Barstow proposes treating tenants like children

The more we learn about the City of Barstow’s plans to deal with problem rental properties in town the worse the news gets.

The latest insult to the residents of Barstow is the news that the city is considering holding landlords responsible for certain violations caused by tenants. We’ve tossed around the phrase “nanny state” to refer to situations where the government assumes responsibility for decisions that should be left up to individuals, such as what to eat and how (or whether) to save one’s money, but this is a situation where the city is actually proposing treating adults in Barstow as though they are children.

When a child breaks certain laws, the parents may be fined for the child’s behavior. This is an appropriate action, because a parent is responsible for the child.

A landlord is responsible for his or her property. The landlord is not, however, responsible for the behavior of the people within the property. All adults (assuming they are of sound mind) are responsible for their own actions.

This kind of thinking is a natural progression of our growing tendency to look for somebody else to blame for our behavior. We hold bars responsible for people drinking irresponsibility. We hold fast food restaurants responsible for people’s poor eating habits. We aren’t responsible for our own temptations to go astray. The devil made us do it.

The city, of course, argues that this will “encourage” landlords to deal with problem tenants. As with the city’s poorly considered (and illegal) proposed rental property inspection program, it won’t likely do a thing about absentee landlords who will ignore the problem. As it stands, the city is owed more than $166,000 in code violation citations from properties they’ve put a lien on. A couple of these property owners have been assessed more than $9,000 for code violations, and they’re not paying.

So just as we predict with the rental inspection program, the city will go after the good landlords for minor issues to prove that the program works, while the bad landlords will rack up huge debts, making their properties unsellable, so the city will actually be stuck with these irresponsible landlords. In other words, the city will just make the problem worse.

But that’s okay, because the city will make money off the program, which is what they’re really after. After all, if they really wanted to fix rental difficulties in Barstow, why would they be taking money away from the people who can actually fix the problem? And if they were really interested in fixing the problems, wouldn’t they use the money they get from these fines to offer to go out there and fix the problems on the landlord’s behalf?