Closer inspection

Bills in the General Assembly could hinder municipal housing inspectors seeking to curb health and safety problems

Are housing inspectors in North Carolina cities running amok with overzealous efforts to hold property owners to an adequate, safe level of maintenance -- and thus to protect people who live in those dwellings? That's the impression one gets from bills in the General Assembly promoted by real estate and landlord industry groups.

A Senate version of the legislation has been approved; the House no doubt will be under pressure to follow suit after it convenes next month. The idea, advocates for the bills say, is to simplify things.

But it's not so simple. As reported in Saturday's N&O, inspectors would need to meet a standard of probable cause before going inside a house or apartment to inspect it and write up any violations.

Industry representatives say it's wrong to interpret what they want as hindering inspectors in Raleigh, say, from going into substandard housing and noting problems that would have to be corrected for safety reasons.

City officials from Raleigh and Durham oppose the legislation, however, because they're suspicious that it might tie their hands. Durham officials, for example, say they don't have a comprehensive inspection program such as that in some other cities, but they want to retain the right to have one.

And officials there and in other cities want the right to conduct inspections if problems are suspected, which is not quite the same as acting after a finding of "probable cause." Real estate and landlord representatives want requirements that inspectors would need to have a formal complaint about a property, for example, before they went in and did their work. As it stands now, inspectors who spot a potentially troublesome situation from the outside of the dwelling can act on it. It's logical to think that if a house or apartment building showed signs of neglect on the outside, the same might be true on the inside.

These are not good bills, and they ought to be forgotten.

Cities in the Triangle and elsewhere have been working for some time to improve neighborhoods, and to bring homes, particularly apartments or other rental units, up to code. Absent that, broken-down structures can breed drug crimes and other problems. Not to mention damaging the quality of life for neighbors trying to do their part to keep their own homes livable.

Robert Spruill, housing inspections administrator for Raleigh, said the bills could make it difficult to inspect the interiors of homes because the more strict characterization of "probable cause" might make it harder for inspectors to get an "administrative warrant." That is required when property owners refuse their consent to an internal inspection.

Who really benefits from inspections laws that allow inspectors some leeway? Tenants, mainly. And in particular, the beneficiaries are tenants with limited resources looking for affordable places to live that are, first and foremost, safe.

Ideally, no landlord would rent substandard housing -- places with holes in the floors or roofs that leak or stair railings about to collapse. But it happens. Inspectors are a line of defense against it happening, however, and no state legislature, no matter how powerful the lobby, should make that job more difficult. Responsible legislative leaders must see that this proposal passes only into the circular file.