On 3/6/03 5:33 PM, "steven meldahl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Spoken by a true tenant, probably. We landlords are not in the > babysitting business. I have personally convinced a few Mpls Housing > inspectors to send the orders for such things as: mowing grass, > shovelling sidewalks, picking up garbage, fixing damages caused by the > tenant's kids, and other things that are obviously under the "direction > and control" of the tenant directly to the tenant. Guess what happens? > > I get a call from the tenant who asks why the "man" ie the City, is > after them. I tell them to clean up their act or they are gone, and > surprise surprise they clean up their act. It changes their behavior > and what is great about it, their kids see them maintaning the house and > grounds better!! Now I am not the Big Bad landlord picking on them and > they become some of my best tenants. I think this concept is called, > "being responsible for your own actions". Quite a novel idea here in > liberalville, USA. I'm sorry, but I see this in a different light. If you own a property, you're responsible for it, whether you live there or not. Steve refers to it as babysitting, but if your tenant is acting like a baby, then either babysit or get a new tenant. Steve says that "being responsible for your own actions" is a novel concept in Minneapolis. I say Steve is trying to push off his responsibilities as a property owner on Minneapolis Inspections by making them play the bad guy so he doesn't have to. Let me add that I also serve as a landlord of sorts, since I am an officer of my fraternity's alumni board, which owns three chapter houses in Dinkytown. As annoying as orders from Minneapolis housing inspectors can sometimes be, I WANT Minneapolis to send that stuff to me and not just to the tenant. Since I also have a full-time job and other commitments, I can't always get to the chapter on a weekly basis to make sure my "tenants" are maintaining the property as they're supposed to. Then I know when I have to go and play the Big Bad landlord. I don't like it, but it's part of the job. If I just wait for the "tenant" to call me and complain about "the man" as Steve apparently prefers to do, I may never get that call. I'm sure I'm not the only landlord whose tenants would ignore an order from Inspections since most tenants probably know that it's the property owner who's going to be penalized if nothing is done. In my case, the "tenants" could really give a fig what Minneapolis Inspections says but when I or one of our other alumni officers stops by, they pay attention. And by the way, I don't get paid for this, so any for-profit landlords who are complaining about it should consider looking for another line of work rather than whining about Minneapolis inspectors who are just trying to do their jobs. Mark Snyder Windom Park TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
