He wants the water to work, the windows to open and close, and for the electrical system to operate properly.
And Wheeling’s Ward 2 Councilman Ben Seidler wishes to hold slumlords accountable so their tenants can pay for safe housing and not for an unhealthy space.
“When I started my campaign to represent Ward 2 a few years ago, a part of that campaign was developing a rental inspection program,” Seidler explained. “No one ever told me that it was a bad idea. No one. What I did hear was that it was needed and long overdue. Everyone I spoke to who did not have a financial interest in those properties told me that the city needs a rental inspection program.
“And I hope people realize that I recognize that we have a lot of fantastic landlords in Wheeling who really do take care of their properties,” he said. “But we do have some who continue to ignore the issues with their rental units, and not only is that unfair to the tenants, but also to the entire neighborhood where they are located. That’s why my goal in this whole thing is to develop a program that is fair to everyone involved.”
In late April, however, a drafted proposal was met with opposition from several landlords who own rental units in the city, and two of the three members of the Public Safety Committee, Council members Dave Palmer and Rosemary Ketchum, voted to oppose it.
“Even though the proposal wasn’t ready to send to Council yet, it was rejected, and now I am pretty frustrated about it,” Seidler admitted. “I feel it was shortsighted to send it to the trash can. I feel people are entitled to safe housing, and that is why this issue is very real here in the city of Wheeling.
“I know I am not going to be friends with some of the landlords, but the bottom line is that those people have a right to be a landlord, but they don’t have the right to rent properties that are not up to code and are not safe to live in,” he insisted. “We only have a handful of landlords that try to get away with that, and it’s not fair to a lot of people who rent housing in this city. So, as any lawmaker should do when they recognize a problem, let’s come up with an idea, let it go through the process it must, and figure it out the right way for everyone involved.”
People, Not Numbers
Three or four times per day. That is how often Seidler said he is contacted by residents living in Ward 2 concerning the issues they are experiencing where they live.
“They tell me they contact their landlord about them, and nothing is done about it,” the councilman explained. “That’s just not right. Renting properties is a business and at time a business owner has to spend money to make money. That’s not the case with some of the landlords we have here.”
Insect infestations. Rodents. Leaking water. Unsecured basement entries.
Those are a few of the complaints Seidler has fielded from tenants living in Ward 2, an area that includes the Wheeling Island, North Wheeling, and Fulton neighborhoods. Many cities in the United States, including Fairmont, W.Va., have adopted rental inspection properties.
“That’s where the framework came from for the one we put together for the city of Wheeling,” Seidler said. “In fact, we are one of the few municipalities of our size that does not have such a program, and you can see the impact that it’s caused here in Wheeling. That’s why I am a firm believer that the process should continue with all of the stakeholders involved so we can come up with something that will be fair to fair to the landlords, the tenants, and to the people in the affected neighborhoods.
“I completely understand that capitalism is all about maximizing the return on an investment, but we also have a moral obligation to offer people safe housing. That’s a legal obligation, too,” he continued. “We are talking about having rental properties that meet the minimum standards of the code. No one is saying the landlords have to turn a $30,000 property into a luxurious rental unit. But it should be a place where the water and the heat work efficiently, the lights have to work, and the property has to be secured so it doesn’t fill up with rats. It’s call common sense.”
Not Done Yet
Seidler believes his approach is quite simple.
“Receive a complaint. Investigate it. And, if it’s a real issue, develop an approach to address it,” he said. “That’s how this works, right?”
That is why he hopes to continue working with his two colleagues on the Public Safety Committee to further develop an inspection program that is palatable to the involved entities.
“The proposed program that was trashed was a self-inspection program, and we even offered to throw out the $15 fee,” Seidler said. “The motion was to throw it out, but I will continue to push for the program until I can’t anymore, and that’s because there are many people in my ward who are being abused by the few landlords that make this an issue in this city. I am 100 percent committed to doing this the right way.
“I don’t want this rental inspection program to negatively affect all of the landlords. I want it to help the tenants, and I want it to mean that we have a safe inventory of rental properties in the city of Wheeling,” he added. “If I believed that all of the rentals in Wheeling would pass this bare-minimum inspection program, I’d walk away from this proposal immediately. The problem is that I don’t believe that, and that is based on what constituents have told me and from I have seen with my own two eyes.”
