Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series investigating Athens rental housing.
Moldy bathrooms, broken windows, damaged ceilings, rotting wood — those are just a few of the problems that plague rental-housing units in Athens.
To ensure landlords keep their properties up to code, Athens Code Enforcement and Community Development inspects rental properties each year for health and safety violations.
The Post reviewed the inspection reports for 221 rental units near Ohio University’s campus, and all but three have failed at least one code inspection since 2003.
Rental companies included in The Post’s investigation are University Off-Campus Housing, University Rentals, Prokos Rentals, Bobcat Rentals and Housing HotLink.
The most common violations are related to smoke detectors, said John Paszke said, director of Athens Code Enforcement. Other common violations include leaks and sanitary conditions; windows that are broken or don’t latch properly; loose handrails and balconies; and insufficient cleanliness.
The unit fails the inspection if the Code Enforcement officer finds at least one violation.
On average, each unit has failed about five inspections during the past nine years. Sixty-one properties in Athens have failed seven or more inspections during that same time period, and one property on North Lancaster Street has failed 12 times.
Before 2009, rental units were inspected only every other year, but Paszke vowed to change that when he took office in 2008.
“We’re here for the tenants as well as the landlords,” Paszke said. “We do these inspections to make sure the houses are safe for the tenants to live in.”
A landlord has 30 days to correct violations after a failed inspection. If they do not, the Office of Code Enforcement will issue an order to comply, which threatens legal action if the landlord does not fix the problem within 15 days.
If the violation poses an immediate health or safety hazard for tenants, Code Enforcement will tell the landlord to fix the problem immediately.
Orders to comply were issued in about 7.7 percent of cases.
The large student population and high tenant turnover contribute to some of the damage done to housing near OU, Paszke said.
“A lot of times, (these) properties … are in areas where maybe they get abused,” Paszke said. “The landlords are fixing them, but then the tenants are creating the same issues a year later. … If it was a family that’s renting it out, you probably don’t have those types of violations.”
High turnover with student tenants who inhabit a property for only a year or two also can make maintaining rental units difficult. Landlords typically have just one to two weeks in June to clean units and bring them up to code before new tenants move in for the next school year.
“There isn’t enough (maintenance and cleaning) work force in Athens to fix everything that needs to be fixed in one week’s time,” said Demetrios Prokos, who owns Athens-based Prokos Rentals. “During the last quarter, we do inspections … and we try to be proactive and fix the things that are going to need to be fixed anyway.”
Melissa Greenlee, an attorney with the Center for Student Legal Services, said students come to her every year with complaints that their property was not in good condition when they moved in.
“I get a lot of move-in problems — people moving in and the place is not ready, it’s not been cleaned,” Greenlee said. “Those cases don’t usually end up in court because … if it’s just cleaning, a lot of times it’s resolved by the tenants having to clean the place themselves. Those (cases) are difficult to argue compensation for.”
Tenants have the option to call in a complaint to Code Enforcement if a landlord is not keeping up with the maintenance on a property. In the case of a complaint, a code officer will visit the property to determine if the problem constitutes a code violation, Paszke said. At this time, officers do not complete a full housing inspection.
In one case in August, tenants called a code enforcement officer to 79 Franklin Ave. with a complaint that the wall in the second bedroom had a hole with a weed growing through it. Another violation noted in the inspection report is that the floor in the same bedroom got wet when it rained.
The owner of Housing HotLink, the rental company that owns the property, said the tenants called Code Enforcement without filing a maintenance request with the company.
“In this case, they called Code Enforcement because there was a crack in the wall and a vine came through,” said Guy Philips, owner of Housing HotLink. “If we get notification (of a problem), we take care of it.”
The tenants of 79 Franklin Ave. could not be reached for comment.
Some students might be hesitant to take action against a landlord because they feel intimidated and aren’t familiar with their rights, Greenlee said.
“(These students) are starting a relationship with the landlord, and I think people are cautious of that,” she said. “They choose to pick their battles.”
pe219007@ohiou.edu
