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do you think that a suit can be brought against the government for disrupting peoples' retirement plans, not to mention assisting in the destruction of community life, aesthetics, etc. of any particular town. After all, if it is found to have negatively effected property values, shouldn't the government at least be responsible, being that it was not the natural free market cycle which effected that change.

I'm finding so much of this info on this thread to be fascinating and this is of yours is of particular interest to me, as I am considering doing something along these lines.

When I moved into my home 10 years ago, it was a pretty run-down neighborhood mix of 60 owner occupied, rentals and Section 8 townhouse units. Well after a summer of real trouble a bunch of us got together and did the neighborhood watch thing and things started leveling out and calming down. The city was cracking down on code violations, etc.

Different people moved out and in and the cohesion kind of eroded.

It is amazing how tied are the hands of the City Inspection Department and the police department. I'm on a first name basis with half the people in both departments at this point.

I'm not looking at retirement, but I am looking at suing some of the slumlord landlords and naming the city as co-defenents. I have an end unit with 3 vacant units attached to me and so can't sell my place. And the city can't do a bloody thing about it.

I'm losing money every day that I can't sell and they just increased the txable appraisd value on it by 32%. The same city that can't deal with the problems.

sorry for my rant

you can do what i did. simply walk away. i didn't want to do it, but, as you can see, the so-called "slumlords" are just trying to find someone who hasn't been to prison and won't trash the place. how can you POSSIBLY keep up with repairs when a tenant's abusive boyfriend creeps in before the ink is dry on the rental agreement? the police and the courts here will tell you that they don't care to enforce violations on the number of occupants in a rental. they're too busy dealing with murders and the like. i've had some of my unluckier fellow ex-landlords recount situations where tenants slash water beds (that they weren't supposed to have; just TRY getting an eviction for an illegal waterbed; you'll be laughed out of court!) so that they could move; read: the ceiling is collapsed with water damage so i can't stay here; i guess i'll call city code enforcement so i can break the one year lease.

i say to all (and especially those who have vacant units ) who complain about so-called "slumlords," just ATTEMPT to find a decent, law-abiding, pay the rent on time tenant for your house/unit. it's a needle in a haystack in most urban areas.