By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington city officials say the city has enough rental property inspectors, though they have struggled to keep up with the city’s goal of inspecting properties every three to four years.
The Gettysburg Drive apartment building which was destroyed by fire in February was found to have hundreds of code violations during an inspection just a few months earlier. The last time the building was inspected in 2013 it got a clean review.
Interim community development director Bob Mahrt told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin the building would have been inspected sooner had their been complaints.
“There wasn’t a trend towards a number of complaints generated either by neighboring property owners and or the tenants themselves,” Mahrt said. “It didn’t come to the fore to bring this to an inspection, so it just fell into the general cycle of inspections.”
Mahrt said cases like that are rare. The city is looking to stiffen fines for landlords whose properties have fallen into disrepair.
Mahrt was asked if a more robust inspection program might have prevented or at least limited the damage.
“I think we would have been able to catch those items earlier certainly, but I think having that three-year cycle that’s probably the norm throughout the state in those communities that have rental inspection programs.”
The Bloomington Fire Department later determined the fire was caused by a cooking accident.
The city has two inspectors for the city’s 12,000 rental properties. Mahrt said he’d prefer to have more, but there’s only so much money and the department has other priorities.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
