8 Children Die in Fire in Building with Code Violations
Yesterday I had the privilege of teaching Advanced Legal Aspects of Code Enforcement for Property Maintenance Inspectors for the Missouri Association of Code Enforcement at Lake of the Ozarks, MO. Today I read the headlines about the 8 children killed in a fire in a building in Chicago with code violations. The owner was already in court for this building that the Chicago Sun-Times said was without working smoke detectors. I remember telling the inspectors yesterday that they save lives by doing their jobs and that rental inspection programs are a key part of enforcement. It is just so sad that this loss of life happens when these tragedies can be prevented yet some landlords resist spending the money necessary to ensure their buildings are safe. In Illinois we have tried to get legislation passed so that non-home rule communities can license landlords but the proposed bills always die because of opposition by those who do not care enough about the safety of the public. What a waste of young lives.
There are thousands of landlords who read the threads on Property118, but only perhaps a few dozen who actually post comments regularly (let alone post new threads), so as a whole landlords are their own worst enemy as they cannot stand up with one powerful voice and make themselves heard and understood. The likes of Shelter, and Generation Rent, are united in one cause (deriding the private landlords) and they know how to shout their message loud and clear to both the public and the politicians. Their anti landlord stance is accepted by the public and the politicians as being the truth, even though most of it is a lie (exaggerations of a few “bad landlord cases). How can a whispered truth be heard when a lie is being shouted out from all directions?