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27 Comments:
Tenants at a twice-condemned St. Paul apartment complex are fed up with vermin and other problems.
By CHRIS HAVENS, Star Tribune
Last update: November 8, 2008 - 7:44 AM
Teresa Alcantor and her husband put off buying a crib for their 2-week-old daughter because they knew it would get infested with bedbugs at their St. Paul apartment.
So last week they moved, after throwing their clothes, linens and furniture in the trash.
The building they left, and one next to it, have been condemned by the city of St. Paul because of infestations -- of bedbugs, roaches and rodents -- and a "general lack of maintenance," according to inspection reports.
The residents of 280 and 300 Fuller Av. are being allowed to stay because the landlord is making an effort to fix the list of problems, according to a city official. While the property, a seven-building complex with 84 units, has a history of complaints to the city, it wasn't until a tenant-advocacy group began organizing renters a few months ago that the infestation problems became more widely recognized.
James Tindall, owner of Pro One Management, which runs the complex, has his own complaints. He says Community Stabilization Project (CSP) organizers are harassing his renters and aren't willing to work with him. He said the advocacy group has been telling tenants they don't have to pay rent.
CSP, which is based in St. Paul, has indeed been organizing tenants since it received a complaint this summer about the insect problem. Organizers held meetings with tenants and tried to negotiate -- to no avail -- with Tindall, said organizer Ben Lenyard. Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, which provides free legal help to low-income people, also got involved at CSP's request.
Many tenants at the complex, between Interstate 94 and University Avenue near Marion Street, are low income and don't speak English as their first language.
Lenyard said he has received nearly 20 complaints from people who showed him scars or shared gross tales about the bedbug problems. "Time and time again we've gone over, seen roaches, bedbugs, and the management has stressed they've done all they can do," he said.
Bedbugs are difficult to get rid of and, while annoying, aren't believed to transmit diseases to humans. Landlords are expected to eradicate the pests.
Tindall said it was the "sanitary conditions of the residents themselves" that propagated the bug problem. He also acknowledged: "We didn't police it as diligent as we should, have."
The two buildings were inspected on Sept. 26 and found to be "unfit for human habitation," according to city records. An inspector made a list of things that needed to be fixed and set another inspection for last week. The buildings were condemned again, but several items on the list had been dealt with, according to the reports. Another inspection is set for Dec. 3.
"We're working with the owner, who has been very cooperative," said Bob Kessler, director of the city's Department of Safety and Inspections. Kessler said there's no immediate danger to the residents and no need to put dozens of people on the streets.
A lot of the city's orders sound worse than they really are, Kessler said.
Avoiding homelessness
Cassandra Netzke, an attorney with Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, said she worked with the city to keep the residents in the building.
"Our goal is to prevent homelessness. If it's anything less than life safety issues, they're willing to help us work with the court process," she said. She was going to file a legal motion on behalf of the tenants, but is holding off because the landlord seems responsive. Still, she said, infestations and "general lack of maintenance" aren't problems that happen overnight.
Tindall says he has exterminators out regularly.
Socorro Senske, 68, who has lived in 300 Fuller for about five years, said she hasn't had problems with insects in her apartment for a while, but she has scars on her arms to show past bites.
She says neighbors complain to her about things not getting fixed. "A lot of people who don't speak English and they come to me to complain, and my Spanish isn't that good, but I try to let the caretaker know," she said.
Mari Lecours, executive director of CSP, said it's common for renters who don't speak English well to be afraid of speaking up.
Tindall said renters shouldn't have anything to fear if they have a complaint to lodge.
He ticked off a list of improvements made to the complex, such as a new asphalt parking lot and new soffits, that cost him tens of thousands of dollars. He said he has added a full-time maintenance person to his staff and is hiring contractors to make repairs.
"It's about time, but he should have started a long time ago," said Senske, who has put some of her stuff in boxes just in case she is forced to leave because of condemnation.
For Alcantor and family, the frustration was too much and the fixes too late.
Tindall said he has an "open checkbook" to get everything fixed. "I don't mind doing the work. It's too bad it had to come to this point."
Chris Havens • 651-298-1542
Sounds like that place needs a good cleaning out. Someone better call ICE.
I've known several landlords who have had these problems and it is always the fault of the renter. When the landlord tries to get rid of the problem the renter will never cooperate and do the things they need to do to get rid of the insects or rodents. Most of the time when they complain it is when they don't have the rent to pay.
Do tenants EVER do anything worng or is it just the landlords who are ALWAYS at fault?
When will these slimball landlord stop bringing their pet bed bugs to work and letting them go.j/k
Mexican Americans are great workers but need to better their hygene.
Brad
Love the comments. It always is so reenforcing of the landlords claim that they are the one's that care about the tenants... sick bastards...
Its a business, you have to have exterminators, its the way life is. Just because one of your tenants brings bugs into the building, its no excuse for you to not protect your other tenants. Its a part of the job.
You would think some times that the City was making people buy rental property. Putting a gun to their head.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
The Orin pest control guy has specfically stated that the Samolians are mainly to blame f the bed bugs and that it is very expensive and extremely diffucult to get rid of the bugs due to the poor housekeeping habits of the Samolians, maybe they should be required totake a course in living standards and housekeeping in the US before they are pemited to infest other peoples live with bed bugs. No exterminating will wor if the tenant does not do their part "CLEAN THEIR LIVING QUARTERS!"
Chuck aren't you the guy who supported your buddies at city hall to exterminate the poor tenants out of St.Paul?
Sid
Sid,
No I am the guy who stands up for the people that actually live in Saint Paul.
Nobody should have to live like this. You can not inflict suffering on the rest of your tenants because of the problems of one.
Don't like it?
Get out of the business.
You don't have a god given right to exploit the poor.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Same old mentality.....the landlords fault. The landlords exploit the tenants because the tenants refuse to do their part in helping the landlord get rid of the tenants problem. I'm really so sick of hearing this lame old line about the landlords.
Sid,
I have a duplex where someone from one of these lists decided to call DSI for violations, like "chalking paint" (not peeling, but it was dusty, paint dust would come off when you touched it) and a burned out car of a tenant (her boyfriend toarched her car, and someone from this list called it in... poor woman still owed money on it so she didn't have the ability to junk it...).
Yup its a real class list here of scum balls and bullies and hate anyone that stands up to them.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
You are a real piece of work Repke.
This is a resident & landlord's worst nightmare.
It is very hard for landlords (or anyone) to kill these pests. It requires lots of poison coordinated with resident cleaning.
The residents cannot move away from the problem as the pests will move with them. Their only real solution is to throw everything away and start over.
I thought these things were an old wives tale until 1-2 years ago.
What a nightmare!
Bill Cullen
Yet on the other Hand, Dave Thune is writing off bad city loans, discovered by www.billdahn.blogspot.com, today at the HRA meeting "charge off a $88 thous + interest Loan"HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
OF THE CITY OF SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA
REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONERS DATE: NOVEMBER 12, 2008
REGARDING: CHARGE OFF OF A LOAN TO MARGAUX LIMITEE, INC. AND MARGARET
Chuck the chalking paint could have been lead.Did you have it tested?If you didn't way to be safe for the little ones living at or around your neighborhood.And the burned out car,well,quit renting to criminals who cause crime in the neighborhood.Did you do backround checks?
You act as these weren't code violations.Big deal if someone reported you.A code violation is a code violation.So if someone wouldn't have called you wouldn't have fixed them?Way to be proactive.
Chuck hows it feel to get called in on?How would you like it if code enforcemnet was driving around looking at all your properties without a complaint to write them up?Your lucky you only have one.
Suck it up wuss!
Sid
Two points.
Bill D - if you understood anything about either government or finance you would realize that when a borrower goes bad and they have no assets and they have gone bankrupt any you have no way to get any money out of them, good accounting practices require you to write the debt off of the books.
Otherwise the HRA appears to have an asset on their books that doesn't exist. The borrower has gone bankrupt, all of their assets are gone, the obligation has become meaningless, good accounting practices require the HRA to remove that number from the "monies that are owed to us" collumn. Nothing has changed when they do this other than to admit to the public that the debt went bad and it can no longer be collected.
And Sid, I'm a big boy, I take my lumps. I am just letting you know what kind of scum I think you are. I have taken on bullies and cowards like you all of my life.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
How could we ever blame the owner of the property for the actually problems of the property.
You guys bitch and blame the tenants when you're targeted for behavioral issues,
You bitch and blame the tenants when it comes to property or structural issues.
Just what responsibility does a landlord have?
You guys tell me.
Eric
Landlords have the duty to provide decient safe housing.If a tenant has caused bed bugs it should be the landlords responsibility to either exterminate the bugs and charge the tenant or get rid of the tenant and fix the problem.Landlords should not allow one bad tenant affect the living of another.So if the landlord doesn't do either of the above and the problem spreds the landlord should be held responsible.
Landlords should also understand that renting to this class a people is a very hard and time consuming job.Theres a lot of problems that come along with lower rung tenants.
So my advice is you either rent to these people and deal with the shit or raise your standards to weed these folks out.
Jim
The City Council wrote off the loan on the Excel, when the owner of the Wild's Hockey Team decided not to pay back the City for the loan to build it.
The city owns it and the tax payers paid for it by default.
Right?
Did Excel pay $1,000,000 to the owner of the Wild to put their name on the building?
Smart Guy, Come Back with the cities excuse.
.
No - not $1,000,000, $100,000,000
Right Chuck.
Excuse me, if that is the case it is news to me. The last I knew the Wild were making their payments on the bonds for the building. And the naming rights are the Wild's and they are the ones that are getting paid by Xcel to have Xcel's name on the building.
The deal on the Civic Center was roughly 1/3 the State 1/3 the City 1/3 the Wild.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Thanks Jim, that makes sense to me.
It seems that this landlord did nothing. The immediate response from the usual crowd on here was to go after the tenants. All tenants did not cause the problem and should not be treated as so.
Second, as Chuck points out, no one put a gun to any Landlords head and forced them into this business.
Third, their true feeling of contempt come out when they aren't in a courtroom pretending to care about poor people's rights to a place to live.
------
Swiftee,
Would like some coffee with that side of bigotry? You can explain why its not bigotry to read Hispanic surnames and make an assumption about illegal immigration.
Unless you know for a fact they are illegal, then it goes back to the landlord on the wonderful background check they do and how they aren't responsible for the type of people they rent to. Can't have it both ways.
Brad, you're a dick.
Eric
Thanks Eric.But I do wonder if all landlords did backround checks and had a tough rental criteria it would drastically reduce the number of housing units for borderline tenants.
I know Bill has asked before but no one ever wants to flirt with the criteria.
Are past evictions fine?If so how long ago?
Are criminal backrounds ok?If so how long ago?
What is Income to rent ratio?
Should you rent to section 8?
Is bad credit ok?If so How bad?
Can tenants that are approved have people with criminal backrounds over to visit.Because I've found in most cases these are the people causing problems.
Being a landlord you must ask these questions and I believe the tougher you application process to weed people out the easier and less head aches you'll have.If you want to rent to the lower teir I'd suggest you become a non profit because your cost to operate will skyrocket.I've done both and I now choose market rent properties and its be unbelievably easy to run.
You get what you rent to.
Jim
That is true Jim but where do you feel these less then desirable citizens should live? Not in St.Paul I am assuming as the consequences are too costly for the private rental sector.
It has been burned in my head by St.Paul that its not my job to find a place for these people to rent.Its my job to make my business the most profitable it can be at the same time a responsible landlord.It may be selfish but like I said I'm in business for profit and I can't expose myself to financial loses.
Maybe Chuck could house some of these folks.Chuck?
A lot of these wonderful neighborhoods that Chuck and Eric talk about are so bad that only the scum will rent there. So where's the city's responsibility in enforcing the laws and dealing with the real problems so that decent people will move in? Also, when you do get bad people, where is the city's responsibility to be a partner and do something to help you get rid of these people instead of actually enabling them by letting the code enforcement department be used as a litigation tool by the tenant. The BS that Chuck and Eric talk is just that BULLSHIT! It gets government off the hook for everything they refuse to do and instead blame it off on innocent 3rd parties. The bad tenant issue is a very real part of the equation here and not one of these "know it alls" want to address it. You guys are being intellectually dishonest.
Maybe Obamma will get us better tenants!
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