Last week I was advised of a group of guys with criminal histories had been hanging around at a building I own, and disturbing the peace . The investigation was probably at the request of my employee. I will now give the tenant ( who has passed a criminal history record check) the statutory seven day notice to stop. Of course, if they do not stop I will evict, which will cost the equivalent of several months rent. (This would teach a smart landlord to stop being cooperative with law enforcement fast). In order to prove the bad guys were invitees of the tenant I may need Roy to go to court with me, costing O.P.D. his time and tax dollars. Of course, when I serve the seven day notice the tenant will claim he did not know the bad guys or was afraid to approach them or call O.P.D. While I greatly appreciate Roy's efforts and call ,it has again made me think how we must find another way to approach this. We must find other methods to attack this problem . The simple truth is that law abiding landlords in a low income areas, operating under the Florida landlord and tenant act, can not and will not spend thousands to enforce loitering or disturbing the peace laws thereby further damaging the neighborhood, tax base and society. As much as the property owner wants to improve his property and therefore his investment he quickly will learn that cooperation with law enforcement can lead to bankruptcy. Soon the landlord will simply look the other way. The code department was issuing tickets to tenants for a while for such problems. The tickets in conjunction with neighborhood cameras may be the solution. Unfortunately we do not have money for enough cameras in Parramore because we are giving millions to a developer to construct an eleven story condo project at Parramore Ave and Church St., that no one (except the developer) wants or needs! Ops there I go again! As you may know the clerk of court has recently raised the cost of each eviction by several hundred dollars thereby making this problem much more severe. If any of you have any ideas how we could work on this problem, please advise.
