Navigating Logan’s housing laws
Coming to Logan to attend USU, Jake Robinson expected a steal of a deal with his housing choice – a room in a large six-bedroom house with a prime location for approximately $200 a month.
Robinson didn’t know he would endure four years of city code violations and less-than-preferable treatment from his landlord.
“That first winter, the heater didn’t even work,” he said. “There were two heaters and the main one was broken, so the other one was doing all the work. It kept it a nice 58 degrees. We were still paying a ton of money for gas, so my roommate at the time called our landlord and she said – she pretty much called him a liar and said it was working without coming to look at it.”
It took multiple attempts for the tenants to have their house efficiently heated. Robinson said they saw results when they threatened to move elsewhere.
In addition to heat problems, he said they often experienced electrical problems.
“The whole half of the house is wired on one circuit,” Robinson said. “If someone ran the microwave and toaster at the same time, it would blow the circuit. Luckily it was a guy’s house, so there were no hair dyers going.”
While he was worried his house had code violations, Robinson never reported those problems to the city. He was more concerned the problem would come back to him instead of the landlord.
“There’s horror stories about getting audited because of zoning violations,” he said. “The majority of the people avoid those because it does come back to the landlord, but I think the mentality is it affects the tenants more than the landlord.”
Logan Neighborhood Improvement manager James Geier said there’s a process the city follows when a complaint is made concerning code violations, though it can become messy.
“It’s muddy because you are inserting yourself into a civil situation from the landlord and tenant,” Geier said. “We do our best to kind of work through it.”
According to Geier, when a livability complaint comes through the city office, the initial reaction is to do an inquiry. He said it’s important to determine the tenant’s standing with the unit and the landlord. For example, there may be tension in a landlord/tenant relationship because rent hasn’t been paid. Geier said those issues need to be worked out before the city gets involved.
After the inquiry, Geier makes contact with either the landlord, rental company or property owner to see how the issue can get resolved. The chief building official, Paul Taylor, will request an inspection with the party responsible for the property. As an inspector, Taylor has the authority to enforce the city building code.
“Municipality is not entitled to inspect without cause,” Geier said. “And then we have to provide notice to the property owner that we have cause to inspect. There’s a level on our part to inspect.”
It’s up to the inspector to relay the information to the property owner in order to fix the problem. Geier said they hear about leaky pipes, mold, pest control, electrical issues and most often, heating problems.
“Some landlords are better than others, as are tenants,” Geier said. “We treat cases independently.”
Robin Heaton is a communication studies professor at USU. She moved to Logan two-and-a-half years ago, and her renting experience has influenced her interest in advocating for students’ rights ever since.
“I understand that sometimes students don’t accept responsibility,” she said. “They broke something, they weren’t good tenants, whatever it was. But just a lot of the students, the stories were just too bad to be entirely the students’ fault. That combined with my own experience and my neighbor’s just kind of, I thought this was a good opportunity for me to advocate on behalf of students.”
Through her process of advocating, she’s collected stories from her students.
“Our former student advocate told me a story of his fridge broke and the door wouldn’t shut, and rather than getting a new fridge or fixing the problem, the landlord just came over and slapped a baby lock on it,” Heaton said. “And
it didn’t work, and he ended up getting food poisoning three times.”
She also said one of her students was without heat for three days because the landlord wouldn’t respond to complaints.
“I’ve always been interested in advocating for students,” Heaton said. “I have lived in a number of college towns. Portales, N.M. is the one most similar to Logan. I’ve lived in Salt Lake. I’ve been around students a lot. I taught in California. I taught in Fresno. It just seems like the practices here are far worse than I’ve ever seen.”
She advises students to do thorough walk-throughs before they move in and when they move out. She said it’s important to document absolutely everything.
“Whatever it is about the apartment that they could potentially be accountable for when they move out, that needs to be documented,” Heaton said.
She said the reason for this is because the big problem she sees is with deposits.
“The worst ones I’ve heard is that people just don’t get their deposits back,” Heaton said. “I think there was a house that was a five-bedroom house that 10 girls shared. Each of them gave, I believe, it was a $200 or $250 deposit and not one of them got a dime back. Short of doing hard core damage, I couldn’t imagine that they didn’t deserve some of the money back.”
She also said students should request an itemized reason for what their deposits are being used for and why they’re not getting money back.
“If you broke a window, they’re allowed to subtract money from your deposit to fix the window,” Heaton said. “But they’re not allowed to keep the deposit without telling you why they’re keeping the deposit.”
Robinson said he spent a week cleaning his house and garage when he moved out. He said had always helped the landlord move in other tenants across the street to help keep a good relationship.
“I was under the impression that I do this, I get my deposit back, and I got nothing,” he said.
Both students and landlords have rights and responsibilities outlined in the Logan city code.
“What I’d really like to do is just to make sure students are aware that they have rights,” Heaton said. “I think students should also know that there is legal counsel available to them on campus. It’s part of their student fees. They can’t represent you, but they can talk to you about legal advice through legal and student advocate services.”
Geier’s advice to students is to research properties and contracts.
“Make sure when you enter into a lease agreement – it’s a binding contract – you should understand the language in there,” he said. “At the same time, it’s in your interest to know from the state side and municipality side what the owner’s states are.”
Robinson’s advice is similar – talk to previous tenants and do plenty of research.
“If the deal sounds too good to be true, then it probably is,” he said. “If you’re paying cheap rent, you’re going to be paying something else. It’s vacant for a reason. If it was really awesome, it would already be taken up. Talk to previous tenants. Move into places that you’ve had acquaintances live in. Talk to your friends. See who’s lived where. It’ll definitely take a little more foot work on your part, but you’ll end up living somewhere you want to live and enjoy living.”
But Heaton wants students to know not all landlords are bad. After her first rental in Logan, she’s moved to a house in Providence with a landlord she’s had no problems with.
“I have a fabulous landlord now,” she said. “They do exist. The ones that are not fabulous are doing a lot of damage.”
– daniellekmanley@gmail.com
Twitter: @daniellekmanley