Landlords Say Cops Little Help After Busts State Law Says Police Must Tell Apartment Owners Of Drug Raids

Some exasperated landlords say Spokane police are breaking the law.

The state requires police to notify owners of rental units whenever a drug bust occurs on their property.

But landlords complain that police usually don’t contact them and won’t share or pursue information needed to evict outlaw tenants.

One apartment house owner complains Spokane police raided his building last summer, hauled several tenants to jail and wouldn’t tell him anything about it.

Another landlord says police broke three doors at her north Spokane rental duplex during a drug bust she only found out about - days later - from the target of the raid.

A property owner on the lower South Hill gripes that police don’t notify her about arrests and don’t take her seriously when she reports drug activities. It got so bad with one tenant she finally paid him to leave.

Landlord complaints are mounting as more property owners discover their rental units are becoming cocaine and methamphetamine dens.

Without police cooperation, landlords say it’s much harder to prove in court that these bad tenants should be evicted - no matter how many witnesses testify to their illicit habits.

Tom McGarry, a Spokane attorney representing about 100 landlords, said police simply don’t bother to send letters to property owners to tell them about arrests.

“Sadly, the Spokane Police Department steadfastly refuses to follow this law,” McGarry said, referring to an 8-year-old law designed to help landlords keep their units drug free.

Police said they follow it as well as they can, and were unaware of landlords’ complaints.

Lt. Steve Braun said he mails letters to landlords whenever he knows a drug or assault arrest occurred at a rental property.

“But I can’t say we’re doing it 100 percent,” he said. “There are cases we don’t know it was a rental.” Braun also said sometimes officers don’t relay information to him - or “maybe I was on vacation.”

Asked how the department determines whether a bust occurred at a rental unit, Braun said officers ask the people they arrest.

“You’re asking the guy that’s getting arrested?” McGarry responded, after hearing Braun’s comment. “Give me a break.”

McGarry noted the law requires police to make “reasonable” efforts to find landlords through property records and other means.

Dave O’Donnell is still trying to sort out why police never told him about a bust at his apartment house in the 700 block of South Hatch.

He said residents and the building manager watched police swarm the apartments and haul tenants down the stairs “howling and screaming.”

“The next morning they’re out of jail and they’re back,” said O’Donnell. “And where does that put me?”

O’Donnell said he is glad police raided his building. But he is frustrated they didn’t share information about the raid with him, forcing him to rely on sketchy reports from witnesses.

“They say, ‘We’re protecting the constitutional rights of these people by not giving out their names,”’ O’Donnell said, noting he believes landlords have rights, too.

“There are people out there like me who need the information because we don’t have grounds for eviction otherwise.”

Lt. Braun said he recalled the O’Donnell apartments bust, but didn’t know exactly why the landlord was not notified.

Braun said he has sent out 12 letters so far this year notifying landlords of arrests at their buildings.

McGarry said he has seen only one such letter sent to any of his 100 landlord clients. Two other Spokane attorneys, who also frequently handle evictions, said they have never seen such a letter.

Donna Meidling, director of the Inland Empire Rental Association, said landlords often complain it doesn’t do any good to call police about drug problems.

She said they also say that they have to find out about arrests from neighbors. Sometimes, she said, they only find out about them when the rent’s late and they discover their tenant is in jail.

“There just seems to be an attitude,” Meidling said. “Police say they aren’t adequately staffed.”

By contrast, Seattle police are quick to send letters to landlords informing them about arrests at their properties, said Willis Cole, co-owner of Property Management Advisors in Seattle.

“There were some problems when the statute first came out,” he said. “But it’s working well now. Law enforcement realizes it’s a tool to help the community remove these people.”

Barbara Henderson, who owns 30 units on the lower South Hill, said police have made arrests at her units, but she has never received a telephone call or a letter from the department to let her know what happened. “I’ve never heard from them.”

Henderson said she recently discovered she had a convicted sex offender dealing drugs in one of her units. “I finally paid him a month’s rent and let him out of the lease - and his damage deposit - to help him move.”

Henderson said the situation is getting worse. “I’m thinking about getting out of the (landlord) business.”

Linda Carvey is still talking about the way police handled a raid at her duplex on Augusta.

Police used battering rams to destroy three doors to enter a downstairs rental unit.

“I didn’t even hear for a couple days that I had broken doors,” Carvey said, noting the information came from the tenant who police suspected of drug activities. The tenant was never charged with anything, as far as Carvey could determine.

The city informed Carvey that it is not its policy to pay for such damages. She said police only acknowledged the incident after getting prodded by her attorney.

“Until we told the police department they needed to write us a letter, we didn’t get one,” she said.

Braun said the department doesn’t send letters after breaking down doors - unless an arrest is made.

Spokane attorney Larry Davidson, who handles about 70 evictions a year for landlords, said his clients usually are forced to request arrest reports based on tips from neighbors. He said the reports are not always easy to get.

“If the officers would be more aggressive in what we believe is their duty,” Davidson said, “we’d have a much easier time evicting what we consider undesirable tenants.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT THE LAW SAYS The law requires police to make “reasonable” efforts to find landlords through property records and other means.