Eugene Police Department Detective Jeff Drullinger has just about seen it all when it comes to landlord-tenant relationships.
Once, Drullinger heard a story about a landlord who went to one of his rented houses to perform some scheduled maintenance and found a nasty surprise. The landlord was fixing something on the roof when he smelled the faint scent of marijuana, and he quickly realized it was venting through the chimney.
When he let himself inside the house, he discovered his tenant had cut holes in the floor of every room in the house, leaking water into the subfloor.
“The tenant rented this place and turned it into a grow house,” Drullinger said. “By the end of the day, he found out it was going to be minimum $10,000 to fix the damage.”
Drullinger was one of the speakers at a day-long landlord training seminar hosted by the Eugene Police Department on Saturday, where about 50 Eugene and Springfield landlords gathered to learn how to screen, manage and monitor their tenants. Speakers taught landlords about important and sometimes confusing issues such as conflict management, trespass rights and crime prevention through strategic house design.
Drullinger’s speech emphasized the importance of landlords keeping up with tenants’ activities not only to protect the landlords’ own assets but also to ensure that future tenants can rent the house without facing health risks.
“Everybody thinks marijuana is no big deal,” said Drullinger. “But being exposed to marijuana molds is a health concern liability.”
He added that Eugene and Springfield landlords have even more reason to worry because “we have drug dealers moving to our community” in growing numbers.
“I can’t tell you that you’re not going to have issues if you buy a million-dollar home in the south hills,” Drullinger said. “We’ve got gangsters coming from Chicago… they’ve got a lot of money.”
Drullinger said there were a number of steps landlords could take to protect their assets.
First, know the laws: “Knowledge gives you power. However much time you want to spend on your investment, how well you know the landlord-tenant laws will come back to you,” he said.
Drullinger also recommended that landlords forbid sub-letting, or allowing tenants to pass their lease on to another person, since they have no power to kick out a tenant whose records they don’t have.
EPD Crime Prevention Specialist Margaret Mazzotta, who gave a presentation on the best ways to screen clients, said students will do better to rent from the most savvy landlord, even if it means they have to pay a screening fee.
“They want the landlord that’s requiring a fee,” Mazzotta said. “If they’re doing background checks, you know they are a good landlord.”
Landlord Vonnie Paden, who rents to University students frequently, said she found the seminar helpful.
Although she hasn’t had trouble with the students to whom she has rented houses, Paden said she has faced “a lot of graffiti problems.” The seminar helped her better understand how she could end her troubles and protect her houses from graffiti.
Springfield landlord Paul Webster said he sat next to a man who leased apartments to students near campus and “he’s had great success with them.”
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