IPMC - 305.1 Enforcement

[fatboy]

For the few that have adopted the IPMC, have you ever attempted to enforce 305.1, INTERIOR STRUCTURE-General?

305.1 General. The interior of a structure and equipment
therein shall be maintained in good repair, structurally sound
and in a sanitary condition. Occupants shall keep that part of
the structure that they occupy or control in a clean and sanitary
condition. Every owner of a structure containing a rooming
house, housekeeping units, a hotel, a dormitory, two or
more dwelling units or two or more nonresidential occupancies,
shall maintain, in a clean and sanitary condition, the
shared or public areas of the structure and exterior property.

I was working on tweaking one of my boilerplate nastygrams to try and enforce this section on a slumlord, a LLC, who's registered Agent is an LLC, with listed registered agent of the same LLC.

Street people are accessing hallways and stairs, sleeping, using as restrooms, pretty nasty. I usually try my hardest to not get involved with these type of things, but this is bad, and we have a tenant that rants daily, to the tune of 2-3 emails to one of my inspectors.

If I send the nastygram, I need to follow up on it with an administrative violation, wonder if there would be an end to it.

 

[cda]

Police involved in any way???

Nuisance property??

I take it there is not a separate code/ health department?

 

[fatboy]

Police involved in any way???

Nuisance property??

I take it there is not a separate code/ health department?

Police involved in any way???
Yes, but they are limited, not any "criminal" activity involved.

Nuisance property??
Yes, and Code Compliance (they handle "walls out" issues) is working the nuisance angle, again, no help for "walls in".

I take it there is not a separate code/ health department?
Code is working on what they can, covered above.
Our County Health Department has a policy that they do not get involved with residential properties.
Go figure that one.
I gave up fighting it, they have the County Commissioners support on that policy line.

 

[Inspector Gift]

We adopted the IPMC (with amendments) at 2 jurisdictions where we were having problems. Getting invited to inspect the interior of a building was not a common request. (And as a policy, we didn't go where we weren't invited.) The jurisdiction where I work now had already adopted the 1997 Dangerous Building Code, and recently they created has created our own DERELICT BUILDING CODE.

May I suggest that you look closely at the broad language of your own jurisdiction's Dangerous Building Code, and/or adopt a Derelict Building Code. The scope is less, and doesn't really get into the weeds like the IPMC does, but it provides enough language to enforce the minimum fire/life/safety/welfare requirements.

 

[fatboy]

"May I suggest that you look closely at the broad language of your own jurisdiction's Dangerous Building Code, and/or adopt a Derelict Building Code. The scope is less, and doesn't really get into the weeds like the IPMC does, but it provides enough language to enforce the minimum fire/life/safety/welfare requirements."

We had the 1997 Dangerous Building, and my predecessor would have like to have kept it when we adopted the 2006 I-Codes in 2004, but his boss, and mine to be in the not distant future, really liked the broader scope of the IPMC, so there we are.

No turning that ship back at this point.

 

[JCraver]

You'll win in court if you stick to the plain language of the code. Per your description I'd cite (2015 IPMC) 301.2, 305.1, 305.3 (if applicable - I'm imagining there's paint issues in the common areas you're having problems with, at the least), and 309.1 (again, if applicable. But I can't imagine it's not full of bugs..).

On the sanitation issue, don't forget 108.1.3 if it can be legitimately applied. If you can declare the whole building unfit because the common areas are disgusting, you'll be surprised how fast the landowner cleans it up.

 

[JCraver]

On the other hand - that's why I hate the IPMC. The plain language is overly broad, and an inspector can hammer the he_ _ out of a property owner with multiple citations almost any time he wants to. I'd bet 99% of the houses the folks who use this forum live in have at least 1 IPMC violation.

 

[fatboy]

Thanks, I was trying to tie it back to something solid to threaten moving people out, 108 ties the knot.

Don't know why I didn't go there before, I use 108 in other codes for other boilerplate nastygrams.