Attention, renters: You are in danger of getting shafted again at the Capitol.
Colorado ranks with Arkansas as the only states without requirements for landlords to guarantee that their properties are clean and safe.
We have a law mandating basic living standards for our pets. But minimum standards for human beings may be too much to ask state government, even one run by folks who call themselves Democrats.
“What does it take for people to stop having to live in crappy conditions?” asks Denver renter Lorena Garcia.
Garcia and her partner pay $975 a month for a home in which, among other problems, raw sewage seeps up from their shower and sinks.
State law requires the couple to keep paying their rent until their lease runs out this summer even though they’ve twice been displaced and say their landlord hardly has budged in making the house livable.
“This renting stuff sucks,” Garcia says.
That sentiment has been echoed by countless other renters since powerful landlords first quashed a tenants’ rights bill in 1969. Seventeen measures since have been defeated.
This session was supposed to be different.
The state Housing Division hired a mediator last summer to broker a compromise that, as agreed to, would have been one of the most business friendly in the country.
Ten days after the bill was introduced, the Colorado Apartment Association threw in a wrench. Landlords said it wasn’t enough for tenants simply to phone in complaints. They insisted renters submit written notice of property problems, even in emergencies.
Tenants balked. Yet when the landlords group walked away from talks, the tenants gave in.
But the association still won’t negotiate and has since tried killing the bill. Some tied to the group even worked to discredit the Housing Division for hiring a mediator.
“The landlords reneged on their promises,” says Democratic Rep. Mike Merrifield, the sponsor.
Merrifield has continued watering down his bill to save it even from fellow Dems who own rental properties.
He removed language allowing tenants with unresponsive landlords to deduct the cost of repairs from rent checks. He agreed to require tenants to seek injunctive relief from district court, rather than small-claims court — a move likely to dissuade people who can’t afford lawyers. And he eased the definition of “unhabitable.”
Still, business types act like the sky is falling. Owners would have to raise rents, explain naysayers who speak as though renters would rise up in rabid revolt if given even the slightest of rights.
It’s tough to imagine such havoc from a bill that makes demands not on responsible owners, just slumlords who too long have had a free ride.
“Why would credible organizations want to protect bad landlords?” asks state housing chief Kathy Williams.
The bill passed the House last week despite opposition from all Republicans and Democratic Rep. Bernie Buescher, who is eyeing the House speaker job next year.
It moves this week to the Senate, where it’s expected to face even fiercer opposition from the powerful landlords lobby.
Democrat Bill Ritter — whose home in the Governor’s Mansion we, as taxpayers, pay to upkeep — hasn’t taken a stance on a bill that should be a no-brainer in his party.
For his sake, let’s hope no sewage backs up in condos rented this summer by his cronies hitting town for the Democratic National Convention.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
