BANGOR, Maine — Health and safety inspections are now planned for 539 apartment buildings in Bangor, with city officials planning to inspect even more in the future.
City officials confirmed this week the Bangor Fire Department has begun resurrecting an old apartment-inspection program that has been dormant for years.
Rental apartment inspections have received renewed attention in Maine since a fire after a Halloween party at a Portland apartment killed six last year. The landlord of the building, Gregory Nisbet, is being sued for wrongful death and may also face criminal charges.
In Bangor, officials began work on the inspection program last summer — before the Portland fire — in response to complaints from residents paying rent with General Assistance vouchers, according to Community and Economic Development Director Tanya Emery.
Bangor fire officials weren’t sure why the old inspection program went dormant.
The program will have fire department engine companies inspecting certain apartment buildings in-between emergency calls. Assistant Fire Chief Anthony Riitano said the department has sent letters to landlords requesting to schedule health and safety inspections for their buildings.
“I’m not really 100 percent sure why we backed away from doing them, but they kind of fell by [the] wayside,” Riitano said of the inspection program. “I believe call volume might have had something to do with it.”
For the time being, the city only plans to inspect the city’s 539 three- and four-unit apartment buildings. The city is asking that landlords give tenants at least 24 hours notice of upcoming inspections.
Emery said three- and four-unit properties account for a large number of the city’s total apartment buildings — there are just 61 five-unit buildings — and generate more code complaints because they are often single-family homes that were converted into apartments.
“The anecdotal information from the code enforcement office is that three- and four-unit buildings are quite often more challenging because sometimes they are old single-family homes that have been chopped up,” she said.
Riitano estimated it will take about 18 months for the fire department to inspect all 539 three- and four-unit buildings, but the city does not plan to stop there. Emery said the city’s code enforcement office and its fire prevention bureau will eventually begin inspecting the city’s apartment buildings with five or more units.
Code Enforcement Officer Jeremy Martin said he was unsure when they would start those inspections, which will depend on staffing levels and workload.
Very large multi-unit buildings such as nursing homes that are already inspected by other agencies will be able to avoid the city inspection by providing documentation of existing inspection programs.
Emery said they do not plan to inspect single-family homes. It remains unclear how the city will handle inspections of Bangor’s 785 duplex, or two-unit, apartments.
Riitano said Tuesday they have met no resistance from landlords, but they also had not yet inspected any apartments. Emergency calls will take precedence over inspections, he said.
“When we make contact with the building owners, we’ll make sure they’re aware of that, because if we do get a call, we are going to have to leave,” he said.
The city does not have a set procedure for handling landlords who refuse inspections. Riitano said they would refer those cases to the code enforcement office.
Martin said a tenant can allow an inspector to enter an apartment without a landlord’s permission, but he was not sure what the city will do if both the landlord and tenant refuse.
“It can be a challenge,” he said. “My gut says it’s not going to be a challenge.”
Francis Leen, a local landlord and president of the Greater Bangor Apartment Owners and Managers’ Association, expressed support of the program.
“It’s just like having another set of eyes out there,” he said. “I go and inspect, I expect my tenants to inspect … and then you’ve go the fire department doing annual inspections, so its just like getting more eyes on it.”
According to Leen, the association already holds safety seminars for its 525 members in the Bangor region. While most tenants take steps to ensure safety, he said, the landlords’ biggest concern are tenants tampering with early warning systems such as smoke detectors.
Not all landlords were as optimistic about the inspection program though.
John Karnes, a local real estate developer and president of R&K Property Management, which manages more than 400 housing units, said city officials already know which properties are problematic.
Additionally, he said, most landlords already have their properties inspected as a requirement of their property insurance — though some who purchase insurance from secondary markets are able to pay higher rates to forgo inspections, usually because they wouldn’t pass inspections required by primary market insurers.
While the city does not charge for the inspections, Karnes said the time investment does represent a cost for landlords, forcing him to either pay someone to meet with city inspectors or take take time off from work to do it himself.
“They know where the problems are, and they want to blanket this and cover everyone,” he said.
“All this does is put more hardship on landlords that do a good job,” he added.
The city has posted a checklist for the health and safety inspection online. It includes clear routes of entrances and exits, building numbers that are visible from the street, proper garbage collection areas, working smoke alarms and at least one carbon monoxide detector.
Among other items, the list says extension cords are only allowed for temporary use and that flammable liquids and gasses are not allowed inside unless they are in listed lockers.
Emery said while the initial inspection proposal only targeted General Assistance apartments, the city decided against that option fearing it would drive landlords away from accepting General Assistance vouchers and would unfairly target certain landlords.
When consulted by the city, Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a nonprofit group that provides free noncriminal legal assistance to low income residents, also raised concern about targeting apartments paid for with General Assistance vouchers, Emery said.
When city officials presented the inspection program in March to City Council members, Councilor Ben Sprague raised privacy concerns, asking whether inspectors would be required to report illegal activities observed to law enforcement.
Sprague said Friday he felt more comfortable with the program after being reassured by city employees that inspectors would only be looking for health and safety issues based on a strictly defined list.
“I think the pros of the program far outweigh any concerns,” he said.
Follow Evan Belanger on Twitter at @evanbelanger.