Re: [Mpls] Re: Truth in Housing

[Lisa McDonald]

Having just gone through truth-in-housing to get my house ready to sell and having voted against the program when in office I can explain whay it should go.   1. Last year I ran into a woman who bought her house in 1998 and completed the health and safety repairs. When she went to sell the house in 2001 the work completion still hadn't been rechecked by inspections. Last time I looked they were about 2,000 inspections behind. The city shouldn't have a program if it can't preform in a timely manner.   2. When the program was originally proposed Council members were taken around on a tour of several homes and the basic health and safety issues amounted to about seven to ten items...i.e. bad foundations, dangerous plumbing and electricity, etc. Now however the list has grown to many more items.   3. In my case I got a pre-truth-in housing inspection (since I wanted to take care of any health and safety violations before they were  tagged...knowing full well it might take forever to get re-inspected). I have always pulled permits for all the work I have had done on my house so didn't think there would be too many problems. I had to replace some FHA jacks with wooden posts and cement plinth blocks. I didn't have a problem with this.   However I had several other items, including dead wiring that I had to hire an electrician to take out (it's beyond me why this is a health and safety problem). But the real kick was that my basement drain not only has a drain cover but another small hole next to it that should have a plug in it (about an inch across). This is cited as a health and safety problem, but the inspector said they don't make the plugs anymore so you couldn't fix it if you tried. So what is the solution? You're supposed to cement over the whole drain, so you no longer have a floor drain in your basement. If that isn't dumb I don't know what is. Oh and the alternative is to dig up the basement floor and take out the drain (about 8 gazillion dollars).   Plus if you do the pre-inspection you pay $100 up front and have to pay a $50 reinspection fee after. And the inspector had to reissue my certificate because he missed the things I fixed the second time through. Total cost...over $2000 for the inspection and contractors to do the work.   You talk to any real estate agent in this town and they can give you horror stories about this program. It might have started out as a good idea but like a lot of government it has grown into a monster.   Lisa McDonald East Harriet   ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Bonham Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 9:02 PM To: mpls-issues Subject: [Mpls] Re: Truth in Housing   Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com