"This program is impacting living conditions and life safety for the 15,000 people that rent within the city of Laramie. The city is fulfilling its core function of protecting life health and safety."
I wish former University of Wyoming Students Attorney Betsy Goudey was still alive. As UW Students Attorney, she was by far the most comprehensively knowledgeable person on landlord-tenant law from the perspective of the tenants in state history. I went to her once to learn what I could do about a lease for an uninhabitable house I rented when I was a student (I didn’t know until I tried to sleep there that the place was filled with so much mold and pet dander that I couldn’t breathe). She told me I had little legal recourse and gave me a bit of an orientation as to the dismal state of landlord-tenant law in the state, with vivid stories about the issues she regularly saw and a laminated copy of the lease used by one of the worst slumlords in town in her top desk drawer. She also talked about how people had died from carbon monoxide leaks in badly maintained basement apartments and her absolute sorrow that no governing body at the city, county, or state level had acted to make things better even when there was a literal body count. If she was still alive I think she’d be glad that the city finally did something, even if it’s not yet perfect. Property destroyed by bad tenants isn’t equivalent to lives lost and health ruined by bad landlords and the squalid state of the properties they rent.
You are very out of date on this matter. The State of Wyoming now has a very good landlord-tenant law that would have given you recourse, whereas the current City ordinance couldn't have provided you with an adequate remedy. Tenants such as yourself need to know their responsibilities AND their rights under the law, and good landlords (and good lawyers) inform them of both. Unfortunately, the Legislature has now spoken. If Laramie wants to harm tenants, property owners, AND the local economy with smothering regulations and overreaching bureaucracy, they are going to let us suffer for our own mistakes. Hopefully, we will learn from them.
I’m glad to be out of date, then. At the time I could read all the residential landlord-tenant law for the city and state and both law journal articles about it in one afternoon. I also carefully read every lease I ever signed and a few I never signed because of what I read in them. I was a clean and careful tenant and mostly had decent enough landlords.
But Laramie as a college town has a unique housing economy that still has a legacy of landlord predation on poor, relatively transient, and inexperienced renters. And I will grant that some of those renters do not take care of where they live (WyoTech students had the worst reputation, but male UW students probably were more grimy and damaging). But a community with unique housing needs can and should tailor their regulations to the needs of the population there. And rental units in Laramie have been habitually under-maintained for decades. Rather a lot of places should be torn down or gutted and completely renovated. Until the housing standards actually meet the health and safety needs of the most vulnerable, I think the city should do something.
As for your specific complaints about regulations that seem unnecessarily difficult and costly, I think you could probably get the city council to make some adjustments so that things like excessive carbon monoxide monitors and such are pared back. Maybe trade a few carbon monoxide sensors for periodic radon tests in risky areas. I’m assuming a lot of your feelings about additional time and cost for repairs are about needing licensed professionals to make those repairs — but renters with no repair expertise should have something beyond being forced to trust that their landlord isn’t making repairs that cut dangerous corners. Unless you want the city to start certifying handymen for repair competence in a way that isn’t the existing system of electrician and plumbing licensure, or having repairs approved one by one by a city inspector, I don’t see how else the system addresses the fact that a lot of landlords will absolutely neglect their properties to the point of ruining them just to avoid the effort, time, and cost of reasonable maintenance.
A lot of this regulation offends you as a reasonable landlord because you think your attitude towards protecting your investment and being a humane person is the most prevalent attitude among Laramie landlords. Unfortunately, there are plenty enough landlords who don’t have that attitude and they’re not the ones you’re talking to about this issue.
I do think worrying about regulatory efficacy is a completely reasonable position and it’s good to push at the parts of this that don’t fit community needs and goals. But it feels a lot like you’re reflexively against the city regulating this at all, and that feels disconnected from community needs. Also, I don’t think people in Woods Landing or Rock River have the same needs as those in Laramie. It is problematic that people living in places just outside of city limits don’t have the same recourse in this system as those within, but that doesn’t mean the city shouldn’t make and regulate standards within city limits — it means that the county has its own work to do on that.
Arguing over have gas detectors or such is emblematic of the Laramie rental market. The conditions of some rentals is truly disgusting. What a stain on the s city. The University could do so much more as well.
Carbon monoxide detectors make sense when there's actually a chance that carbon monoxide could do harm. But the Laramie ordinance goes overboard in this and also in other things. Have a gas furnace, boiler, or water heater anywhere in your building? With proper ventilation and flues that are clean and up to code? No matter; detectors are mandated in places where carbon monoxide would never build up. I cited this as an example because some members of Council -- in offline conversations -- did mention wanting to discourage or even ban the use of natural gas appliances (which would raise housing costs yet further). Just as, in some of those conversations, Council members described ALL rental property owners, even conscientious ones such as my family, as "slumlords" and "evil." Alas, some of Laramie's best landlords have been motivated by the City's regulatory overreach to sell, while the few bad ones are hanging on.
In the past 24 hours, I manufactured keys to handle a tenant lock-out; fixed a toilet damaged by a tenant; did bookkeeping; filled out government tax paperwork; paid bills; ordered supplies; signed a new lease with a family who were having trouble finding quality housing that suited them (until they found us); updated Web pages; printed tickets for a rental Internet hotspot. This is a very real job that requires a vast array of skills.
What you've "got" is a chip on your shoulder. We care a great deal about our tenants' safety. That's one of the reasons we oppose the city rental ordinance. It actually reduces tenant safety by delaying and impeding necessary repairs.
I may be mistaken, but I remember recent iterations of the Wyoming GOP platform having a statement to the effect that the most effective form of democracy is that which is closest to the people. In other words, it put a premium on local (city/county) government control. I do not see such a statement in the 2023 state GOP platform. That would align with present attempts to squelch local initiatives. As an aside, the 2023 WY GOP document, which is big on property rights, does not state that citizens should follow the law. Given that many Laramie landlords are not in compliance with the city’s ordinance, perhaps it is time for the law-and-order party to include such a statement.
Delegating control to the county courthouse rather than the City does not mean a loss of local control. The Albany County Courthouse is half a block from City Hall, and unlike the city has jurisdiction not just over the area within the city limits but over the entire county (where the area's most truly squalid rentals are located). Our local Circuit Court and Small Claims Court judges are very knowledgeable and no-nonsense. They don't take any guff from anyone... and have strongly favored tenants' rights. So, we already have local control, and it's BETTER local control because it can deal with issues that the City cannot. Think the state statute should be more explicit (even though the case law exists)? Legislators are open to that. What we do not need is another layer of ineffective, smothering bureaucracy. Laramie's ordinance has harmed tenants by raising rents, harming housing affordability, and decreasing housing availability. Regardless of your partisan affiliation (I am an independent voter who registers opportunistically), you should favor what works -- and the city ordinance, adopted with little thought from a city out of state where it was also not working, has been a flop. As a tenant myself, as well as an owner and manager, I'm a strong supporter of tenants' rights and also of fair treatment of EVERYONE in disputes regarding rentals. I hope you'll agree that, given the failure of the current ordinance, it's time to try something that's both more fair and more effective. The Legislature is willing to do that, and I think we should take them up on it.
Alas, Jeff Victor's highly biased account demonstrates that he's not a "reporter" but rather a highly opinionated blogger with axes to grind. He gives an incomplete account of my testimony, failing to note (for example) my important observation that Wyoming cities are simply not empowered to handle the most common tenant complaints: constructive eviction and disputes over deductions from security deposits. Nor can they deal with the relatively rare business practice issues Jeff mentions above, such as double-renting. These can only be handled by the County's civil courts. Jeff fails to note that Wyoming law already mandates that rentals be safe, sanitary, and habitable, and that case law has elaborated on these requirements and county courts have enforced them. He also fails to note that all those who testified in favor of the rental regulations are career bureaucrats who favor bloated government and regulatory overreach, or that Maximus Bosserei, Jeff's favorite "villianous landlord," has in fact had judgments entered against him in the Albany County Circuit Court and been forced to pay up when he hasn't dealt fairly with tenants. (I have copies of some of the judgments here on my desk.) In any event, whether you agree with me or not on any particular point, you deserve to know the whole story. So, to hear my full testimony, unfiltered by Jeff's extreme bias, go to https://youtu.be/U2Ona5NKANQ?t=8650. The testimony of Laramie's City Manager -- who traveled to Casper at your expense rather than using Zoom -- follows mine. (She was incorrect on several points, but alas I was not given an opportunity to rebut.)
Well, I'm pleased to say that we've had very few tenants who have ever complained. And if any of them did post here, they'd be a small, self-selecting sample. In our family's 32 years in the business, through hundreds of leases, we've really worked hard to offer a quality product and to be highly responsive. (We started to manage rentals because we ourselves had had nonoptimal rental experiences and wanted to provide something better.) The few tenants with whom we haven't had good relationships (we occasionally do get problem tenants, though we check references) are far outnumbered by the ones who have moved out of town for one reason or another, come back, and CALLED US UP AGAIN to ask if we had any units available. They want to be repeat customers! We really do work hard at this, and we CARE about our tenants. We respect and even inform them of their rights. The City's ordinance burdens and penalizes the good guys while failing to do anything effective about the bad ones, which is why owners like the Bell family are selling out. And, alas, the buyers are often private equity firms which will NOT be good landlords.
I never got to write student evaluations on my performance. That seems appropriate. By analogy, I suggest this also applies whenever a landlord publicly claims a largely grateful tenantry .
All good businesses try to satisfy their customers, and our rate of repeat business is a good metric of our success (far better than an anecdotal review or two). You seem unwilling to believe that any landlord or rental property owner can be a good one. Alas, if you're that deeply prejudiced, there's no point trying to convince you otherwise.
The claims that the regulations in question are illegal have already been tested in court and were found to be compliant with state law and the Wyoming constitution.
This is not the case. The plaintiffs, who (unlike the city) were not funded by virtually unlimited taxpayer dollars, ran out of money and dropped the suit. (Their lawyers also were not the best; they failed to bring up several important points, including serious conflicts with both state statutes and the Constitution.) Instead, the plaintiffs decided they would just sell. They're liquidating their holdings now. Which is a shame, because they were generally considered to be among Laramie's best landlords.
The city of Laramie's budget is a lot tighter than you imply here, and I find it strange that a judge would make a ruling that the city code is legal and enforceable if the suit was dropped.
The City has wasted millions of dollars, over the years, defending against citizen lawsuits which rightly pointed out that it had exceeded its authority. But it seems, alas, always to find the money to defend bureaucracy, even though this takes funds away from vital services it should be providing. As for the ruling that WAS made in the suit: It found some parts of the ordinance to be legal and others to be illegal. It didn't reach many of the plantiffs' complaints and left them unresolved. The judge quit immediately after issuing it, and the plaintiffs appealed. But they dropped the appeal due to a lack of funds, and also because they felt that Laramie was heading the wrong way -- toward overregulation and overbearing bureaucracy -- and they no longer wanted to do business here. Sadly, they gave up on our city.
They did make some amendments, but their legality hasn't been tested. Neither has the legality of the points on which the judge did not rule. There may yet be challenges in the future. But my main point, above, is that regardless of legality (and I do believe that much if not all of the ordinance is illegal), the ordinance is not working. It is not helping tenants, and it is driving away good landlords while discouraging development and impacting our supply of affordable housing. As the old saying goes, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." It's time for a different approach, and I like the one the Legislature is considering.
Bret, have you advocated for the Albany County Commissioners to adopt the city’s goals for tenant safety? I know that you feel like carbon monoxide detectors and registering rentals is onerous, and the City of Laramie doesn’t deserve much trust in its ability or willingness to actually protect the citizenry from abuse, but the county couldn’t/wouldn’t even serve legal papers to an egregious scofflaw who obviously habitually abused his tenants. I’m not convinced the county would do a better job here, because it’s very clear the county has already failed at doing the things it’s already supposed to be doing to address this problem.
I trust you are better than the worst of the town’s landlords because that isn’t a high bar to clear. You benefit from their predation in ways you say are proof you’re an excellent landlord — tenants stay with you and come back to your properties. But when the alternative is sifting through sometimes literal shit and dealing with landlords who threaten and steal from tenants, yeah tenants are going to settle for a common stone among turds. Don’t think this means you’re diamonds and gold.
And I’ve just bought new carbon monoxide detectors — they’re pretty cheap and nowadays you can get ones that will connect to wifi for purposes of alerting you when they go off and when you need to change the batteries and when they need to be tested. I know you’re big on internet privacy and I assume suspicious of IoT stuff, rightfully so. But this is one case where I think getting a bulk order of connected smoke/CO detectors is worth the cost both in dollars and privacy. Just think of the ones in places you deem overkill as backup in case of failure and the cost far less than the worth of lives and raised insurance premiums. If you can save up enough to buy property to rent to other people, you can get a small business loan to pay for anything you can’t cover with your existing cash-on-hand for maintenance and improvements. If your time is the issue, hire help.
You are incorrect. Not only did the Circuit Court serve papers to Jeff's favorite "villainous" landlord, but it entered multiple judgments against him. I have copies here on my desk. The court is very good at enforcing state laws. You just have to go to it and ask.
As for carbon monoxide detectors: They are appropriate only in certain locations. The City's ordinance intentionally goes overboard, apparently because some members of Council appear interested in banning natural gas appliances altogether (even though tenants prefer them). Want a so-called "smart" carbon monoxide detector? Sorry, no can do. The City's overly restrictive ordinance won't allow them. We have not found one yet that meets the city's strict requirement for a very specific UL certification, so you could not use one and satisfy the ordinance.
We provide quality, safe accommodations at reasonable rents and are fair to our tenants, who (alas) often damage properties and do not follow the written agreements they signed with us.. Your message above shows that you do not understand the nuances of the business (which is already regulated by MULTIPLE Federal agencies and by state law) and apparently think that rental property owners are made of money. We're not, and we often take losses on our rentals.
The lesson to be learned from all of this is simple. Want to drive up the cost and reduce the supply of anything? Overregulate and micromanage it. That's what the city is doing, and the result is harm to tenants.
I wish former University of Wyoming Students Attorney Betsy Goudey was still alive. As UW Students Attorney, she was by far the most comprehensively knowledgeable person on landlord-tenant law from the perspective of the tenants in state history. I went to her once to learn what I could do about a lease for an uninhabitable house I rented when I was a student (I didn’t know until I tried to sleep there that the place was filled with so much mold and pet dander that I couldn’t breathe). She told me I had little legal recourse and gave me a bit of an orientation as to the dismal state of landlord-tenant law in the state, with vivid stories about the issues she regularly saw and a laminated copy of the lease used by one of the worst slumlords in town in her top desk drawer. She also talked about how people had died from carbon monoxide leaks in badly maintained basement apartments and her absolute sorrow that no governing body at the city, county, or state level had acted to make things better even when there was a literal body count. If she was still alive I think she’d be glad that the city finally did something, even if it’s not yet perfect. Property destroyed by bad tenants isn’t equivalent to lives lost and health ruined by bad landlords and the squalid state of the properties they rent.
You are very out of date on this matter. The State of Wyoming now has a very good landlord-tenant law that would have given you recourse, whereas the current City ordinance couldn't have provided you with an adequate remedy. Tenants such as yourself need to know their responsibilities AND their rights under the law, and good landlords (and good lawyers) inform them of both. Unfortunately, the Legislature has now spoken. If Laramie wants to harm tenants, property owners, AND the local economy with smothering regulations and overreaching bureaucracy, they are going to let us suffer for our own mistakes. Hopefully, we will learn from them.
I’m glad to be out of date, then. At the time I could read all the residential landlord-tenant law for the city and state and both law journal articles about it in one afternoon. I also carefully read every lease I ever signed and a few I never signed because of what I read in them. I was a clean and careful tenant and mostly had decent enough landlords.
But Laramie as a college town has a unique housing economy that still has a legacy of landlord predation on poor, relatively transient, and inexperienced renters. And I will grant that some of those renters do not take care of where they live (WyoTech students had the worst reputation, but male UW students probably were more grimy and damaging). But a community with unique housing needs can and should tailor their regulations to the needs of the population there. And rental units in Laramie have been habitually under-maintained for decades. Rather a lot of places should be torn down or gutted and completely renovated. Until the housing standards actually meet the health and safety needs of the most vulnerable, I think the city should do something.
As for your specific complaints about regulations that seem unnecessarily difficult and costly, I think you could probably get the city council to make some adjustments so that things like excessive carbon monoxide monitors and such are pared back. Maybe trade a few carbon monoxide sensors for periodic radon tests in risky areas. I’m assuming a lot of your feelings about additional time and cost for repairs are about needing licensed professionals to make those repairs — but renters with no repair expertise should have something beyond being forced to trust that their landlord isn’t making repairs that cut dangerous corners. Unless you want the city to start certifying handymen for repair competence in a way that isn’t the existing system of electrician and plumbing licensure, or having repairs approved one by one by a city inspector, I don’t see how else the system addresses the fact that a lot of landlords will absolutely neglect their properties to the point of ruining them just to avoid the effort, time, and cost of reasonable maintenance.
A lot of this regulation offends you as a reasonable landlord because you think your attitude towards protecting your investment and being a humane person is the most prevalent attitude among Laramie landlords. Unfortunately, there are plenty enough landlords who don’t have that attitude and they’re not the ones you’re talking to about this issue.
I do think worrying about regulatory efficacy is a completely reasonable position and it’s good to push at the parts of this that don’t fit community needs and goals. But it feels a lot like you’re reflexively against the city regulating this at all, and that feels disconnected from community needs. Also, I don’t think people in Woods Landing or Rock River have the same needs as those in Laramie. It is problematic that people living in places just outside of city limits don’t have the same recourse in this system as those within, but that doesn’t mean the city shouldn’t make and regulate standards within city limits — it means that the county has its own work to do on that.
Arguing over have gas detectors or such is emblematic of the Laramie rental market. The conditions of some rentals is truly disgusting. What a stain on the s city. The University could do so much more as well.
Carbon monoxide detectors make sense when there's actually a chance that carbon monoxide could do harm. But the Laramie ordinance goes overboard in this and also in other things. Have a gas furnace, boiler, or water heater anywhere in your building? With proper ventilation and flues that are clean and up to code? No matter; detectors are mandated in places where carbon monoxide would never build up. I cited this as an example because some members of Council -- in offline conversations -- did mention wanting to discourage or even ban the use of natural gas appliances (which would raise housing costs yet further). Just as, in some of those conversations, Council members described ALL rental property owners, even conscientious ones such as my family, as "slumlords" and "evil." Alas, some of Laramie's best landlords have been motivated by the City's regulatory overreach to sell, while the few bad ones are hanging on.
This is embarrassing. Get a real job.
In the past 24 hours, I manufactured keys to handle a tenant lock-out; fixed a toilet damaged by a tenant; did bookkeeping; filled out government tax paperwork; paid bills; ordered supplies; signed a new lease with a family who were having trouble finding quality housing that suited them (until they found us); updated Web pages; printed tickets for a rental Internet hotspot. This is a very real job that requires a vast array of skills.
A vast array of skills that somehow doesn't include looking out for your tenants' safety. Got it.
What you've "got" is a chip on your shoulder. We care a great deal about our tenants' safety. That's one of the reasons we oppose the city rental ordinance. It actually reduces tenant safety by delaying and impeding necessary repairs.
I may be mistaken, but I remember recent iterations of the Wyoming GOP platform having a statement to the effect that the most effective form of democracy is that which is closest to the people. In other words, it put a premium on local (city/county) government control. I do not see such a statement in the 2023 state GOP platform. That would align with present attempts to squelch local initiatives. As an aside, the 2023 WY GOP document, which is big on property rights, does not state that citizens should follow the law. Given that many Laramie landlords are not in compliance with the city’s ordinance, perhaps it is time for the law-and-order party to include such a statement.
Delegating control to the county courthouse rather than the City does not mean a loss of local control. The Albany County Courthouse is half a block from City Hall, and unlike the city has jurisdiction not just over the area within the city limits but over the entire county (where the area's most truly squalid rentals are located). Our local Circuit Court and Small Claims Court judges are very knowledgeable and no-nonsense. They don't take any guff from anyone... and have strongly favored tenants' rights. So, we already have local control, and it's BETTER local control because it can deal with issues that the City cannot. Think the state statute should be more explicit (even though the case law exists)? Legislators are open to that. What we do not need is another layer of ineffective, smothering bureaucracy. Laramie's ordinance has harmed tenants by raising rents, harming housing affordability, and decreasing housing availability. Regardless of your partisan affiliation (I am an independent voter who registers opportunistically), you should favor what works -- and the city ordinance, adopted with little thought from a city out of state where it was also not working, has been a flop. As a tenant myself, as well as an owner and manager, I'm a strong supporter of tenants' rights and also of fair treatment of EVERYONE in disputes regarding rentals. I hope you'll agree that, given the failure of the current ordinance, it's time to try something that's both more fair and more effective. The Legislature is willing to do that, and I think we should take them up on it.
Alas, Jeff Victor's highly biased account demonstrates that he's not a "reporter" but rather a highly opinionated blogger with axes to grind. He gives an incomplete account of my testimony, failing to note (for example) my important observation that Wyoming cities are simply not empowered to handle the most common tenant complaints: constructive eviction and disputes over deductions from security deposits. Nor can they deal with the relatively rare business practice issues Jeff mentions above, such as double-renting. These can only be handled by the County's civil courts. Jeff fails to note that Wyoming law already mandates that rentals be safe, sanitary, and habitable, and that case law has elaborated on these requirements and county courts have enforced them. He also fails to note that all those who testified in favor of the rental regulations are career bureaucrats who favor bloated government and regulatory overreach, or that Maximus Bosserei, Jeff's favorite "villianous landlord," has in fact had judgments entered against him in the Albany County Circuit Court and been forced to pay up when he hasn't dealt fairly with tenants. (I have copies of some of the judgments here on my desk.) In any event, whether you agree with me or not on any particular point, you deserve to know the whole story. So, to hear my full testimony, unfiltered by Jeff's extreme bias, go to https://youtu.be/U2Ona5NKANQ?t=8650. The testimony of Laramie's City Manager -- who traveled to Casper at your expense rather than using Zoom -- follows mine. (She was incorrect on several points, but alas I was not given an opportunity to rebut.)
It might be instructive to hear the views of present or past tenants of Mr. Glass, ideally uncoerced.
Well, I'm pleased to say that we've had very few tenants who have ever complained. And if any of them did post here, they'd be a small, self-selecting sample. In our family's 32 years in the business, through hundreds of leases, we've really worked hard to offer a quality product and to be highly responsive. (We started to manage rentals because we ourselves had had nonoptimal rental experiences and wanted to provide something better.) The few tenants with whom we haven't had good relationships (we occasionally do get problem tenants, though we check references) are far outnumbered by the ones who have moved out of town for one reason or another, come back, and CALLED US UP AGAIN to ask if we had any units available. They want to be repeat customers! We really do work hard at this, and we CARE about our tenants. We respect and even inform them of their rights. The City's ordinance burdens and penalizes the good guys while failing to do anything effective about the bad ones, which is why owners like the Bell family are selling out. And, alas, the buyers are often private equity firms which will NOT be good landlords.
I never got to write student evaluations on my performance. That seems appropriate. By analogy, I suggest this also applies whenever a landlord publicly claims a largely grateful tenantry .
All good businesses try to satisfy their customers, and our rate of repeat business is a good metric of our success (far better than an anecdotal review or two). You seem unwilling to believe that any landlord or rental property owner can be a good one. Alas, if you're that deeply prejudiced, there's no point trying to convince you otherwise.
The claims that the regulations in question are illegal have already been tested in court and were found to be compliant with state law and the Wyoming constitution.
This is not the case. The plaintiffs, who (unlike the city) were not funded by virtually unlimited taxpayer dollars, ran out of money and dropped the suit. (Their lawyers also were not the best; they failed to bring up several important points, including serious conflicts with both state statutes and the Constitution.) Instead, the plaintiffs decided they would just sell. They're liquidating their holdings now. Which is a shame, because they were generally considered to be among Laramie's best landlords.
The city of Laramie's budget is a lot tighter than you imply here, and I find it strange that a judge would make a ruling that the city code is legal and enforceable if the suit was dropped.
The City has wasted millions of dollars, over the years, defending against citizen lawsuits which rightly pointed out that it had exceeded its authority. But it seems, alas, always to find the money to defend bureaucracy, even though this takes funds away from vital services it should be providing. As for the ruling that WAS made in the suit: It found some parts of the ordinance to be legal and others to be illegal. It didn't reach many of the plantiffs' complaints and left them unresolved. The judge quit immediately after issuing it, and the plaintiffs appealed. But they dropped the appeal due to a lack of funds, and also because they felt that Laramie was heading the wrong way -- toward overregulation and overbearing bureaucracy -- and they no longer wanted to do business here. Sadly, they gave up on our city.
The city amended the code to make the parts which had been ruled against compliant.
They did make some amendments, but their legality hasn't been tested. Neither has the legality of the points on which the judge did not rule. There may yet be challenges in the future. But my main point, above, is that regardless of legality (and I do believe that much if not all of the ordinance is illegal), the ordinance is not working. It is not helping tenants, and it is driving away good landlords while discouraging development and impacting our supply of affordable housing. As the old saying goes, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." It's time for a different approach, and I like the one the Legislature is considering.
Bret, have you advocated for the Albany County Commissioners to adopt the city’s goals for tenant safety? I know that you feel like carbon monoxide detectors and registering rentals is onerous, and the City of Laramie doesn’t deserve much trust in its ability or willingness to actually protect the citizenry from abuse, but the county couldn’t/wouldn’t even serve legal papers to an egregious scofflaw who obviously habitually abused his tenants. I’m not convinced the county would do a better job here, because it’s very clear the county has already failed at doing the things it’s already supposed to be doing to address this problem.
I trust you are better than the worst of the town’s landlords because that isn’t a high bar to clear. You benefit from their predation in ways you say are proof you’re an excellent landlord — tenants stay with you and come back to your properties. But when the alternative is sifting through sometimes literal shit and dealing with landlords who threaten and steal from tenants, yeah tenants are going to settle for a common stone among turds. Don’t think this means you’re diamonds and gold.
And I’ve just bought new carbon monoxide detectors — they’re pretty cheap and nowadays you can get ones that will connect to wifi for purposes of alerting you when they go off and when you need to change the batteries and when they need to be tested. I know you’re big on internet privacy and I assume suspicious of IoT stuff, rightfully so. But this is one case where I think getting a bulk order of connected smoke/CO detectors is worth the cost both in dollars and privacy. Just think of the ones in places you deem overkill as backup in case of failure and the cost far less than the worth of lives and raised insurance premiums. If you can save up enough to buy property to rent to other people, you can get a small business loan to pay for anything you can’t cover with your existing cash-on-hand for maintenance and improvements. If your time is the issue, hire help.
You are incorrect. Not only did the Circuit Court serve papers to Jeff's favorite "villainous" landlord, but it entered multiple judgments against him. I have copies here on my desk. The court is very good at enforcing state laws. You just have to go to it and ask.
As for carbon monoxide detectors: They are appropriate only in certain locations. The City's ordinance intentionally goes overboard, apparently because some members of Council appear interested in banning natural gas appliances altogether (even though tenants prefer them). Want a so-called "smart" carbon monoxide detector? Sorry, no can do. The City's overly restrictive ordinance won't allow them. We have not found one yet that meets the city's strict requirement for a very specific UL certification, so you could not use one and satisfy the ordinance.
We provide quality, safe accommodations at reasonable rents and are fair to our tenants, who (alas) often damage properties and do not follow the written agreements they signed with us.. Your message above shows that you do not understand the nuances of the business (which is already regulated by MULTIPLE Federal agencies and by state law) and apparently think that rental property owners are made of money. We're not, and we often take losses on our rentals.
The lesson to be learned from all of this is simple. Want to drive up the cost and reduce the supply of anything? Overregulate and micromanage it. That's what the city is doing, and the result is harm to tenants.