Has anyone had their township inspect their apartment?
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at
12:22 am
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Has anyone had their township inspect their apartment?”.
Tagged with: apartment • boxes • bugs • closets • clutter • cupboards • fiancee • fire safety • google • home business • kitchen cabinets • maintenance staff • rodents • safety hazard • safety laws • script type • suburban philadelphia • text javascript • unopened food • yardstick
Filed under: Old World Bar Stools
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
There are a lot of municipalities that periodically perform inspections of multi-family housing buildings. It’s certainly not unusual.
However, the code enforcement officers that perform these inspections are not immune from the Constitution. They are required to obtain a warrant if you refuse consent to enter. My guess is that if you read your township ordinances carefully, you will find a provision that allows inspections, and another provision that requires inspectors to obtain a warrant if consent to inspect is denied.
Now, the warrant required is not a traditional search warrant. It is an "administrative inspection" warrant, which a judge can issue upon a showing that there is a reasonable reason to perform an inspection. In layman’s terms, it’s much easier to obtain an inspection warrant than a search warrant.
The City of Reading was sued by an apartment building owner. In the case, a city inspection officer asked the owner for permission to inspect the building, and the owner refused. The officer was unable to obtain a warrant. The officer then obtained a warrant to inspect another building the owner owned. The officer broke down the door with a sledgehammer. The owner sued the city, and the inspectors, for civil rights violations. The judge did *not* dismiss the case. My guess is that the city is still negotiating with the owner for a monetary settlement.
Normally, I would suggest simply giving consent to inspect, because if you refuse, the inspector may come back with a warrant, and act rude & obnoxious. But, if it were me, and the inspector already acted rude & obnoxious aafter I voluntarily gave consent, then I would tell him go f* off, and go get a warrant. But, that’s just me.
*** Read your town’s code. Print out the provision that requires a warrant. Then, if you want to justify your refusal to consent, then yoiu can just show the inspector the statute.
Google fire safety laws for your town. That is what this was, someone complained that they thought you were creating a fire hazard. The yardstick is a dead give away, there are laws regarding having space to safely walk, they were measuring that.
You can be fined and evicted if you are hording trash and the inspector did not approve of the place. You do not have a right to hord stuff to the point that you risk not only burning the apartment complex down, but risking the lives of the fire fighters that will come.
Do not assume by his rudeness that you failed. It could be just the opposite, the place is obviously not in violation and he is ticked off that someone wasted his time.