Letters to the Editor: Role of landlords must be examined
Re: Anti-social behaviour by temporary residents in the vicinity of UCC and environs.
I am also a resident in the area living next door to a student-let property owned by a landlord who does not live in the area and does nothing to encourage responsible behaviour in his tenants.
I am fortunate in that I know how to use technology and am able raise issues and have my voice at least heard if not acted on.
My concern is that many of the residents in this area are elderly and not familiar with technology or social media — where is their voice? They read the papers and listen to the news
— they are acutely aware of the circumstances that led to the murder of Cameron Blair, for example. For them the party raving next door tonight, last night, every night is not ‘just fun’ but is instead another potentially murderous event loaded with anxiety and threat.
During term time students normally have the commitment of studies to focus their energies.
— they have no such demands at present and therefore party time is all the time.
The local community are making sacrifices and working hard to observe protocols and keep the area safe in the current Covid-19 crisis. People have lost their jobs — their lives. Easing restrictions does not mean abandoning them altogether. The ‘temporary residents’ arrogantly wear their county colours and feel entitled to invade a community with a potential cluster bomb of infection that totally undoes the hard work, commitment and restraint dutifully observed by permanent local residents in the course of the lockdown and pandemic.
The role of landlords who let properties in these circumstances needs to be examined and challenged. Such landlords should be named and shamed, especially in their own communities wherever that may be, and made accountable to the extent that the law and/or regulatory bodies allow. The law needs to be strengthened to impose standards and requirements. Conscientious landlords have nothing to fear as they already comply.
For balance I would wish to acknowledge those landlords who have been conscientious and refused to let on a short-term basis. They are mostly exemplary landlords with well-maintained properties and model tenants. Their civic mindedness and willingness to put decency before profit needs fair acknowledgement.
