Letter to the Editor w/ Comment

This was submitted by Two Sentz reader and Insley tenant "hdg3xb" who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous. Here's the full text of his e-mail:

A Few Thoughts Regarding 4-2

It appears to me that the 4-2 legislation that is the topic of much conversation was created out of two main beliefs:

1. Limit the number of rental units to boost property values of the surrounding areas.
2. Prevent “slum lords” from opening up shop.

WAKE UP SALISBURY!!! The exact opposite is happening. Salisbury is a growing city. Every year the University is growing, however its students have no place to go. Go ahead and say what I know you're thinking: "All college kids do is party and disturb the peace. Like hell they are going to live next to me." Let me just remind you though, not every college student is a drunken fraternity brother who parties 6 nights a week and sobers up in jail on the 7th. In fact most of the trouble makers you blindly form stereotypes around don’t make it very far here. Trust me, as a senior here at SU, most of the “students” the community has a problem with are gone in two, maybe three semesters. If mommy and daddy don’t pull the plug, the University will. Once they are out of here, all that is left is legitimate students who want to spend their time studying and not trying to figure out where to live next (more on that later).

4-2 is back firing for most involved. Keep in mind that the legislation does not limit the number of houses; it only limits the occupants of said house to 2 unrelated people. Given that the demand for rental housing is only growing, and that full occupancy is barred by law, the number of rental units is only increasing ever faster. And even worse, we are seeing homes being sliced up into sub-par “apartments.” Have any of you ever been inside of a home converted to apartments? All they do is throw up a piece of drywall and add a “kitchen” somewhere. There is no attempt at sound proofing or solid workmanship. I have been scared for my life walking up some of the back “entrance” stairs of the converted houses. In houses that have not been converted, tenants are forced to pay twice the rent. Even if the law says only two people can live here, land lords are still charging the same rent they did when it was occupied by four people.

So you know who is losing out on all of this? You and I are my friends. I am being forced to choose between sub-standard housing and impossibly high rents. You are seeing MORE rental units in your neighborhoods to accommodate this artificially created demand. Do you know who is not losing out? You guessed it; they would be Salisbury’s well established and “morally sound” rental agencies.

Let’s move on to belief number two. 4-2 is preventing “slum lords” from opening up shop. Guess what? All it's doing is giving them a golden key to the city. I have rented through two people here in Salisbury, and as I do not like to report on things I have not experienced firsthand, I will only be mentioning them. As for the rest, I will leave it up to you to uncover.

My first rental was a great experience and I still wish I was there now. I lived in nice house with my 3 roommates. There was plenty of space, off street parking, and a VERY reasonable rent. Everything in the house worked perfectly and if something did break, the land lord was there the next day to fix it. Now for the shocker ladies and gentlemen. This house was owned by a private landlord. In fact he lived in Virginia, which made the fact that he was here next day even all the more incredible. But do you know what happened here? He must have been one of those “slum lords” you all hate so much because the city made us move and drove him out of business. Now I live three times the distance to school, I am in a house half the size, and paying a more expensive rent. Any clue who owns this property? Richard Insley does.

Now once again I find myself about to move, but this time because I have had it with Insley and his practices. I currently live in one of those “exempt” houses that only the old land lords had time to apply for years ago. So even though there are more than two people living here, everyone seems to be fine about it…. except for the tenants. And here are just a few reasons why:

A. Turnaround time on repairs. When I first was looking to rent I asked about who makes repairs to the property. I was told that he has a staff of full time, plumbers, carpenters, etc. Later I found out exactly what this means. He has a staff of people who work full time at other jobs and get to his properties when they have spare time. I called once about a broken shower head that had corroded due to hard water and finally went up. It took his “full time staff” two weeks to come out and fix it. The whole time I had to shower at friends houses because mine was useless. Beginning to look like a slum lord?

B. And I quote, “it was broken when we bought the house so we are not going to fix it.” This one is pretty self explanatory. That is an actual answer I received from Mr. Insley’s office when I called to get a wall receptacle fixed. REALLY??? You own it, now FIX IT!

C. This one goes with A but I am making it its own topic because it happened to my neighbor who also rents from Insley. I feel that I can include it because I did witness the whole thing first hand. When winter rolled around this year and we had those couple of days in the 30’s, my neighbor realized his heat was broken. He called Insley to report it and just like my shower head, it was added to the queue of someone with a day job. After two days of 30 degree nights, and countless phone calls to Insley, he finally brought over some space heaters to use while he was still waiting on his guy to get around to fixing the problem. But guess what? The heaters he brought for the tenant to use were to large for the house's wiring, so they blew the circuit breakers even on low and were completely useless. Any clue how many cold days he had to endure because Insley was too cheap to pay the extra few dollars to hire a real professional who would have fixed it that day? 8 very cold days latter it was finally fixed. Try living in your house for 8 days with no heat and then tell us how great of people the land lords you allow to operate are.

Now keep all of this in mind when you go to the polls. It is obvious who these landlords are supporting and why. They are the ones who really want 4-2. It’s not for the protection of you and me; it is to drive out competition by legitimate private landlords, artificially create demand for an inferior product, and pad their pockets with the money they have robbed from their tenants. Use your brains people. Get the facts. Do your own research. See the truth.

We also received a comment from someone who appears to be a non-student resident and I feel it is worthy of a post so here it is:

If Ireton is elected mayor, he will create a landlord/tenant board that will be there for renters to make complaints like you folks have here--you DO have legal rights and Insley and his pals are trampling all over them. They count on the idea that renters don't know their rights.

As for 4-2 (which actually was changed to 4-3, and really 4-4 since Insley is head of the board that decides whether you are in compliance),the SAPOA landlords were the ones who successfully conned students into thinking it was an anti-student ordinance. I'm sure some proponents of 4-2 don't like students, but the vast majority of us chose to live by the college because we like being in a lively place. The difference, though, is that we don't want 8 people living next to us in a house, driveway, and yard designed for far fewer.

Let's be realistic--4 people renting often means 8 people living there once boyfriends and girlfriends move in. The hard thing about it is that you might be an awesome neighbor, but you (or one of your roommates) will likely leave in 6 months or less. Then it is a real crap shoot as to whether the next person will be as good a neighbor. I know homeowners can also be terrible neighbors, too, it is just that they have more incentive to get along with people they might live next to for 20 years.

Finally, renters and owners both need to keep the eye on the ball: the real blame here belongs to slumlords, not students or other renters. Insley and the majority of SAPOA have been exploiting students for too long--they are terrified that if Ireton gets elected, the rules will finally be enforced and the terrible living conditions, unfair security deposits, and BS "fees" will come to an end. Our interests are aligned, no matter what Insley wants to tell you--I live near the college and have had awesome experiences with student rentals (and some not-so-awesome). My fight is with the bad landlords (not all of them are bad by any means) and the city administration that refuses to enforce laws that are there not only to protect neighborhoods, but to protect the renters from exploitation. My fight is not against renters. A vote for Comegys is a vote for Insley to remain on the housing board. Don't ever forget that.