Pennsylvania residential sprinkler requirement; House Bill 377

Since January 1, 2011, all new houses built in Pennsylvania have been required to contain sprinkler systems. This requirement adds thousands of dollars to the cost of construction. The sprinkler requirement also creates potentially higher insurance costs for homeowners, as sprinklers that activate accidentally can create tremendous water damage within a home.

Pending now before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is House Bill 377. HB 377 would repeal the sprinkler requirement for new homes and would provide consumers with a choice at the time of the construction contract.

HB 377 is currently before the House Labor and Industry Committee and is expected to be reported out of committee shortly. A vote on the bill might occur in the full house as early as next week.
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click here for an update.

Fuel prices and real estate prices.

The major economic focus in the news recently has been the rise in oil and gasoline prices:

Benchmark crude for March delivery was up $6.35 a barrel, or 7.4 percent, at $92.55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"The Middle East will remain the market's focus today with moves in the oil price probably the best single indicator of the market's assessment of the wider implications of events there," said Adrian Foster, an analyst at Rabobank International.

Rising crude prices are a particular worry for investors as they reinforce fears of inflation and raw materials costs. They also stoke worries of a big drop in global demand levels, as experienced in previous oil price shocks in 1973-4, 1979 and 2008.

If you want to know how the fuel prices will affect real estate, look at historical information from the previous "oil price shocks" identified above. The real estate market may react in a similar fashion to those prior periods.

Even though Central Pennsylvania has historically been more stable than other parts of the country, the effects of the ongoing real estate downturn appear to be spreading:

Communities once believed to be immune to the housing crash are now seeing devastation in their cities. Seattle, Minneapolis and Atlanta are among these cities according to The New York Times.

Click here for earlier speculation as to the direction of real estate prices.

Luzerne County Housing Authority; Bedbugs

The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported last month on a bedbug problem experienced by the Luzerne County Housing Authority:

Fagula said the authority nipped a slight bedbug problem in the bud. Exterminators eradicated the bloodsucking pests from three facilities and employees educated tenants on how to avoid future infestations.

“We tried to be a little proactive. Our maintenance superintendent Joe Grady found on the Internet a device you can place in the unit that attracts the bedbugs, something our guys can go around and check every week,” Fagula said, adding that the units cost about $1 each and the authority bought about 240.

“These are placed underneath the bed and, if there are bedbugs in there, they’ll be attracted to this device and get trapped in there and we can know right off the bat. So far, we’ve had good luck and good success. Three weeks ago, we put them in every unit in Lee Park and in every unit in Plymouth, and the results have come back and we haven’t found any bedbugs, so that’s a good sign,” Fagula said.

The bedbug products referenced by the maintenance supervisor are featured here.

Penbrook litigation featured on ABC27 WHTM

Yesterday, ABC27 News in Harrisburg broadcast interviews with local business owners about the Penbrook situation.


Click here for previous posts about Penbrook, including posts about Penbrook charging business owners criminally with filing false tax returns - even when the Borough has not seen the owner's return at all.

Bedbugs and attorneys - a word of caution.

If you are an attorney seeking to make a big payday representing tenants in bedbug litigation, here is a word of caution from a recent New York Times article. Don't let your clients come to your office:

Even Steven Smollens, a housing lawyer who has helped many tenants with bedbugs, has his guard up. Those clients are barred from his office. “I meet outside,” he said. “There’s a Starbucks across the street.”

Once your office becomes infested with bedbugs, your business will suffer. Other clients will not want to come to your office:

In recent weeks, bedbugs snuggled into the seats at AMC’s movie theater in Times Square, crept around a Victoria’s Secret store on Lexington Avenue and the offices of Elle Magazine and hitchhiked into the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.

“There were attorneys that didn’t want to come to our building,” said an assistant district attorney who would identify herself only as Caroline A. “I don’t blame them; I wouldn’t want to go somewhere where there is known to be bedbugs.”

The consequences from bedbug litigation are only beginning, but I imagine that if an attorney (or his clients) brings bedbugs into his office building, the landlord would be justified in evicting that attorney. Check your own leases before you put your practice at risk.

Penbrook Borough updates

There is a new website dedicated solely to the battles involving Penbrook Borough and the Borough's fights against property owners and investors. Click here to view this site.

Check out my posts involving Penbrook here (or click the "label" at the bottom of this post).

Pennsylvania bedbug legislation; Senator Farnese; DDT

Bedbugs have become a more common problem in recent years, as these insects have spread mainly among hotels in urban areas throughout the Northeast.

They resist traditional insect treatments. The known insecticides that kill bedbugs were banned years ago by the federal government.

In 2010, Senator Farnese (D - Phila.) introduced legislation that would have imposed tremendous costs upon landlords in an effort to combat bedbugs. In particular the bill would have required landlords to provide for inspection every time a new tenant leased a unit or every time a lease was renewed. This bill expired with the end of the legislative session in 2010, but Senator Farnese expects to reintroduce it under a new bill number soon. He is now seeking co-sponsors.

On Tuesday, January 11, 2011, representatives of PROA met with Senator Farnese' staff in Harrisburg. We stressed the prohibitive costs that this bill would create for landlords and we presented various alternatives, including expedited eviction for tenants known to have caused a bedbug problem in the unit.

We also discussed the availability of pesticides. According to the New York Times:

Bedbugs, once nearly eradicated, have spread across New York City, in part because of the decline in the use of DDT.

While it was the federal government that banned certain pesticides (thus precluding a real solution by state legislators), state legislators can help address the problem. Senator Farnese's staff indicated that the Senator will conduct hearings in this matter. We asked that the Senator's committee seek testimony on pesticide bans and pesticide solutions. A growing public awareness of the pesticide aspect of this story could influence the federal government.

Meanwhile, real estate owners should contact their federal congressmen in an effort to push for repeal of DDT bans.