Atomictumor

The Oak Ridger reports that Nashville has given its warm fuzzy blessing to Oak Ridge (and other, lesser cities) enacting licensing for rental properties in town, with a $20 fee to top it all off. The licensing would provide for annual inspections of properties, and would require landlords to take care of any nuisance or criminal claims. Woot.

Man, we don’t have a problem with this now, but a few months ago there was a troublemaker renting a house on our fair street, and the house was owned by some jerk that lived out of town. We’d call his ass, leaving messages like “Do you know what kind of people you rent to?” and “You’re making Jesus cry!”, but nothing would come of it. Meanwhile, the house quickly became a blight, garbage in the front yard, unmown grass, and paint peeling. Finally, they moved out, but I hate to think of what that kind of crap does to my home value.

Before that, we rented a nice place from a responsible landlord in the W’s, and it was a nice neighborhood. However, as time went on, and as the older folks out there died off and their properties ended up in the hands of renters, the neighborhood went from good to bad to worse. Driving through there now, it looks like a ghetto. The problems here develop entirely because people who don’t give two craps for the town rent the houses to people who should be living in cages somewhere, and as a result everybody suffers.

Anyway, I’ve lost the point. This is a good thing. Sure, landlords will bitch, but they’ll tack that $20/yr cost to the rent, raising it a whopping $1.67/month. Hell, they can even raise it to 2 a month, and make a 33 cent profit. Thats thinking smart.

In the meantime, those of us who have actually invested in this town won’t have to worry about that investment being ruined by a jackass making money at any cost.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 7:39 am and is filed under Justice, Local. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.