Cities across America require landlords to evict domestic violence VICTIMS

[davsand]

11. While I'm not defending these laws I understand how they sometimes happen.

Let's say you have that ONE house in your neighborhood that is owned by a landlord that rents to ANYONE that shows up--the child rapists, the meth makers, the insane dude that stands on the front porch taking potshots at kids and pets. Pretty soon, you have almost a groove in the street where the police get dispatched to that house ALL the time. It sounds extreme, but it happens, and it happens anyplace you can think of. Small towns, cities--it happens with amazing regularity. Sooner or later somebody gets a call demanding that "mess" be cleaned up for the good of the community. That is exactly where those "frequent or repeated police call" ordinances come from. Again, I stress, I am not saying this is right, but if you have ever lived in proximity to one of "those" places you most likely feel a certain amount of joy to see the landlords forced to deal with the problem.

Several years ago we lived across the street from one of "those" houses. This was a mixed neighborhood of rental and owner occupied houses with lot of seniors and young families. In the time we lived in that neighborhood we saw police and fire calls to that house about once a night. Guys were arrested for selling drugs on the front porch, there were horrible fights (I saw a guy getting beaten by two other guys with an axe handle and a ball bat one especially memorable night.) Another "high" point was the raid by some kind of law enforcement group that involved a battering ram and cops hiding behind cars and dumpsters. We had people walk across the street and attempt to force open our front door--then they'd walk back across the street to that house. It wasn't just once or twice either. Literally, it was a shithole. Finally, one night the resident geniuses managed to light the whole mess on fire and it burned down. Improved the neighborhood hugely, and after that we rarely saw or needed the police calls.

My daughter's high school had a lock down earlier this year when a tenant two doors down the street went into meltdown and threatened to a police officer to go "shoot up the school." This guy has a history of chasing high school students and making threats, and they actually had an Order of Protection on this guy to keep him off school property. That particular landlord is at best, "absentee," and this situation has been ongoing for more than three years--yet that guy has stayed in that house the whole time. The guy is actually in lock up right now based on his threat to "shoot up the school" and it's sounding like he's gonna go away for a while, but if he gets out are they gonna continue to let him live two doors down from that school? REALLY??

Now, I realize that a house with domestic violence happening is not the same thing as the crime laden shithole I lived near, nor is it the same as the batshit crazy guy threatening the high school. When these nuisance property ordinances go on the books, however, it is based on frequency of emergency calls rather than type of calls. So, you end up with situations like Norristown and countless others that can penalize the law abiding or worse yet, the victims. I'm not saying it's right, but I am saying that once you see a lackluster landlord in action--allowing a shithole situation to go on--you start to understand where this stuff come from.

Seems to me that maybe the thing to do would be to put local laws on the books that mandate the removal of any abuser for a minimum of 24 hours, or maybe some sort of aggressive counseling program to the victims--I honestly don't know what would be enough in those cases--but I'm not willing to completely abandon local laws forcing landlords to be responsible.

YMMV.



Laura