College Towns and Fire Code Violations
College towns and code violations go together like students and text books. Students seek cheap housing and are willing to live in terrible conditions if the price is right. Some landlords take advantage of this by not maintaining their buildings and others are fearful of the damage student tenants cause and are reluctant to spend money on upkeep because of that. Inspectors are usually pretty busy in areas where there are colleges and universities. A tragedy was averted when a fraternity house was shut down by the Troy Fire Department in New York after deadly levels of carbon monoxide were found. The fire department and the fraternity house are working to fix the problems before the students return. It’s imperative that college towns have an effective rental inspection program to make sure the housing meets minimum safety standards. A faithful reader points out additional fires in student rental housing in Bellingham on his website at http://www.zonemaven.blogspot.com/ I wish him luck on his attempt to get the local government to adopt such a program. Landlords will always object to the implementation of such an ordinance but the price in lives is too high not to have one.
