A pair of articles in The Gazette today, side-by-side, about slum landlords getting targetted by more inspectors, and a slum tenant couple whose apartment became a giant garbage can.
The way the slum inspectors thing works is this: Right now, the city has 80 inspectors across all the boroughs inspecting buildings. Surprise, surprise, this is woefully insufficient to keep track of the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of buildings on the island where people live and pay rent.
The most obvious solution would be to hire more inspectors, and to the city’s credit that’s exactly what they’re doing. But instead of taking on the eight new inspectors (a 10 per cent increase) to the already existing departments, they’re creating a new “task force” that will “work with the boroughs”.
In other words, another layer of bureaucracy. Create a new department to cover up the fact that you’re too cheap to properly fund an existing one.
Government by gimmickry. Doesn’t that make you feel safer already?
I’d like to know how, after being in this apartment for 1 year, I all of a sudden have bedbugs and the landlord expects me to pay for the exterminator!!!! My screen doors are no longer (they have missing panels in them) My faucets are too difficult for me to open… there is mold and mildew in the garage under me. Is there a place where I can make a complaint that won’t take 17 months?