With Baltimore County landlords struggling to comply with new rental-property safety requirements, the County Council voted last night to give them another six months, after turning back a bid to repeal the new law.
The council, which had been considering giving landlords until Oct. 1, voted unanimously to extend the deadline an extra three months to Jan. 1. The deadline had been July 1 when the council approved the law in December.
According to Councilman Vincent J. Gardina, a Towson-Perry Hall Democrat, the bill will help stem the "deterioration of communities," and seeks only to enforce rental property requirements that have been county law for more than two decades.
"This isn't something we pulled out of our hats," he said when speaking against a bill brought by Councilman T. Bryan McIntire, a North County Republican, to repeal the rental compliance program altogether. "This bill is designed to address slumlords."
McIntire, whose bill failed, said that while the bill represented a "noble cause," it was "unenforceable because we can't possibly monitor the conditions of the many apartments in the county."
While landlords have expressed concern over the cost of compliance, community leaders have supported the effort for years, Gardina said.
According to some local home inspectors and electricians, the extension was needed because of a shortage of a type of smoke detector that would meet the county law.
According to county requirements, rental properties must have smoke detectors that are interconnected - meaning when one goes off, they all go off.
In almost all rental properties more than 20 years old, the wiring needed to connect such a system just isn't there, and installing it is expensive and highly invasive, said Gary Epstein, service manager for Certified Electrical Technologies, a company that has seen a huge increase in smoke detector installation jobs since the legislation passed in December.
So, to avoid ripping up walls and ceilings to insert wiring, area electricians have instead been installing wireless smoke detection systems, Epstein said.
But manufacturers of the devices were not prepared for the influx of orders from Baltimore County, and they haven't been able to fill electricians' orders, he added.
The legislation has caused a "nationwide shortage of the detectors," he said.
"It caught everyone by surprise," he said. "It's not a commonly used item other than due to this specific recommendation."
