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City Hall

A Few Examples of Substandard Housing In Seattle

Published May 11, 2010, 12:00pm

By Erica C. Barnett

As noted in today's PubliCalendar, the city council's Committee on the Built Environment will consider legislation tomorrow to create an inspection program for the city's rental housing. (I've written about the details of that program here and here).

I just checked out the presentation the committee will see tomorrow, which gives a few examples of the kinds of rental units the program is designed to address. According to the city's Department of Planning and Development, a less-stringent state law passed with the blessing of both landlord and tenant advocates this year—which bars only housing that directly threatens tenant's health or safety--would not allow the city to deny a rental license to the owners of any of these units.

A tenant living in a downstairs space in between the walls of a house:

A room without a ceiling:

A crawl space "unit" with a dirt floor:

An apartment with the toilet in the kitchen:

I get that tenant advocates want to prevent the closure or destruction of low-income housing, but it's hard to see how anyone benefits from the preservation of units like these.

File Under: City Hall, City Council, Department of Planning and Development, rental housing inspection

Erica, have you read the new state law?? "Certificate of inspection" means an unsworn statement, declaration, verification, or certificate made in accordance with the requirements of RCW 9A.72.085 by a qualified inspector that states that the landlord has not failed to fulfill any substantial obligation imposed under RCW 59.18.060 has not failed to fulfill any substantial obligation imposed under RCW 59.18.060 that endangers or impairs the health or safety of a tenant, including (a) structural members that are of insufficient size or strength to carry imposed loads with safety, (b) exposure of the occupants to the weather, (c) plumbing and sanitation defects that directly expose the occupants to the risk of illness or injury, (d) not providing facilities adequate to supply heat and water and hot water as reasonably required by the tenant, (e) providing heating or ventilation systems that are not functional or are hazardous, (f) defective, hazardous, or missing electrical wiring or electrical service, (g) defective or hazardous exits that increase the risk of injury to occupants, and (h) conditions that increase the risk of fire.
Posted by LH about 3 years Ago
If one chooses to pay presumably cheaper rent at a places like this, how exactly is one being hurt? Are we to say that an individual is unable to determine whether they can accept the trade-off of reduced rent for a reduction in quality of life? The people who benefit from the preservation of these units is obviously those who choose to rent them.
Posted by John Jensen about 3 years Ago
My sister shared a house with 14 people in college. One guy lived in a closet. Yeah, it probably wasn't the most comfortable condition, but he was able to pay his way through UC Santa Cruz with the type of job a college student can get. I get that we want to ban unsafe housing, and I suppose I could support that. Especially if they can show that people are really getting hurt in these rentals. But if you ban these kinds of rentals, consider banning homelessness as well.
Posted by Matt_the_Engineer about 3 years Ago
The problem is the landlords who rent spaces like this are some of the biggest sleazebags in the city. Think of Drake Sisley, or Eric Hilton. They play games that can make it hard to move into a unit run by a more responsible landlord. Things like lots of surprise fees, refusing to give back security deposits, or giving bad rental references on tenants that are trying to move out. Their units often have serious health and safety violations. They retaliate against anyone they find complaining about conditions, including shut off utilities.
Posted by Chris Stefan about 3 years Ago
Yeah, it's not things like this that I'd push for inspections on. I'm talking no water, no hot water, no plumbing, no electric, exposed wires, asbestos, etc. etc. If people want to live in a crawl space like it's a Tokyo hotel to save money, more power to them, as long as they have full safe unfettered access to essentials. Comfort & style = does not equal safety and human needs. If you banned these you'd ban 25% of the rentals in some cities. I can think of one guy in NYC that lived in a glorified closet with not even an electrical outlet of his own -- and this was a professional earning $50k at least. On the other cost extreme, if someone only earns $10k, are we going to disenfranchise them? Is the goal of this legislation to limit rentals to the pros or to make rentals safe? It's the former: fuck that, and I hope that Publicola would only be willing to cheerlead the latter.
Posted by Joe Szilagyi about 3 years Ago
But how will removing these units get them out of the rental game? Won't they just be renting legal units using sleezy tactics, but now at higher prices? It seems like either regulating rental practices or building nonprofit rental organizations would be a better way to solve that problem.
Posted by Matt_the_Engineer about 3 years Ago
The games you talk about should be illegal, and most of them probably are. Does outlawing units like this make them cease to exist or simply make their management move toward a black market where "contracts" are enforced by power instead of the rule of law? It's not right not ban "uncomfortable" living situations based on anecdotal stories, especially since comfort is subjective.
Posted by John Jensen about 3 years Ago
Pretty sure people aren't choosing to live in places like this. More like being forced into it by economic necessity.
Posted by Dan about 3 years Ago
Living in homes like this is a choice - at a minimum, a choice between a roof (or apparently piece of plastic) over your head or living on the street. It's no longer a choice when you price someone out of this market and they have to live on the street.
Posted by Matt_the_Engineer about 3 years Ago
You are mischaracterizing the words "choice" and "force." I choose to pay rent for my room rather than go homeless -- someone much poorer than faces that same choice but of course with a much more limited supply available for him. The most explicit results of decreasing that supply is higher rents and homelessness, not an improved standard of living. Unless any ban is paired with some way of ensuring that homelessness ceases to exist, it is unwise and unintentionally cruel.
Posted by John Jensen about 3 years Ago
but it’s hard to see how anyone benefits from the preservation of units like these. Well its better than being homeless. Anytime you regulate stuff like this you reduce the amount of especially very low income housing. I'm not saying that we should not regulate, but we have to do it with the understanding that we are often eliminating the very cheap housing that people unfortunately depend on. I am more concerned with landlords lying to tenants, raising the rent unlawfully, and things like that then people saying here is the shithole I have, you want it for 200 a month? To a person sleeping under a bridge that might be a pretty decent place. And I have really yet to see anything that says its better to inspect everything vs spending a few hundred grand to make the request system currently in place more well know. How about just requiring landlords to hand out a pamphlet?
Posted by giffy about 3 years Ago
I think if I let a friend sleep on my couch, and then if that lasts a while and I ask for $50 for the pleasure, I'm not a landlord. But if I call myself a landlord, and have that control (credit checks, ability to turn non-payment over to collections), I think holding me to a higher, still very low, standard would be appropriate. And if I make him a glass of lemonade with water from Lake Washington I'm not a retailer. But if I want to sell that to a wider public I might need to prove that it was safe. And I might need to get chewed if it made the public sick. Mostly, I just like the thoughts here by caring people on both sides. Good food.
Posted by Barleywine about 3 years Ago

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