Re: ‘Rental Crisis’

To the Editor: 
I wanted to respond to the “Rental Crisis” letter that was printed last week (Jan. 18). The author mentioned that someone in government should step in and do something, but, unfortunately, that is exactly why we have a long-term rental crisis.
I own a property that I used to rent long term, and I have now turned it into a seasonal rental because the laws that govern long-term rentals are so biased against the property owners that it is not worth the risk to rent long term.
In the State of New Jersey, when someone occupies a rental property over 21 days, the property owner has almost no rights to their property and an eviction can take almost six months.
There is a culture of people around here who exploit the laws put in place to protect renters to live rent free for months while the property owner spends thousands of dollars in court and attorney’s fees.
If a long-term renter decides to stop paying rent for any reason, or no reason at all, the property owner cannot access the property even with written notice.
The property owner has to maintain all utilities, which means not only are the renters not paying rent, but now I have to pay their water and electric. This is the law.
If the renter has children, it is almost impossible to evict them. No matter how “iron clad” you think your rental agreement is, the local police will not help you out at all.
When we had long-term renters, we had a thorough contract that ended up not being worth the paper it was printed on. We tried to get help from the police, who basically told us we had no rights to our own property. We tried to get help from local government, which ended up going nowhere, so we reached out to everyone, all the way to the governor’s office, who basically told us that the laws are not on our side.
I feel for the honest people out there who are looking for long-term rentals, and, as a veteran myself, I definitely feel for the plight of a vet in need, but I will never allow my family to be put in that position again.
I now do seasonal rentals and make more money than a long-term rental because I am not having to pay attorney and court fees.
If you really want to end the long-term rental crisis, government needs to give some rights back to the homeowners and recognize that freeloaders will take advantage of any opportunity to live off the backs of honest, hardworking people. This is truly a case of one bad apple spoiling the entire cart.