"razzle-dazzle." I, of course, disagree with that curmudgeonly
mischaracterization.
What he is not free to do is pretend that there are no slumlords and they do
not create costly, and sometimes lethal problems for other residents, the city,
and the police. It is my contention that, like any other group one might bunch
together (students, teen aged boys, general population), 10% of them will be
bad 'uns. Another 10% of landlords will be newbies making mistakes which they
will correct as time wears on.
What compounds the problem of newbies is the huge number of immigrants who
become landlords in order to afford a home for themselves and who, naturally,
apply the rules of their homeland to our circumstances in Minneapolis. Ergo,
they rent to people via the telephone, they keep the building in the order
acceptable in their homeland and among their class members, etc. This makes the
cheese more binding.
I do agree with John Ferman (on another thread): "The City ordinances must be
re-examined for the purpose to remove the City gouging." I would further add
that the ordinances need to be remodeled so that the standards for older houses
and newer houses reflect the logical, rather than the latest thing for new
construction. As the ordinances stand now, too much is left up to the
discretion of the inspectors and some inspectors are not sharp enough for
discretion to be housed with them.