LCI ​“Referees” Check Dickerman Street

Sandra McKinnie’s landlord was in the middle of installing new smoke detectors when the inspectors arrived.

“They’re only doing this ​’cause LCI is on the way,” McKinnie said, as North Haven-based landlord Johnny Brinkley handed a smoke detector to his associate climbing a ladder in the bedroom. 

Just then, Livable City Initiative (LCI) inspectors Javier Ortiz and Shavonne Newton rang the doorbell — and walked up to the second-floor apartment at 18 Dickerman St., which would soon fail a housing code evaluation for the second time this year.

Thursday’s inspection revealed the twin challenges LCI inspectors face as they crisscross the city trying to enforce the city’s housing code: On the one hand, they must determine if a residence is a safe place to live, if there are code-defying problems, and what needs to be fixed when. On the other, they frequently have to mediate between landlords and tenants, who, by the time LCI inspectors show up at their door, strongly disagree with one another about who’s in the right and who is to blame. 

“Relationships are not easy,” Ortiz said to Brinkley as the inspectors filed out of the Dickerman Street home for the day. ​“It comes with the territory of being a landlord.”

Back in April, the two-bedroom apartment failed a Section 8/Housing Choice Voucher inspection, partly because of a leaking oil tank in the basement. That April inspection had also been conducted by LCI, through a different inspector, since the agency performs all annual federal Section 8 rental inspections for the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH), which administers the program in town. 

On Thursday afternoon, Ortiz and Newton were returning for a ​“re-check.”

The apartment failed again on Thursday, meaning that HANH would no longer pay the portion of rent covered by the voucher until repairs are completed.

The North Haven-based landlord, Johnny Brinkley, would later insist to inspectors that McKinnie hadn’t let him into the building to make repairs. 

McKinnie countered that this had happened only one time, while she was taking an exam. ​“All I need is ample notice,” she asserted.

Newton tested three smoke detectors in the apartment. Only two of them worked. The inoperative one, Newton said, would need to be replaced immediately.

With frustration, McKinnie informed Newton that Brinkley had only just installed the smoke detector in her bedroom moments before the inspectors came. 

“That’s good!” Newton said, observing that at least the apartment would now be safer.

Ortiz wandered from room to room, working down a list of complaints attached to his clipboard.

He started in the bathroom, where, according the previous inspection, the toilet had not properly been secured. Ortiz rattled the toilet, and jotted down that it was slightly loose.

In the living room, McKinnie showed him mouse droppings, which she said she’d delayed cleaning up so that inspectors could see. There were holes in the wall, she noted, including one below the kitchen sink, which mice may be using as an entrance.

Infestations are tricky, Ortiz said, because they don’t just go away with the snap of a finger. Cleanliness in the entire house, not just in McKinnie’s apartment, is important, he added, gesturing to the other apartments: ​“Who knows about their living conditions?” 

What LCI needs to know, Ortiz explained, is that the landlord has sent a licensed exterminator. He said he would include an order to close up the holes in the wall in his extermination directions.

According to McKinnie, the landlord sent an exterminator once early on during her two years in the apartment. When asked about past exterminations, Brinkley reiterated that McKinnie needed to let him into the apartment.

He added that he has a limited ability to control mice ​“if she’s not cleaning and leaves stuff on the floor,” an insinuation McKinnie vehemently denied.

McKinnie pointed to some brown discoloration above one of the windows, where she said rainwater tends to drip. Ortiz noted this down, too; ​“the living room seems to be leaking,” he summarized later.

McKinnie, Brinkley, and the two inspectors headed down a narrow spiral staircase to the basement, dark except for the beam of Ortiz’s flashlight and a dim bulb on the wall. An array of small windows by the ceiling had been boarded up with wood, which Ortiz said would need to be cleared.

A white powdery substance coated a portion of the floor surrounding a rusty oil tank in the basement’s back corner. 

Ortiz surmised that the powder was an attempt to address the oil leak. He stressed that the leak itself, not just the spillage, needs to be addressed. ​“This is a big item.”

Brinkley later explained that he has been working on finding an oil tank replacement. ​“In April, we told the inspectors we were taking care of that. It wouldn’t happen until May,” he said, then corrected the replacement timeline to ​“June.”

“She doesn’t need heat in June,” Brinkley added.

McKinnie continued to guide inspectors through the apartment, pointed out a burned-out socket (the landlord will need to replace that, said Ortiz) and part of the floor in her bedroom that sank slightly under the weight of her feet.

One of her primary concerns was the cleanliness of the carpet covering that bedroom floor as well as the living room.

McKinnie said she developed asthma about six months after moving into the apartment. ​“I was coughing, coughing, coughing,” she said. ​“I did not suffer this until I moved in here. My doctor is convinced it’s the rug.” She said she had tried to clean the carpet herself using supplies from Stop and Shop, and that she could not afford a professional cleaning.

“It was clean when she got in here,” Brinkley insisted. McKinnie scoffed. A heated exchange between landlord and tenant ensued.

Ortiz nudged at the rug with his shoe, observing that it looked relatively clean to him. 

McKinnie asked him to order that the rug be removed or replaced, to which Ortiz replied gently but firmly, ​“I can’t do that, ma’am.”

At the conclusion of the inspection, Ortiz announced, ​“It’s a fail.” 

Then, he turned to McKinnie. ​“As much as you can, please work with the landlord,” he said. ​“We want him to make the repairs.” 

McKinnie said she’d be happy to let the landlord into the apartment with enough advance notice.

The inspectors left the apartment alongside Brinkley, who reiterated his side of the story to Ortiz.

Later, both Ortiz and Newton said that they regularly find themselves trying to mediate tension between landlords and tenants. 

They each walk into several homes each day with the high-stakes task of assessing safety conditions, often with little idea of what to expect. Tenants may be upset about stressful and even hazardous conditions in their home. Landlords may be on the defensive, wary of financial penalties.

“We’re sort of playing referee-middleman,” Ortiz said. ​“You got emotions involved, people have different motives. These are all things that, [for] an inspector, they have to decipher and they have to compartmentalize and figure out as they talk with a landlord and a tenant.”

In the case of 18 Dickerman, over the course of one inspection between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m., Ortiz and Newton determined that most of McKinnie’s concerns were housing code violations.

It was Newton’s seventh inspection of the day, Ortiz’ eighth. They each counted several failures from that single Thursday.