To be fair, SLO’s rental inspections should include apartments

If you believe the alarmist hype, the world’s happiest city is about to be destroyed by … a rental inspection ordinance?

Since the law took effect in January in San Luis Obispo, there have been predictions that landlords will rise up and stop renting unless the law is rescinded, and displaced tenants will be left to roam the streets.

The new law has been condemned as invasive, oppressive and unconstitutional (even though a similar ordinance was upheld by a California appeals court).

And it’s not just landlords who are complaining. One renter is so unnerved — he’s afraid his rental won’t pass inspection, leaving him homeless — that he started a website, SaveSLO (not to be confused with Save Our Downtown). It includes an online petition against the ordinance.

Sorry, but we’re not buying it; plenty of other California cities have similar ordinances and are surviving just fine.

We do, however, believe opponents have a valid argument when they complain the law is being applied unfairly in SLO. As they point out, apartments are not included in the rental inspection program — only single-family homes, duplexes and granny units are.

City officials say apartments already are inspected by the fire department. The fire department inspections, though, focus on fire-related matters and may not require an interior inspection. That means a multitude of other problems — leaky roofs, broken windows, missing door locks, spaces illegally converted into bedrooms — could be missed.

The city’s other rationale for limiting inspections — that the bulk of complaints about rentals involve single-family homes, rather than apartments — doesn’t impress us much either.

A rental is a rental is a rental. Exempting apartments from full inspections is a little like exempting sandwich shops from health inspections because they historically don’t generate as many complaints as steakhouses (or vice versa).

We agree a rental inspection program is a big undertaking, and adding apartments to the mix would make it even more daunting. We have no problem with rolling out the program gradually, starting with single-family homes.

But if the city is serious about protecting tenants, preventing neighborhood blight and avoiding a brickbat to boot, it should expand the program to include apartments.

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 8:41 AM with the headline "To be fair, SLO’s rental inspections should include apartments."