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'Problem properties' rules could be used against landlords who rent to students


Police supt. on 102 Blue Hill Ave.: "Something no 12-year-old should have to experience."

A day after police and inspectors swooped down on a Blue Hill Avenue building nearby residents called a criminal warren, city councilors and lawyers began hammering out an ordinance for cracking down on owners of troubled apartments - including a provision that would require licensing for landlords with repeat offenses.

The council could vote next Wednesday on the three proposed ordinances, which would authorize a Problem Property Task Force to coordinate action against landlords who fail to curb problems, as well as a mechanism for billing landlords for police details stationed at properties until the problems are cleaned up. Mayor Menino recently signed an executive order to set up the task force.

Although criminal hives like 102 Blue Hill Ave. got the most attention, City Councilor Michael Ross and some of his neighbors on Mission Hill said they hoped the city would also use the measure as a lever against landlords who rent apartments to students.

One resident told councilors students are sort of a gateway drug to worse problems - including drug sales - and that she and other residents shouldn't have to put up with feeling like their neighborhood has become a college campus.

City Councilor Maureen Feeney emphasized licensing would only be a last step, and only for landlords with problems - not for owners of all of the city's roughly 170,000 rental units.

"Most of you will never, ever feel any effect," Feeney told landlords in attendance. "This is not a 'got you,' this is a 'we've had enough.' "

City Council President Steve Murphy said he is fed up with landlords who run "houses of havoc" that can cause "a rapid descent into the sewer."

"We are going to get tough with those who completely plague us," he vowed.

Skip Schloming, director of the Small Property Owners Association, said some problem properties may not be the landlords' faults - he blamed state laws that make it difficult to evict problem tenants and urged councilors to convince the state legislature to set up a rent escrow system, in which tenants fighting eviction would have to continue to pay rent, even if into an independent escrow account.

Schloming also said city inspectors need to stop pestering landlords with what he called minor complaints, such as missing window screens. Feeney, for the most part very sympathetic toward landlords, blasted Schloming for that "double standard," asking if he would tolerate living in a home with missing screens and said little things like that can lead to large things.

Feeney said she hopes to have a single ordinance ready for council action next week - drafted out of two proposed rules by the mayor and one by the council.

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Comments

My apartment is missing about 3 screens on the front porch. At least one of those has been missing since shortly after I moved in over 10 years ago.

I have not yet turned to a life of crime. How long should I wait for the transformation?

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The issue about window screens might be to help prevent young children from falling out of a window. There were a few cases 2 or 3 summers ago where this happened and the local media went into a frenzy as the apartments in question didn't have window screens.

However, the City has a page saying screens aren't designed to stop kids from falling out:
http://www.bphc.org/programs/cib/healthyhomescommu...

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Man, I lived in a place for three years with missing screens! I wish I'd have known this!

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So you don't like your neighborhood full of students. That's funny, some people feel the same way about black people, hispanic people, working-class people, etc. You don't get to decide who your neighbors are unless you live in and own the building.

Too bad. Go after the problem houses that are violating all sorts of code rules and persons who violate the laws, certainly - but students in general have a right, as legal adults, to execute contracts and live where they please. Tough tater tots. What next - no nurses because they keep odd hours?

Students = gateway to drug trade? Evidence please.

Interesting how this got so quickly morphed from "horrendous house of criminals" on Blue Hill Ave - people who probably haven't been students since their junior high days - to "colledge stoodents IS TEH DRUGGGGGG EVILLLE".

I can't wait for one of these ridiculous anti-student enforcements to come down on someone with legal clout and a taste for rubbing noses in smelly piles. That's gonna be fun.

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They're talking about repeat offenders, not a single loud party. Linskey and Corporation Counsel William Sinnott also said they're not going to go after properties based simply on the number of complaints - to avoid problems of neighbors with grudges with 911 on speed dial trying to run up a place's numbers.

Ross specifically mentioned 19 Parker Hill Ave. as a place that's been a problem for the better part of a decade, with numerous incidents and police citations.

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Many with bloody face tossed out of house party in front of cops (Ed. copy editor note: I think that should read just "man").

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Apparently Katherine Boyd, 23 of Allston is a bit of a troublemaker - after reading the story that you linked above, I started checking out the more recent police reports from the A-B Tab, and found this one, which had just been posted yesterday: http://www.wickedlocal.com/allston/news/police_and...

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I saw that name and thought "isn't that Mohawk lady?"

This might be a case where enforcing existing laws could be of some help. Just sayin'....

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I'd prefer more neighbors like Mohawk Lady, please.

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But since when is another residents single complaint enough to arrest someone for something like indecent exposure?

Was pretty sure the LEO needs to see the offense here or have multiple witnesses. And now this one will just be thrown out. After all, it's he said she said, with no evidence.

Sounds like she is known though, so probably just a way to get her off the damn street, no?

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That is why she was arrested. They added on the charge of indecent exposure after taking to the witness.

I'm not so sure it will get thrown out though. Someone actually saw her expose herself.

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Actually, you can decide not to rent to students--they are not a protected class. The majority of full-time students are not employed full time and thus cannot show that that they have the income to cover the rent.

This is not a question of hating students--this is a question of problem tenants. If a household has had multiple (legitimate)police calls and criminal incidents, this would give the city the leverage to help solve the problem. Some landlords could give a flying fig who they rent to--so long as they get a check every month. I know students who don't want to live in Mission Hill because of some of the party house reputations. Getting handle on problem properties makes neighborhoods better places to live for everyone--property owners and renters.

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Mike gets a lot of pressure from local residents because when you get 10 students or more renting a house, even if the individual rent is cheap, the place rents for a fortune - so investors bid up surrounding properties as houses come on the market. That drives up the values - which is good if you want to sell. If you want to stay though(as many do - they are resident owners of multi-family houses, not absentee landlords) your taxes skyrocket and it's very difficult to remain in the neighborhood.

There are obviously two sides to the issue -but from the political side it makes a ton of sense for Ross to side with the residents which generally pits him opposite the absentee landlords and students (who might get a better hearing if they got out and voted!).

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Gentrification and increasing home values are good things, unless you're a renter. Hell, that increases rent and prices out the very students you want to leave.

Look, there's already building codes and occupancy limitations on the books. Let's Enforce those first, before we add more BS to the shit fire.

There's already plenty on the books to go after both the renters and landlords of a 3 bedroom house with 15 people squatting. Noise and other violations have their own laws, go through the courts, ect. Nothing new is needed, but for residents to calm down.

there was a reason why they got their house at a much more reasonable price in that neighborhood, because they moved into one next to a college.

You can't expect to keep rent / prices low next to a college and not have students. Nor should you be complaining about students lowering the property values from the rest of the city. It's all priced in already.

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Last I heard the courts threw out most of the occupancy limitations. The real problem is a) the schools don't have enough on campus housing - slowly being remedied but won't do any good if the schools turn around and bring in more students so building on campus does little good. b) they aren't lowering prices - they drive them up - and the long term residents out.

As for noise - yes we should enforce that - but hard to focus on that when a large swath of the city is a shooting gallery.

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Don't these politicians know the difference between annoying and dangerous? I've lived on Mission Hill, Allston and Dorchester (30 years) and owned property in Dorchester Mattapan etc...
The problem is not noisy students. I look forward to a day when that's the biggest problem./ facing the city.
The problems are drugs and gang violence in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan and South Boston. Thousands of good people trying to raise their families are forced to deal with this crap every single day. Are there bad landlords who don't give a crap who they rent to? You bet. Ed Franco, whose building they just raided is one of the worst. He'll rent to anyone and couldn't care less about the neighbors. There was a murder in front of two, yes two, of his buildings in the past month. One at 108 Blue Hill and the other by Vesta Rd. on Blue Hill.
But what does the City want to do? Lets take the police and make sure the kids keep their f'ing music down and screw the neighborhoods who have actual, real, and dangerous problems. Just sayin'

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Nike t-shirts, dirtbikes and now "problem properties". The Herald editorial board gets it right today.

http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/vi...

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And, Councilor Michael Ross's hatred of students continues ... now he's equating them with violent criminals in Dorchester.

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One reason Allston and Brighton and Mission Hill have so many young people is that the realtors steer them to those neighborhoods and not others.

This happens even when it is obvious that a young person or couple has a job or internship that would be best accessed from the red line or blue line or orange line. It has happened every time we hire someone young where I work - fortunately, these young adults are smart people who end up dumping several realators until they get one who will listen! I'm sorry, but a couple with one job downtown and another at Mass Eye and Ear is not best sent down the green line!

I don't see any of these councilors talking about this!

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Plenty of housing stock with great transportation links. Not to mention that Mass Eye and Ear is building a new facility at 800 Huntington Ave. Hmm what line runs in front of 800 Huntington ave....

http://missionhillgazette.com/2011/06/03/construct...

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Please look at a map before bloviating.

Cripes.

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Bigger reason is that you have BU, BC, and Harvard all in or close to Allston-Brighton and Northeastern close to Mission Hill. So students attend those schools, live nearby, then decide to stay where they are familiar post-college.

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One of them takes the Green Line to Park Street, the other changes for the Red Line there and rides one stop to Charles/MGH.

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That could mean an hour each way in a stress position 4 days a week.

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Why ride the green line for 2 hours when you can walk/bike to work in 10-20 minutes and your spouse can take the red line for 15-20 minutes?

No brainer. The real problem is that the realtors seem to think they can steer people based on age.

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But a lot of the Rent Realtors (affiliates for the bigger ones on Newbury, Downtown, ect), rent out slum lord apartments exclusively.

I remember years ago going into the one on the corner of Brighton and Comm Ave with a list of what I was looking for. Chief among them: clean, not a party house, no slum lord, ect. Told the kid to not even bothering taking me out if he didn't have any to show me.

Every one he showed me was a dumpy slum lord apartment. They literally just peddled those on their out of town clients who didn't know the area, needed something for school quick.

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I actually lived at 17 Parker Hill Ave 3 years ago, don't know what all this talk about 19 Parker Hill Ave is about. We threw ragers all the time, all hours of the night and rarely got bothered by the police. Only time cops would be around was if something was going down at the Doe House across the street.

Ross is a moron, with this whole no more than four non-related being able to live together. It's not even enforced. It's preposterous trying to compare what is going on down on Blue Hill to what's going on at Mission Hill.

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These are management problems, not problems to be solved with more legislation.

The city has all the lawful power it needs to inspect and cite property owners. Abandoned cars on the property being used by prostitutes? Why does city-wide landlord licensing fix this in a way that merely citing the absentee landlord does not.

ISD can secure an administrative warrant to inspect problem properties on an as needed basis. There is no reason to make small property owners into scoff-law by imposing the unneeded and expensive burden of licensing and inspection.

ISD is perfectly currently capable of making a good property owner fucking miserable. If they cared they could make the lives of poor absentee landlords just as bad.

Take a look on the City of Boston web site and see how many property owners are currently complying with the ridiculous inspection ordinance. Check it out: It's laughable.

Laying on licensing on top of inspection makes nothing better.

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And bad posturing at that. Something Ross is good at, and the reason I'm hoping he gets challenged on more and more.

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They couldn't inspect a bug bite on their own damn hands. There isn't a more sloppy, incompetent, lazy, worthless department in the whole of the city.

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I repeat:

ISD is perfectly currently capable of making a good property owner fucking miserable. If they cared they could make the lives of poor absentee landlords just as bad.
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Aside from maintaining their property in a reasonable state of repair, why should landlords be involved / held accountable in these issues at all? If these disruptive tenants were instead disruptive homeowners, what would the neighbors recourse be?

If they're breaking the law, call the police. If they're not, knock on the door and ask them to stop being jackasses. If they tell you to pound sand, then you've got dicks as neighbors and you're just out of luck. Being a dick isn't (always) illegal, and holding landlords "accountable" for renting to dicks (or students) seems unreasonable to me.

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...Ross stops fighting for his constituents is the day he's done as a politician. Whatever I may think of him otherwise, he's definitely right on this one.

As much students play a huge role in this city, both while in college and after, there is a very very small minority of students who cause real havoc in neighborhoods like Mission Hill, Allston/Brighton, and Dorchester. Landlords look the other way while a very small number of houses have the police visit regularly, trash builds up, and neighbors who have the audacity to say something have their cars and homes vandalized. The idea that a city councilor should stand idly by because students shouldn't be discriminated against, or some such garbage, is beyond ridiculous.

Students are the lifeblood of Boston. But where they turn against the community where they live, they should be held accountable, and their absentee landlords should be responsible as well.

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His constituents are the students too...they just don't know it.

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