Sheena Kiska lived in an apartment in Bristol, Ind., with her two young children. It was burglarized, and she wanted to move out, but the manager wouldn't let her out of her lease without paying three months rent, which would have been $2,500. So she stayed, and 30 days later, on March 18, 2008, there was another intruder, who beat and stabbed her to death.
Now, a Hoosier lawmaker, Democrat Craig Fry of Misawaka, wants to take some corrective action:
Fry introduced a bill on Monday that he calls "Sheena's law." If passed by the Indiana legislature, it would allow tenants who have been a victim of a certain crimes like burglary to break a lease with no financial penalties as long as they obtain a certified police report to show to their landlord.
"And that police report will justify breaking the lease," Fry said.
But, Fry says passing the new law won't be easy.
He expects some resistance from landlords lobbying lawmakers telling them not to give tenants new rights to break a lease.
I'll just bet there will be resistance from landlords, whose complaints should not be dismissed as the usual greed. It's already tough for some of them to make it, and the tax caps aren't going to make it easier. At least the proposal should include some stiffer penalties for filing a false report.
But I like the intent of the bill, too. When my mother and sister's house on Reed Street near South Anthony got hit by a drive-by shooter, they got the hell out of there and moved to an apartment complex at State and Hobson just as quickly as they could. Since it was their house, they could get out almost immediately, but if had been an apartment, I think everybody in the family would have kicked in whatever was necessary to pay whatever penalty was set.
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I don't see a justification to create a distinction between the financial obligations of people with duties under a lease and people with duties under a mortgage. And I doubt there will be any desire to let people out of their mortgages if they are victims of crime.
Maybe void any lease provisions that prevent a renter from improving the leased property with security features.
Another classic example of writing yet another law to take of every single freaking possibility of something bad happening to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
The Government is NOT the answer. You aptly point that out in your last sentence Leo " I think everybody in the family would have kicked in whatever was necessary to pay whatever penalty was set."
That's what we used to do before the Government became our family.
Back in 1997, when the missus and I were married, we had a break-in at our apartment (and a neighboring apartment) at Willow Crack ...I mean CREEK Crossing.
And it was in the middle of the day!
We told the mgr. there were were moving the hell OUT ASAP...and we were allowed to break our "agreement", and even got our FULL security deposit back...no problem (except for the items taken from our apartment)...small compensation especially when the police never followed up on the crime nor contacted us since (after fingerprints were taken on scene).
I'd wager the management there sees the problems they have...not that they do anything about them, as is evidenced by the rising number of PD calls at the complex.
Stand alone dwellings (rented OR mortgaged) might very well present their own issues, but when you take into account the ever-changing nature of many neighborhoods (with little if ANY city intervention to halt a decline), what else can one expect?