INC NEWS - Durham Housing Inpections

[Ken Gasch]

Please correct me if I have jumped to the wrong conclusion here.  

I saw a photo of our good friend and housing inspector, Rick Hester, on the front page of the N&O's Durham News this morning.  He was taking down a housing complaint from Gary Gentry, a tenant, who was drinking a beer in the photo?  

I have nothing against beer.  I love beer, but this man is a few months behind on his rent and had his electricity turned off a couple of weeks ago, as per the caption, and he spends the money he does have on beer?  Also, try swearing out a complaint with the criminal magistrate while drinking a beer.  They will not allow it.  They will tell you to come back when you are sober.  Why should a civil process be any different?  May we please have more details on this particular case?  I am at a complete loss.

To me, it seems that we are seeing a person who is giving a fraudulent complaint, under the influence, in order that he may take advantage of our system in an attempt to get a free place to live for three months.  Again, someone please correct me if I have jumped to the wrong conclusion here.  Someone please give us Mr. Gentry's address and/or phone number so that we may discuss this matter with him for ourselves.  I just don't understand and I need to make sense of this.  Or, can we get Mr. Gentry to attend a PAC2 meeting to hear more about his case?  I really want to be wrong about this.    

I appreciate that we will have folks in our city who have fallen on bad times, but landlords have got to be paid.  Our city needs rental housing.  Every city does.  Renting homes is a business.  People are in business to make a return on their investment dollars.  If people cannot profit from renting homes to our citizens, then investors take their money out of rentals and put that money somewhere else.  Our supply will subsequently fall.  When supply falls and demand stays about the same, prices go up.  And what will happen to the dormant rental stock?  It will become the boarded up homes that we see hundreds of as we drive the disadvantaged neighborhoods of our city.      

If a landlord provides a sub-standard unit, the tenant should not rent the unit in the first place.  Vacancy is high in Durham.  Consumers have much more power than we think.  

If something breaks within a rental unit, the tenant should report this to the landlord.  If the landlord does not fix the problem, the tenant should feel empowered to report the deficiency to NIS.  If the landlord attempts a retaliatory eviction for a legitimate complaint, I want to hear about that.  I want to hear about it right here on the PAC2 list serve.  I want to then see that landlord prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  I want my community to let bad landlords and bad property managers know that we will NOT tolerate retaliatory evictions in Durham.  I also want my community to help protect the rights of good landlords and property managers.  By rewarding the good one, we may get the bad ones to change their business practices.    

I also want deadbeat tenants to know that we will NOT tolerate our investors being taken advantage of.  Tenants have got to pay the rent.  Tenants have got to help keep our housing stock in decent shape.  Our neighbors who are tenants need to report little problems, like a leaking drain trap, as soon as they notice it rather than months later after it has already done thousands of dollars in damage by leaking all over flooring and sheet rock.  This happens all to often in Durham and our neighbors who rent end up paying for it in the long run.
 
Ken Gasch
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