There’s a landlord a few blocks over from me that seems neglectful of their property.
As shown in the pictures, the evestroughing has pulled off. Taking with it, the fascia. And as pictures below show, taking down the soffits too.
Right now, the water from the roof puddles in the trough, freezes and thaws, overflows, runs behind the soffits, and in certain times can be seen running down the exterior of the house plastic siding. I do wonder if it is also penetrating behind the plastic siding, wetting the exterior wood wall and insulation, leading to mold.
Now you might think this is a new problem caused by recent snows. But it isn’t. Exactly the same conditions existed last January. And February. And March. That’s right, same thing in winter 2017. There has now been at least 12 months of water damage.
Does the landlord never eyeball the house? Never look up when on site? Or is it one of those “we schedule inspections every third year and our experts will see it then and put it on the maintenance schedule” big-corporate style excuses?
It bugs me because as taxpayers we own the houses. And the sixty year mortgages that never get paid off. And the maintenance crews that don’t notice or if they do, don’t do timely repairs. And then we pay to demolish the homes to build something new. Disposable housing, eh?
I outsource providing subsidized housing to local governments. But I am still cognizant of paying for it. Is it too much to expect OCH to maintain what they’ve got, first and foremost, and to keep houses occupied and not vacant for months, before trying to build yet more units that might well be just as neglected?
It is easier to collect taxes when people have faith that the funds are well used.
The responsibility for maintenance of city owned properties lies with the city. The same city that produces budgets that are not based on operating plans, but rather on 2% property tax increases that bear no relationship to the cost of delivering key services. A city that spends millions of dollars a year on non-core services, but willfully neglects to properly fund and maintain its own public housing and infrastructure assets.
I guess you’re implying the properties are owned by your city. In my city, my joke is that the city’s dominant property management strategy is “demolition by neglect.” In my writings about receivership statutes in Ohio and their relevance to DC (dating to 2002), I made the point that in a housing court, DC couldn’t make an argument justifying receipt of receivership for a nuisance property, because of their poor track record in managing owned properties.
P.S. what about the Ottawa Citizen?
Ughh! This points clearly to the fact that our city is totally unprepared to undertake ANY new projects supporting Housing for Homeless UNTIL they can prove their management of existing properties meets basic living standards. Photos prove they’re woefully inadequate to manage the properties currently in their portfolio. Why should they even be allowed to consider projects using public monies when they are mismanaging existing facilities? Boggles the mind…and pocket book! Why Do I live here?