September I, 2010
<r'!V IJ o rtla n ò (Observer
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FredMeyer
The Week n Review
What's on your list today?,
I -tech nolo
S ustainability
C lassifieds
F ood
page 12
Cristina Palacios, safe housing coordinator for the Oregon Community Alliance o f Tenants, returns a
call from a renter in distress.
Landlord-Tenant Conflicts
Economy puts
strain on
inspections
J ake T homas
T he P ortland O bserver
by
O pinion
y
pages IS-19
EALTH
C alendar
•
'
,
page 22-23
page 24
A ngela Lopez rem em bers
when her home was making her
child sick.
L opez, a tran sp lan t from
Mexico and mother of three, said
she spent two years scrubbing
mold her in small rental house in
northeast Portland with Clorox
and soap. But somehow the black
fuzz always seemed to grow back
on the walls and ceilings of the
kitchen and bedrooms.
Her 5-year-old son’s asthma,
which had been dormant, came
roaring back from the mold, ac
cording to Lopez. She said she
complained to her landlord, who
put a lamp-sized ventilation hole
in the living room ceiling covered
with metal grating, which she
said made the dwelling frosty
during the colder months.
After what she described as a
fruitless back-and-forth with her
landlord, who she claimed re
peatedly painted over the mold,
she called the housing inspector
and left several messages that she
said weren’t returned. Her final
phone call was met with an auto
mated voice telling her the mes
sage box was full, according to
Lopez.
The heat only worked in her
bedroom, she said, and the fluc
tuations between hot and cold
exacerbated her child's condition.
The staff at a local clinic told her
that her house, which she shared
with her husband, two other chil
dren, mother and father-in-law,
was affecting her child's health.
After much hand-wringing, she
and her husband decided to break
the lease with her landlord, who
couldn't be reached for comment.
Contention has often marked
relations between landlords and
tenants, who occupy about 42
percent of Portland’s housing.
But as the Great Recession per
sists conflicts between the two
have grown pricklier as money
for housing inspectors has dried
up.
As revenues have dropped off
for the Bureau of Development
Services, the city agency has had
to lay off building inspectors who
keep dwellings inhabitable by en
forcing the city's building code.
According to bureau spokes
person Ross Caron, housing in
spectors have been reduced to
five (about half) as a result of the
cuts.
“We have experienced a slow
down in our response time,” said
Caron.
He explained that the bureau
has prioritized complaints it re
ceives. For instance, a tenant who
complains about a serious prob
lem, like a lack of heat or a broken
refrigerator would receive more
immediate attention than other
types of complaints.
However, complaints that are
somewhere in between in sever
ity will be responded to in five to
10 days, he said. A landlord will
have 30 days to correct the prob
lems. If they don’t they will be
assessed a fine that, depending on
how many units are in the build
ing, could be as high as $500 a
continued
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