What can the community do to reduce alcohol abuse by students? What’s the best way to improve relations between student renters and local neighbors?
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About the article in yesterday’s paper: The neighborhood there can just do what I did…. After 6 months I no longer had a problem with nearby house renters.
You can go to the county ‘property search’ website, input the address of a property, and see who the legal owners are (which includes an address). Then go to switchboard.com and get their phone number. When there are loud parties after 10 or 11 PM, call the house owners!
For instance, we had nearby renters light a bonfire in their front yard, about 15 feet from their front porch and next to the wooden fence. During a burn ban. The owners were very happy that we called them about this. They were concerned about their property being destroyed! We’ve had to call the police about abandoned vehicles as well (that they dragged to nearby neighbors parking areas). And that’s on top of the late parties we had called about, the garbage, people leaving parties and screaming outside (literally), and people sitting on our cars, throwing garbage over our fence, etc. We’d come home to huge dents or paint-scrapes on our cars as well, yet can’t prove that the partiers did that (although there was a party there).
So, since the neighbors are concerned about their own property, property values, and personal well-being, they should consider calling the property owners. I did. And the loud unrestrained partying stopped.
Myself and several other owners experienced ongoing problems with renters in our neighborhood. After contacting the home owner/landlord we were then subject to harassment from the home owner. I think often the problem goes deeper than the renters themselves, and can be attributed to problem landlords. While many landlords in my neighborhood are wonderful and very responsive to any comments or problems we have had, one stands out as being anything but — even thwarting our efforts at attempting to form a neighborhood watch program by actively intimidating homeowners to the point they were afraid to join. I would love to see a limit put on the number of rental houses allowed in any given area and have the landlords be required to apply for business licenses. No matter how nice the landlords are, the truth is rental homes in my neighborhood are not as well kept or maintained as those that are occupied by homeowners.
As far as student improving relations between students and the community? It only takes a few irresponsible students to create a bad impression. I know there are many great student neighbors out there, but they tend not to stand out as much as the constant stream of drunk college students walking by my house, yelling, and throwing trash and beer bottles on my lawn. I haven’t seen much change after living here for 9 years. Sad, but true.
The problem here goes beyond partying by college-age persons, or failure of landlords to crack down on their tenants.
I can see from my house two different properties on Countryside Avenue (which I also drive by daily) that have essentially been “abandoned” for a significant amount of time. The two properties have not been occupied for some time and obviously have not been maintained. One of the former occupants of one of those dwellings abandoned a couple of derelict vehicles (including a trailer) across the street.
What I would like to know is why the City of Ellensburg has not done something to enforce local ordinances, particularly with respect to weed control.
The answer goes to getting the highest authority to pass ordinances to control the problem landlords. I truly dislike having government tell us what to do BUT if a landlord feels he can bully the neighbors and the neighbors have no recourse then the City or County must step up to the plate. Since so much of the property bought during the Land Scam in Kittitas County was for investment or 2nd home the city and county need to make the owners stand up to their responsibilities. Sadly we see the failure of city and county government to help protect the citizens who actually live here.