Starting after the new year, the City of Aberdeen will implement a new inspection system for rental units in the city as an effort to raise the quality of local housing.

Under the new system, a city inspector will check every rental property in Aberdeen once every three years. To do this, the city’s rental units will be split into three regions, which are then rotated for inspections every year, Building and Code Enforcement Manager Bill Sidor told The Daily World.

“Every three years, we’ll send notice to the landlord, ‘OK, it’s time for your inspection,’” he said.

In addition, the city will use a new point system when they inspect apartments. Each infraction, such as leaking ceilings or faulty heating, will be added as different amounts of points on the inspection. If the apartment totals 25 points or more, the city will demand that the landlord fix the issues, or else they will close the property.

Sidor said the new checklist system copies those found elsewhere in Washington State.

In recent years, the city has required landlords to register their rental units, at a cost of $25 for the property and $1 for every additional unit.

According to Sidor, the Building and Code Enforcement Department decided to make this change after a recent meeting with local landlords. One landlord complained that the old inspection process wasn’t always objective, Sidor said. Because the inspector didn’t have a clear point system, landlords complained that it was sometimes unclear what led the city to shut down an apartment, and that the inspector’s opinion affected the decision, Sidor said.

In the past, it was up to the tenants to file a complaint with the city about the landlord not fixing something. Sidor added that some Aberdeen landlords have previously evicted tenants for filing complaints, even though landlord-tenant laws don’t allow that.

This new system is intended to reduce the responsibility on tenants to get apartments fixed, and to target more run-down apartments that never maintain suitable conditions.

“We’re taking it out of the hands of the tenant,” said Sidor.

Beginning in January, the city will start issuing 60-day notices to landlords about their properties getting inspected. Sidor added that if tenants can’t make it to an inspection they will be able to reschedule another date. In addition, some criteria like sidewalk conditions have been removed from the rental inspections, Sidor noted.

Since announcing this change, some landlords have complained to Sidor about it, he said.

The Aberdeen City Council recently approved the hiring of a new inspector for the Building and Code Enforcement Department, which is factored into the 2019 proposed budget. The new inspector will help handle the increased load of property checkins, and will assist Sidor and his department in other ways as well, Sidor added.