Apartment Residents Still Without Electricity After Ike

[lord_feldon]

http://www.click2houston.com/news/18141324/detail.html

Residents at the Meadows Creek Apartments in southeast Houston have been living without electricity for more than two months, KPRC Local 2 reported Monday.

When Hurricane Ike hit, electric cables and poles were knocked down. Since then, there has been no sign of electricity.

...

The city said the residents' only permanent option is for them to move out because it cannot make the complex owners put electricity in the apartments.

That is not an option for some of the residents, who said they cannot afford to pay the penalty to break a contract and move to a new apartment complex.

[Starla]

Houston needs to change its laws so that it can force complex owners to provide basic utilities (perhaps the city fixes the problem and then goes after the owners for the cost plus a lot more money) and so that owners cannot charge renters a fee if they move out because the owners won't fix something that should be under their contract in the first place.

This is ridiculous.

[Griffin2020]

This should be covered by the renters protection act. The tenants need to call the attorney general's office.

If nothing else, they can move for no penalty under constructive eviction for failing to reconnect the power that the tenants are being charged for.

[Gayle]

Why has no other station reported on this story? This is against Texas Property Code (Title 8, Ch 92, Subchapter B, 92.052.3

Basically, landlord has to make a diligent effort to repair if the tenants tell them, are not in arrears of rent, and the condition materially affects the physical health or safety of an ordinary tenant.

The only thing he might try to weasel under is c) this subchapter does not require the landlord to furnish utilities from a utility company if as a practical matter the utility lines of the company are not reasonably available.

And that certainly isn’t true two months later. I’m really surprised that no one has made an effort to have this place condemned. With no electricity available, it certainly doesn’t qualify as a dwelling.