Debate over San Luis Obispo’s mandatory rental housing inspections every three years to enforce health and safety code compliance? What an excellent idea!
How could there possibly be any debate? Why would anyone object to guaranteeing the renters’ health and safety?
And it only costs the landlord a couple of hundred dollars per inspection.
But why would they be only once every three years? Why not make it an annual inspection? Think of how many more violations could be found. Inspections already showed that one-third of the homes that were checked out were missing their mandatory smoke detectors. Who could tolerate that?
“The council wants to make sure we have a non-invasive program that protects the rights of tenants,” according to City Councilmember Dan Rivoire (“Repeal and replace,” Feb. 23), who wants to be sure that no renter is living in a room that the city decides is unsafe.
Who could possibly complain about that?
And why stop at the rentals? Why not mandate inspections of the landlord’s homes themselves? How did those get overlooked?
Isn’t the landlord’s health and safety as important as the tenant’s? Who knows what you might find? Could one-third of the landlords be living in unhealthy, unsafe conditions? It’s would be for their own protection; just another mandate from a caring government that is looking out for you.
— R. Andriola – Cambria
This article appears in Mar 23-30, 2017.
