Here is CBS Coverage of the issue.

Thank you for Street Crimes supervisor Kent Perlich for sharing this link with me.  This is a very good description of why I am so concerned about about what is going on in Dennis Weestrand’s building

A crime not as victimless as advertised by Julia O’Malley Read the rest of this entry »

From the Twin Cities.com

Hyder Jaweed and Asgher Ali have figured out how to skirt the rules, say numerous housing inspectors.

The landlords — who have owned at least 17 rental properties in the Twin Cities and Rochester over the past 10 years — allow problems such as bedbugs, cockroaches, mold and leaking pipes to fester, ignoring complaints from residents and failing to make repairs until faced with sanctions that would hit their pocketbook, according to public records and interviews with tenants and former employees.

Inspectors say the properties owned by the Jaweed brothers are usually a revolving door of problems, taxing overworked and underfunded rental inspection programs.

Jaweed, 34, and Ali (aka Jaweed), 29, are “the worst of the worst,” said Rochester’s manager of housing inspections, Susan LeGare-Gulden.

Despite rental license revocations, multiple citations for code violations, liens, bankruptcies and foreclosures, the brothers have remained in the rental business for 10 years — while their tenants often live in problem-riddled buildings.

Inspectors say the Jaweeds are great at stalling — not applying for a rental license in a timely manner, not showing up for scheduled inspections and not fixing housing-code violations until after inspectors make two or three return visits. Then, at the last minute, they pay the bills to keep the utilities from being shut off or fix the housing code violations to avoid being sanctioned.

“They pull

---

Advertisement

---

The Jaweeds declined multiple requests for interviews.

Public records and interviews with city inspectors show the back-and-forth between them and the officials who repeatedly try to make them comply with regulations.

Court documents also show how the brothers have made it difficult for tenants, creditors and city officials to pinpoint who owns their buildings and is responsible for payments.

through when it’s clutch time,” said John Crelly, Fridley’s assistant fire chief.

It sure does if community leaders let you get away with it.

The photo is of a blighted cut-up formerly beautiful home in Kutzky Park.

I originally came up with this example to illustrate some basic financial principles to my corporate finance students.  I hope I am not creating a new generation of slumlords.  I mentioned this in passing to a friend in the Kutzky Park neighborhood and suddenly generated a tremendous amount of interest.  The moral of this lesson is that if you have little regulation and no morals you can make a nice return being a slumlord. Read the rest of this entry »

Landlords laws regarded as good compromise

From the Post Bulletin:

It’s not what anyone involved would call perfect, but a set of new rental-housing ordinances is viewed by landlords as acceptable and by city council members as an improvement.

“It’s a good step forward,” said council member Michael Wojcik. “This takes care of a lot of problems. I would have liked to have seen it tougher than it is, but I think we will go back and revisit it … in the future.”

The city council approved the ordinances last week by a series of 7-0 and 6-1 votes. Wojcik cast the dissenting vote after one ordinance was changed, weakening it more than he could abide.

My priority has been and will continue to be the safety and quality of life in my neighborhoods.

I am required to provide another update as there was an early morning change that the city council made that I feel is soft on crime and puts public safety at greater risk.  I was caught completely unaware of this when Ed Hruska brought it up at the end of a five and a half hour meeting. Read the rest of this entry »

This is so cool.  Every city should have one of these.

http://advocate.nyc.gov/landlord-watchlist

As I have stated time and time again:

• Most of our landlords are responsible and law abiding, some are not.
• The city council has never shut down a good landlord.
• Public safety is the number one priority. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently we did the first reading of a landlord ordinance aimed at a severe crackdown on some of Rochester’s persistent problem “Slumlords.”  I will have much more on the changes when this becomes law. While this has caused some angst with some landlords; in time they will see that this will not be a tool to hurt responsible landlords.  (Or else they can give me a big, “I told you so…”)

One suggestion from some good landlords that came out of nowhere was that the city could should not issue “disorderly” property violations to properties unless the tenant also got a disorderly conduct citation.

Seems fair right?

Read the rest of this entry »