Probably the overwhelming majority of apartment renters have a
good relationship with their landlord. They are furnished a safe and
desirable place to live, for which they are appreciative and willing
to rent at a fair market price for the opportunity to do so.
Unfortunately, there are a few landlords who abuse their tenants,
with disregard for rundown or decrepit living quarters or
inconsiderate evictions. It was these few landlords who prompted
certain members of the Glendale City Council to vote in favor of an
ordinance that many good tenants will live to regret.
Why would anyone want to copy similar ordinances that have caused
housing devastation wherever applied? It was a typical political
knee-jerk reaction to kill a flea with a cannon. No longer will good
tenants be able to entice landlords to evict obnoxious neighbors.
Drug dealers, child molesters and other undesirables will know
that a landlord cannot and will not go through the expense and
hassle it would take, under the ordinance, to evict them.
Good tenants will suffer. Undesirable tenants will celebrate.
Good tenants will understand their lifestyle, or perhaps their
very life, might be endangered if they openly complain.
Their testimony in court will not be forthcoming when necessary to
get a court order to forcefully evict an undesirable neighbor. Their
only options will be to move out of Glendale or put up with it.
For all intents and purposes, their landlord's hands are tied, and
undesirables will know it.
It will be surprising if most good tenants do not realize, in due
time, that a grave mistake was made by the majority of the council
who voted for the ordinance.
These good tenants have a vote, and their out will be to get rid
of those council members the next time their names appear on the
ballot.
Instead, they should vote for someone else without an agenda and
with a modicum of common sense and judgment.
In the meantime, all they can do is live with the consequences of
some misled members of their council or move elsewhere to a
jurisdiction without self-destructive laws enacted for a few at the
expense of a majority.
GENE GUSTAVSON
Glendale
