Don’t tell me we ain’t got the dough.
Finally if we, as a society, are going to insist upon maintaining our medieval, status quo assumptions about how landlords and tenants should interact, maybe we should consider bringing back medieval punishment for bad landlords—pillories.
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This article and the following comments gave me much food for thought and courage to continue my pro se court battle with the slumlord who owns my home and whose day job is Assistant Professor of Public Health at a prestigious Boston area university.
We absolutely need better consumer protections for renters and harsher penalties for criminal landlords. And it starts with enlightening the general public oand ourselves about our misconceptions and antiquated cultural additudes towards landlord and tenant relationships and responsibilities. The references to feudal customs is apt. Too often landlords view their rental properties as fiefdoms.
This article and the following comments gave me much food for thought and courage to continue my pro se court battle with the slumlord who owns my home and whose day job is Assistant Professor of Public Health at a prestigious Boston area university.
We absolutely need better consumer protections for renters and harsher penalties for criminal landlords. And it starts with enlightening the general public and ourselves about our misconceptions and antiquated cultural additudes towards landlord and tenant relationships and responsibilities. The references to feudal customs is apt. Too often landlords view their rental properties as fiefdoms.
My
This is a good article and it is so true that landlords in California can victimize their tenants and the courts support the landlords. We complained of habitational problems (leaking roof, leaking pipes, bad thermostat, cockroaches, mold, flooded yard, defective appliances, wrongful and unlawful entry by our landlord without our permission or knowledge, etc.). We demanded a rent adjustment to reflect that: they cashed our rent check and filed a UD against us which we vigorously fought in pro per because we cannot afford an attorney, AND THE COURT RULED IN THEIR FAVOR! The violated the Civil Code, their attorney violated the Rules of Civil Procedure, they staged a fraudulent “inspection” with an agent of the attorney, we were prevented from putting on a full defense at trial, and then the court awarded them attorney’s fees because we fought! The judicial system needs some serious cleaning. We are appealing the UD decision, have filed a civil action against the landlords, and need representation. However, it is a rude awakening to find that no one here in Sacramento will help you unless you have a huge retainer! We have been victimized all the way around and will go down fighting, but we will never rent again. We now live in our business.
This article is NOT misleading. It does not matter if the tenant lives in low-income or middle class, sometimes there are periods that you have to rent, or someone does not want be a home owner anymore,i.e, seniors or have a disability. Tenants that pay rent should not be subject to live in unsafe dwellings. More laws should be put in place to enforce landlords that are liable for neglect of the rental property, that they are writing off with the IRS each year. It should have to come to a point where someone gets hurts or dies from living in a unsafe rental property. The codes that are reported should be made public. This is awful that tenants paying the market rental for greedly landlords, and they still live in unsafe conditions, should be able to move out without breach of contract..It is time that tenanats have the support for such cases. It is time for the so called housing code inspectors to be accountable for their reports.
Dear Sir,
great article. Yes, there are people out there who can not move due to financial restraints. All those social programs to help the poor — hot air — there is never enough money. So, yes we are back to medieval times because no matter where you turn — no funds.
I am disabled and have limited funds. In February of this year I moved to a place that was affordable and seemed to be in good condition. During the first 6 weeks the landlords ( her and him) barged in 12 times without notice. I am watering lots of plants and trees on their land but was told I am only renting the mobile home. The last page of the rental agreement was changed by the landlord and a rental increase added. When I said that is not correct we did not agree to this I was threatened with a 30 day notice.
Meanwhile I received a 30 day notice and don’t know where to go .. every last dime I had I used to make this place habitable.
Low income housing – sparce and I would not be able to keep my dog and cat.
Please keep up writing about this matter. More and more babyboomers will need affordable housing and where do they go now that rentals are getting more expensive.
I worked all my live, raised responsible children, and have no place to go .. the american dream. Well, as it says ‘dream’ because being honest and following the laws has not paid off for me.
Again, thank you for your interest in this matter.
Brigitte
I realize there are bad landlords, but this article is very misleading as a general statement. People will read this and think all landlords are bad and out to get them!
How about the tenants that think they have the right to just not pay and ruin your house! If you get into the rental market outside the slumlord category I think the landlords are at far greater risk.