An ordinance scheduled for introduction Tuesday would establish health and safety standards for rental units and provide for enforcement of those standards through a registration and complaint system.
Since this article was published, I have attempted to speak to several members of City Council regarding the ordinance - which was sprung upon owners of Laramie rental properties with no warning or opportunity for input as it was being drafted. And now that it's been introduced, members of Council have been difficult to reach to discuss it - even when comments concern obvious flaws and illegalities in it. For example, Mayor Paul Weaver is not returning phone calls or responding to e-mails. And when we attempted to contact Brian Harrington, he responded, tersely, "I intend to support this ordinance," and refused even a brief phone call to discuss it. It appears that "the fix is in," and that no input from professionals who actually understand the logistics of providing rental housing is welcome.
This is a terrible shame. My family and I got into the business of rental housing due to our own poor experiences with it, and bend over backward to ensure that our units are safe, clean, and fully functional. Our lease actually INSISTS that tenants contact us immediately - 24x7x365 - at the first sign of any problem. And we respond immediately, often at considerable expense and inconvenience to ourselves. We care, and it's disappointing to find ourselves demonized - and our ability to provide reasonably priced rental housing threatened - with little opportunity even to discuss with several members of Council what WOULD work to deal with bad landlords or to encourage good ones. We take pride in our work, despite attacks from people such as the anonymous troll who is attacking us in the thread below, and are pleased to say that we not only have tenants who have willingly stayed with us for a decade or more but have had tenants who left Laramie, came back, and immediately checked with us to see if we had units available for them! It's a shame that the haters and trolls are so prevalent, and we urge the public to speak out about the bad points of this proposed Draconian regulation. These include the illegal taxes (in Wyoming, municipalities do not have the power to directly impose property taxes) that will require property owners to raise rents; the requirement, ruled unconstitutional in 8 states, for mandatory inspections; the requirement to use licensed contractors for repairs (the text of the ordinance, contrary to statements by some members of City staff, allows no exceptions); and the illegal attempt to override the very good and thorough resolution process instituted by state law in the event of a dispute over the habitablity of a unit. Want good rental housing? Don't discourage us good guys. Some of my co-owners have read this ordinance and are already seriously considering forcing me to cash out their investments; they've been burned by excessive regulation before. If we do, it's doubtful that the buyers will take the care we do to keep our units liveable, attractive, and safe. And that's the last comment I'm going to post here. I'm sure the trolls will continue to post outright lies and slander.... But as you can see, they won't even own up to their own disinformation. We stand behind what we say, because - again - we care.
Its true Brian Harrington has not replied to 2 requests from me to talk about the ordinance even though he said he appreciated my willingness to talk in an earlier email
Brian refuses to accept public comment regarding this ordinance. He was the one who most strongly urged staff to draft it - and then ensured that this was done (mostly by copying from an ordinance in Eugene, Oregon) without ANY public input. City bureaucrats, however, got to add their own pet provisions - including ones that eliminated due process and gave them arbitrary power.
Mayor Paul Weaver likewise has not returned phone calls. Councilor Andi Summerville, to her credit, did eventually call me back... and actually managed to get Brian and Paul on the line when she did. (They'll answer HER calls, but not others'.) But I might as well been talking to three stone walls. All are certain that anyone who owns or manages rental property is fundamentally evil and deserves to be overregulated and punished for providing this vital service... no matter if the ordinance is not legal or is actually harmful to tenants as well as landlords. This is not appropriate behavior for elected officials.
This would be a disaster. It's contrary to state landlord/tenant law and violates both the state and the Federal constitutions. The ordinance doesn't take into account the fact that most mold problems are caused by tenants, who fail to vent moisture and bring mold spores with them on their belongings (not to mention bedbugs). The ordinance would also force rental property owners to raise rents to cover the additional expenses of registration, handling bogus complaints, and hiring licensed contractors to do minor work that could be performed by a handyman or by the owner. (This last provision was doubtless lobbied for by Laramie's few licensed contractors, who are often unavailable and take their sweet time to show up.) So much for affordable housing! And good landlords will exit the business, leaving only the bad ones. This ordinance no more deserves consideration than the prior one, which was nowhere near as Draconian... and was voted down.
I don't think it even requires a cost to register. It's basically a way to ensure that landlords don't get away with allowing their tenants to freeze, or have a stopped up toilet. If a landlord can't afford these "Quality of life" fixes, maybe they should just sell the house. Makes me wonder how quality your units are
Apparently, you haven't even read the ordinance. It not only requires a fee to register - PER UNIT - but requires a fee from tenants who complain! Having an unregistered rental is designated by the ordinance to be a CRIMINAL OFFENSE.... We don't register guns, but require Grandma to register her basement apartment and pay a fee - which would have to be high to cover the salaries of the multiple additional City employees who would be needed to implement the ordinance.
State law already ensures that landlords cannot "get away with allowing their tenants to freeze, or have a stopped up toilet." But if this ordinance passes, it will delay repairs and make them more expensive - making it harder for the landlord to get them done. This ordinance was copied from one from an Oregon city where rents are double what they are in Laramie. Landlords in Laramie are already barely breaking even due to high vacancy rates. If the ordinance passes, some landlords will just drop out of the market, while others will be forced to pass these taxes (because that is what they really are) on to tenants. Want affordable housing? More housing choice? Prompt repairs? Then you don't want this ordinance.
"State law already ensures that landlords cannot "get away with'..."
No offense Brett, but this statement REEKS of privilege and a fundamental detachment from reality. This is civil law; it's not like people can just call the cops or a housing authority that has jurisdiction over private housing.
The people most disadvantaged by slumlords are the EXACT people who, for the EXACT same reasons, do not have the knowledge, ability, or resources to file lawsuits, put money in escrow or continue paying rent on an uninhabitable space while simultaneously paying for hotels, kenneling for any animals, and any number of additional day-to-day expenses or disruptions (like one that I've had to deal with....a jacked up electric bill from having to use space heaters because of a broken gas furnace for weeks on end).
All too often landlords hide behind "state law" as if that's supposed to give people any protection. It doesn't, especially for the people who need it most.
And EVEN IF people have the wherewithal to file lawsuits and such, it's ridiculously easy to dodge them. You'd know that if you paid attention to local journalistic investigation within the last year or so...which I'm assuming you have, since it centered on someone in your industry.
As someone who has personally recently had to put up with lack of heat, water, etc. recently without much recourse, your tone-deaf comments frankly piss me off.
As for your assertion that Laramie landlords are barely breaking even due to high vacancy rates, that flies in the face of everything I have seen and heard from everyone around me AND have dealt with myself. You may personally have that issue, but I also know that you haven't personally had to pine for a place to live in here at least a very, very long time. But if it's truly a widespread issue, perhaps property owners and managers need to reexamine their gatekeeping policies, or they need to figure out better marketing...or they need to reexamine who their target audience is or why their properties or policies aren't appealing to people.
I absolutely understand the challenges that many landlords in Laramie face (I've actually had to help deal with some of them myself as a favor to friends/acquaintances/fellow business owners), and I've known you and your stances on things for a very long time and I know your heart is in the right place. But you have no idea what it's like on the other side of this.
Stuff like this is intended to address a system that has clearly failed, and protect perhaps some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
The Ordinance to not state the fee yet and the public does not know where the money for employees will come from, plus it does not state anywhere that the City will be hiring new employees for this work. I would hold judgement on the fees until council has gone through the details of this ordinance.
State law is not able to be enforced due to no one being able to inspect a house based on property and privacy laws, so even if the law sates that a landlord can't let a tenant freeze, there's no way to force them, so they just get away with it. Also, this will not make repairs more expensive, it'll just ensure that the landlord actually does the repairs by a licensed contractor. So, maybe the contractor is more expensive than half-assing it.....
I hope landlords drop out of the market, then maybe we can get homes on the market and people in them that will actually take care of the house and retain some of our quality, historical homes, rather than seeing them go into disrepair. There's a vacancy rate due to the fact that tenants don't want to live in dangerous conditions. I myself had a rental unit in Laramie and took care of it constantly and never had a day without a tenant. So, just be a good property owner and a landlord, they should go hand in hand anyways.
Again, you haven't read the ordinance - and are naive besides. Current salaries in the City bureaucracy, and the hundreds of requirements in the ordinance (yes, there are literally hundreds) guarantee that at least two or three new City staff will be required. A "back of the envelope" calculation pegs the salary cost alone, per unit, at between $100 and $200 per year... and our City's bureaucracy isn't known for thrift when it is spending other people's money. (Just look at our trash and water rates, which are escalating - there's another agenda item at tonight's meeting about that.) As for state law: Apparently, you're unfamiliar both with the case law (which does hold landlords liable for failure to repair) and the Constitution (which prohibits mandatory inspections). And again, you're either naive or stupid if you believe that requiring a "licensed contractor" to change a faucet washer - after a tenant wears it out by abusing the faucet - is not going to raise costs and hence rents. Want to wait a month for a repair? Then require that.
Most tenants in Laramie are transient and do not want to buy; rental housing fills a vital need and keeps our economy alive. Landlords work hard to repair the damage recklessly done by tenants, and have recently been plagued by high vacancy rates not due to repair issues but COVID and the University's failure to institute adequate precautions against it. I and other responsible rental property owners will fight this ordinance for the good of our tenants and the good of the community. We don't deserve to be taxed, penalized, and subjected to absurd regulations instituted only for the benefit of the contractors' lobby and uncaring bureaucrats - and neither do our tenants.
Finally, it's telling that you are sniping at me under a rude pseudonym, while I am standing by my words and using my real name. What do you have to hide?
One, a repair like a water faucet does not require a building permit, thus it would not require a licensed contractor, secondly, I'm not sure what your napkin looks like, but it must be all made up numbers and information due to the fact that no fee amounts have come out yet.
The tenants are transient in Laramie because the quality of housing here is too awful to continue living in, thus they don't want to or feel they can't put roots down in the community.
All of your statements about lobbying are without any evidence and are empty words, just a conspiracy theory spread by you to continue the false accusations of the story in Laramie. The real story is that Laramie has a very real history of landlords taking advantage of tenants (https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/maximus-bossarei-the-artful-dodger/article_bf0304e2-3f7d-5058-b844-e7a506172e0a.html) in Laramie. Laramie is the only place that a tenant just shrugs and gives up when something is broken in their home and promotes a care-free culture and "this is the best we can do."
Having this requirement in place will only improve housing quality in Laramie and hopefully retain residents, bring in companies and bring more housing forward for first time home buyers.
The reason I hide behind this name is to purely bug you because you have constantly trolled people in this community with false accusations and a blind eye to the real problems in Laramie with a changing world. In closing, you're famous in Laramie for being an awful/creepy landlord, s enjoy that legacy for your properties and internet company. I would push you to listen closely to the tenants that spoke at the meeting last night and their stories as to why they believe this is a good move for the city.
Lame excuses and misinformation. Again, if you really stand behind your words, own up to them. Otherwise, you're just a random troll.
As for repairs: The ordinance specifically says "Repairs must be permanent rather than temporary and shall be through generally
accepted... methods installed in a workmanlike manner by a licensed contractor." It says nothing about "requiring a permit." Laws mean what they say, not what people say ABOUT them, and City staff, often lies to Council and the public in the hope of manipulating them. Don't be deceived - and don't attempt to deceive others. If this ordinance passes, no repair will be exempt.
Many tenants are transient in Laramie because they're here to go to the University, to get vocational training, or to perform work in the area. It's not because of problems with housing, though it may be due to the lack of economic diversity and good jobs. Both of these are the answer to housing affordability. Laramie's housing is already very reasonably priced compared to the rest of the country; we simply need good wages.
As for my other statements: all are well supported by easily verifiable evidence. It's a shame I only had 3 minutes to present to Council or I would have shown some of it. It is YOU who have shown none. But then, you're an anonymous troll.
Since this article was published, I have attempted to speak to several members of City Council regarding the ordinance - which was sprung upon owners of Laramie rental properties with no warning or opportunity for input as it was being drafted. And now that it's been introduced, members of Council have been difficult to reach to discuss it - even when comments concern obvious flaws and illegalities in it. For example, Mayor Paul Weaver is not returning phone calls or responding to e-mails. And when we attempted to contact Brian Harrington, he responded, tersely, "I intend to support this ordinance," and refused even a brief phone call to discuss it. It appears that "the fix is in," and that no input from professionals who actually understand the logistics of providing rental housing is welcome.
This is a terrible shame. My family and I got into the business of rental housing due to our own poor experiences with it, and bend over backward to ensure that our units are safe, clean, and fully functional. Our lease actually INSISTS that tenants contact us immediately - 24x7x365 - at the first sign of any problem. And we respond immediately, often at considerable expense and inconvenience to ourselves. We care, and it's disappointing to find ourselves demonized - and our ability to provide reasonably priced rental housing threatened - with little opportunity even to discuss with several members of Council what WOULD work to deal with bad landlords or to encourage good ones. We take pride in our work, despite attacks from people such as the anonymous troll who is attacking us in the thread below, and are pleased to say that we not only have tenants who have willingly stayed with us for a decade or more but have had tenants who left Laramie, came back, and immediately checked with us to see if we had units available for them! It's a shame that the haters and trolls are so prevalent, and we urge the public to speak out about the bad points of this proposed Draconian regulation. These include the illegal taxes (in Wyoming, municipalities do not have the power to directly impose property taxes) that will require property owners to raise rents; the requirement, ruled unconstitutional in 8 states, for mandatory inspections; the requirement to use licensed contractors for repairs (the text of the ordinance, contrary to statements by some members of City staff, allows no exceptions); and the illegal attempt to override the very good and thorough resolution process instituted by state law in the event of a dispute over the habitablity of a unit. Want good rental housing? Don't discourage us good guys. Some of my co-owners have read this ordinance and are already seriously considering forcing me to cash out their investments; they've been burned by excessive regulation before. If we do, it's doubtful that the buyers will take the care we do to keep our units liveable, attractive, and safe. And that's the last comment I'm going to post here. I'm sure the trolls will continue to post outright lies and slander.... But as you can see, they won't even own up to their own disinformation. We stand behind what we say, because - again - we care.
Its true Brian Harrington has not replied to 2 requests from me to talk about the ordinance even though he said he appreciated my willingness to talk in an earlier email
Brian refuses to accept public comment regarding this ordinance. He was the one who most strongly urged staff to draft it - and then ensured that this was done (mostly by copying from an ordinance in Eugene, Oregon) without ANY public input. City bureaucrats, however, got to add their own pet provisions - including ones that eliminated due process and gave them arbitrary power.
Mayor Paul Weaver likewise has not returned phone calls. Councilor Andi Summerville, to her credit, did eventually call me back... and actually managed to get Brian and Paul on the line when she did. (They'll answer HER calls, but not others'.) But I might as well been talking to three stone walls. All are certain that anyone who owns or manages rental property is fundamentally evil and deserves to be overregulated and punished for providing this vital service... no matter if the ordinance is not legal or is actually harmful to tenants as well as landlords. This is not appropriate behavior for elected officials.
This would be a disaster. It's contrary to state landlord/tenant law and violates both the state and the Federal constitutions. The ordinance doesn't take into account the fact that most mold problems are caused by tenants, who fail to vent moisture and bring mold spores with them on their belongings (not to mention bedbugs). The ordinance would also force rental property owners to raise rents to cover the additional expenses of registration, handling bogus complaints, and hiring licensed contractors to do minor work that could be performed by a handyman or by the owner. (This last provision was doubtless lobbied for by Laramie's few licensed contractors, who are often unavailable and take their sweet time to show up.) So much for affordable housing! And good landlords will exit the business, leaving only the bad ones. This ordinance no more deserves consideration than the prior one, which was nowhere near as Draconian... and was voted down.
I don't think it even requires a cost to register. It's basically a way to ensure that landlords don't get away with allowing their tenants to freeze, or have a stopped up toilet. If a landlord can't afford these "Quality of life" fixes, maybe they should just sell the house. Makes me wonder how quality your units are
Apparently, you haven't even read the ordinance. It not only requires a fee to register - PER UNIT - but requires a fee from tenants who complain! Having an unregistered rental is designated by the ordinance to be a CRIMINAL OFFENSE.... We don't register guns, but require Grandma to register her basement apartment and pay a fee - which would have to be high to cover the salaries of the multiple additional City employees who would be needed to implement the ordinance.
State law already ensures that landlords cannot "get away with allowing their tenants to freeze, or have a stopped up toilet." But if this ordinance passes, it will delay repairs and make them more expensive - making it harder for the landlord to get them done. This ordinance was copied from one from an Oregon city where rents are double what they are in Laramie. Landlords in Laramie are already barely breaking even due to high vacancy rates. If the ordinance passes, some landlords will just drop out of the market, while others will be forced to pass these taxes (because that is what they really are) on to tenants. Want affordable housing? More housing choice? Prompt repairs? Then you don't want this ordinance.
"State law already ensures that landlords cannot "get away with'..."
No offense Brett, but this statement REEKS of privilege and a fundamental detachment from reality. This is civil law; it's not like people can just call the cops or a housing authority that has jurisdiction over private housing.
The people most disadvantaged by slumlords are the EXACT people who, for the EXACT same reasons, do not have the knowledge, ability, or resources to file lawsuits, put money in escrow or continue paying rent on an uninhabitable space while simultaneously paying for hotels, kenneling for any animals, and any number of additional day-to-day expenses or disruptions (like one that I've had to deal with....a jacked up electric bill from having to use space heaters because of a broken gas furnace for weeks on end).
All too often landlords hide behind "state law" as if that's supposed to give people any protection. It doesn't, especially for the people who need it most.
And EVEN IF people have the wherewithal to file lawsuits and such, it's ridiculously easy to dodge them. You'd know that if you paid attention to local journalistic investigation within the last year or so...which I'm assuming you have, since it centered on someone in your industry.
As someone who has personally recently had to put up with lack of heat, water, etc. recently without much recourse, your tone-deaf comments frankly piss me off.
As for your assertion that Laramie landlords are barely breaking even due to high vacancy rates, that flies in the face of everything I have seen and heard from everyone around me AND have dealt with myself. You may personally have that issue, but I also know that you haven't personally had to pine for a place to live in here at least a very, very long time. But if it's truly a widespread issue, perhaps property owners and managers need to reexamine their gatekeeping policies, or they need to figure out better marketing...or they need to reexamine who their target audience is or why their properties or policies aren't appealing to people.
I absolutely understand the challenges that many landlords in Laramie face (I've actually had to help deal with some of them myself as a favor to friends/acquaintances/fellow business owners), and I've known you and your stances on things for a very long time and I know your heart is in the right place. But you have no idea what it's like on the other side of this.
Stuff like this is intended to address a system that has clearly failed, and protect perhaps some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
The Ordinance to not state the fee yet and the public does not know where the money for employees will come from, plus it does not state anywhere that the City will be hiring new employees for this work. I would hold judgement on the fees until council has gone through the details of this ordinance.
State law is not able to be enforced due to no one being able to inspect a house based on property and privacy laws, so even if the law sates that a landlord can't let a tenant freeze, there's no way to force them, so they just get away with it. Also, this will not make repairs more expensive, it'll just ensure that the landlord actually does the repairs by a licensed contractor. So, maybe the contractor is more expensive than half-assing it.....
I hope landlords drop out of the market, then maybe we can get homes on the market and people in them that will actually take care of the house and retain some of our quality, historical homes, rather than seeing them go into disrepair. There's a vacancy rate due to the fact that tenants don't want to live in dangerous conditions. I myself had a rental unit in Laramie and took care of it constantly and never had a day without a tenant. So, just be a good property owner and a landlord, they should go hand in hand anyways.
Again, you haven't read the ordinance - and are naive besides. Current salaries in the City bureaucracy, and the hundreds of requirements in the ordinance (yes, there are literally hundreds) guarantee that at least two or three new City staff will be required. A "back of the envelope" calculation pegs the salary cost alone, per unit, at between $100 and $200 per year... and our City's bureaucracy isn't known for thrift when it is spending other people's money. (Just look at our trash and water rates, which are escalating - there's another agenda item at tonight's meeting about that.) As for state law: Apparently, you're unfamiliar both with the case law (which does hold landlords liable for failure to repair) and the Constitution (which prohibits mandatory inspections). And again, you're either naive or stupid if you believe that requiring a "licensed contractor" to change a faucet washer - after a tenant wears it out by abusing the faucet - is not going to raise costs and hence rents. Want to wait a month for a repair? Then require that.
Most tenants in Laramie are transient and do not want to buy; rental housing fills a vital need and keeps our economy alive. Landlords work hard to repair the damage recklessly done by tenants, and have recently been plagued by high vacancy rates not due to repair issues but COVID and the University's failure to institute adequate precautions against it. I and other responsible rental property owners will fight this ordinance for the good of our tenants and the good of the community. We don't deserve to be taxed, penalized, and subjected to absurd regulations instituted only for the benefit of the contractors' lobby and uncaring bureaucrats - and neither do our tenants.
Finally, it's telling that you are sniping at me under a rude pseudonym, while I am standing by my words and using my real name. What do you have to hide?
One, a repair like a water faucet does not require a building permit, thus it would not require a licensed contractor, secondly, I'm not sure what your napkin looks like, but it must be all made up numbers and information due to the fact that no fee amounts have come out yet.
The tenants are transient in Laramie because the quality of housing here is too awful to continue living in, thus they don't want to or feel they can't put roots down in the community.
All of your statements about lobbying are without any evidence and are empty words, just a conspiracy theory spread by you to continue the false accusations of the story in Laramie. The real story is that Laramie has a very real history of landlords taking advantage of tenants (https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/maximus-bossarei-the-artful-dodger/article_bf0304e2-3f7d-5058-b844-e7a506172e0a.html) in Laramie. Laramie is the only place that a tenant just shrugs and gives up when something is broken in their home and promotes a care-free culture and "this is the best we can do."
Having this requirement in place will only improve housing quality in Laramie and hopefully retain residents, bring in companies and bring more housing forward for first time home buyers.
The reason I hide behind this name is to purely bug you because you have constantly trolled people in this community with false accusations and a blind eye to the real problems in Laramie with a changing world. In closing, you're famous in Laramie for being an awful/creepy landlord, s enjoy that legacy for your properties and internet company. I would push you to listen closely to the tenants that spoke at the meeting last night and their stories as to why they believe this is a good move for the city.
Lame excuses and misinformation. Again, if you really stand behind your words, own up to them. Otherwise, you're just a random troll.
As for repairs: The ordinance specifically says "Repairs must be permanent rather than temporary and shall be through generally
accepted... methods installed in a workmanlike manner by a licensed contractor." It says nothing about "requiring a permit." Laws mean what they say, not what people say ABOUT them, and City staff, often lies to Council and the public in the hope of manipulating them. Don't be deceived - and don't attempt to deceive others. If this ordinance passes, no repair will be exempt.
Many tenants are transient in Laramie because they're here to go to the University, to get vocational training, or to perform work in the area. It's not because of problems with housing, though it may be due to the lack of economic diversity and good jobs. Both of these are the answer to housing affordability. Laramie's housing is already very reasonably priced compared to the rest of the country; we simply need good wages.
As for my other statements: all are well supported by easily verifiable evidence. It's a shame I only had 3 minutes to present to Council or I would have shown some of it. It is YOU who have shown none. But then, you're an anonymous troll.