households, there was at least one minor offspring present in the household. personally, i know of one instance involving a single mother and her child where the mold and mildew were so president that this young mother and after this declaimed that was not his responsibility. adding insult to injury, vilifying the victim by suggesting that tenant was at fault because of the length of for showers and the practice of leaving the bathroom door open. thank you. supervisor chiu: next speaker. >> my name is beneath johnson

[inaudible] >> please poll your microphone closer. >> last year i was going through issues with fire damage, the electrical hazards, and mold, with no acknowledgment from my landlord, deeming my issues cosmetic and unimportant and i ask you to support the movement and would be able to help the health apartment thank you. supervisor chiu: next speaker. >> in my property owner.

i do support the mission it is trickier. i do not think it is fair to have it $1,000 per day fine for bedbug violations placed on a landlord, or to make the landlords for reliable. even though the most common way they are brought into the home is by tenants, i agreed that landlords should be responsible for paying for the past treatment. but those treatments don't -- do not always take care of things if the tenants do not clean things up properly and follow the instruction of the landlord

or pesticide company. it becomes more complicated and it is rhonda to hold land board 100% liable and give them a fine for bedbugs, which are always, almost always, brought in by the tenant. myself, i have apartments with multiple roommates. so far, something changes and they move out to go to a different college, city, something happens, a new roommate moves in, and i allow for a change in the setting. what this does now is every time there is a change in roommates, i am now open to $1,000 per day fine if this tenant happens to have bedbugs they're bringing with them. i do not think it is here. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors.

i just wanted to address two points. first, the legislation is shortsighted because bedbugs are different from roaches. those kinds of pests usually accumulate on buildings or units where there is a lack of maintenance, they are dirty, it can be fixed and remedied by the owner. bedbugs are an entirely different story. they come into the cleanest of buildings. movie theaters, offices, luggage. it is an impossible situation to control. our membership has since traveled with huge costs of remediation. my second point, while the doctors has testified that the fines for attorney fees will only be opposed -- impose on the agreed his landlords, that is

not what the legislation says. it says that we have the authority to assess fines, make you pay for the fees occurred, and any situation where there is a violation or ongoing violation -- i can tell you, firsthand experience, bedbug problems do not go away overnight. we spend a ton of money each month just to have these into stations repeat themselves. something i need the scientific community on. supervisor chiu: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. i appreciate the doctor's comments the legislative died this peddling of garbage by

property owners so i did not see any justification for the evidence proposed. it seems to me you'd be paying $5,000 per day for a single problem. recently i had a bed bug problem. it took several weeks to give this tenant to cooperate. even with the intervention of personnel, this tenant refused to wash his clothes, that you his unit, and get rid of the

invested furniture. it took months to get the situation rectified. by the time that the problem had split two other units, it was too late. new have a possible requirement were you provide special testing improve and in any case it should be sufficient and if you had a poor region requirement to provide contact information -- supervisor chiu: thank you very

much. next speaker. >> supervisors, with ordnances that are not being forced and even as some will reduce joseph, it bring it in and you speak to him about the comments that are being made. when it comes to bedbugs, it is very expensive to eradicate them. you can either freeze them i

would like the health department to see how using and how and expensive it is, reporting to you, supervisors. as far as nuisance cases are concerned, the san francisco housing authority is one of the biggest culprits when it comes to you know nothing about it because you as the swallows the of the this it disposition of agreement >> and it is fun on a

superfund site at this point. supervisors, please look at this in a holistic manner. is a of the educator >> i am i've our manager in the city, landlord should not be negligible as -- which penalize for the negligence of a few tenants. april, 2005, one tenant failed to notice the spread of the ball loose from her unit. since then it has cost of

property. we use application as well as freezing and storing personal ballot -- belongings. a pager was created for each tenant, advising them not to eliminate the bad bugs on their own, to go online for treatment. recently we experienced similar this -- relationships. heat treatment. k-9 units, they are extremely expensive. this landlord has done everything in their power to eliminate bedbugs when all it takes is for a tendon to bring in a used furniture and a used bed and we are back to square one. blame cannot be assigned as it is impossible to know where they come from. they are everywhere in the whole

country, hotels, movie theaters, public transportation. i must ask what we can do with regards to the new composting law. i have received numerous calls from residents who have flies because of the compost. thank you. >> next speaker? pedroia >> -- supervisor avalos: i have two more cards. >> good morning, supervisors. i have lived in san francisco for 58 years. i would like to thank the supervisor for bringing this proposed ordinance forward. i think it is relevant since garbage exists in every part of san francisco. i would like to direct my comments with regards to the issue of refuse collection some

of my neighbors have been wondering why the city has not been in forcing, more strictly, the requirement that every household is required to have refuse collection. it is funny when i drive around the city each day to see piles of garbage left there. i suspect it was left by someone who did not leave it brigitte livid that street. it is pop -- comical when you see these large bundles of gardening items left randomly on different streets. almost impossible to trace who leaves behind, especially the garden cuttings and things like that. i think that that should also be examined along with this item. i would urge favorable proposal.

many people in a higher class neighborhoods tolerate the illegal dumping. and it is almost impossible stop illegal dumping and if it is ok for them to do it, it continues on and on without stopping. i think that this item deserves to be examined more closely. >> for me the question before us here is really the, what price tag do we put on quality of life? what price tag on the health of tenants?

of children? we saw about 124 cases of mild last year. that is the tip of the iceberg. how many more cases were there in the city that were never brought to our door. we have seen many cases of people with asthma, like myself, living in conditions that are failing their health, as well as children are exposed daily. i have one tenant who has been living for over one year with a roach infestation that you would not believe. she has two young children. as a counselor, i have run to the health department crews enforcement is not strong enough. this legislation comes from a sense of frustration at the fact that the current enforcement does not work. we need more. we will council tenants, who try

to advocate for tenants, we need help. help to help these tenants whose testimony you heard here today. what price tag do we put on a human life? thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. reid, california, one of the founders of the san francisco task force, the residence that you heard earlier today, we have been linking health issues and health conditions, conducting a survey of the residence in one of the said codes. someone in the home had asthma, flooding problems, water stains, lack of heat, cracks in walls, windows that did not open.

these problems were related to mold, mildew, rampant and chronic. they are directly links to aggravating adds a lot. residents experience asthma rates five times higher than those in other parts of the city. to improve the health of residents, decrease the use of health care and emergency departments, bringing housing conditions to a level code, housing department enforcement code violation has been strengthened. providing greater incentive for property owners to make the repairs necessary for these vulnerable residents. thank you for your consideration. >> next speaker, please. >> the reason i'm here, i find

that as a property owner you find the things that need to be done. you have 10 instead perhaps do not maintain proper sanitation. you speak to them, u.s. them to do it, but we have no muscle to do anything about it. yet you know that this unit is infested and we have passed control that tenants refuse. i call the health department. i explained to them. they say that they cannot afford to send anyone out. well, you are collecting fees for that. we could eliminate some of these problems if the health department would follow up on the landlord's request, not 10 and request. thank you. -- not the tenant's request. >> good morning. in the director of the san francisco apartment association.

as you hear it -- as you heard here today, many issues are being brought up as related to the owner responsibility and tenet responsibility. what we thought was a hearing on bedbugs has turned into a hearing about other quality of life problems dealing with rental housing. i would highly recommend to this committee that this legislation be tabled and set into a task force of owners and tenants to work on a long-term solution to the problems that exist in the health code and overlap that exists. and have owners being more responsible in the enforcement of the laws, it needs to be

simplified for them. ddi has a system in place already. we work with them to enforce existing housing code laws. perhaps that group should be brought in with the health department route under one housing code team that can look at combined enforcement rather than two separate departments trying to accomplish the same thing in a haphazard manner. there are complications that have to do with garbage pickup. we just went through a huge change in garbage pickup and the composting lost. many of the folks that were composting in multi-unit buildings are being asked to take it down to the lower floors. this is creating a lot of unintended consequences because

the legislation has not -- [tone] committee task force environment where we can solve the problem and seek solutions to make tenants and owners have a better quality of life in 7 cisco. thank you. supervisor chiu:i am certainly f

abating nuisances and thus are less. if there are annual inspections of sros, you know this involves more than one-half of 1%. first of all, let me speak to the process. although i applaud the author of this legislation's intent, the city has an sro task force.

i have been working on that as a member of the public. this is not in regard to the task force. i would agree with the previous speaker's suggestion, that this legislation be continued and given to the sro task force, so they can vent some of these proposals. secondly, in my opinion, the department of public health is not the appropriate enforcement agency of this legislation. as you know we have standards of care for homeless shelters. dph is also the enforcement agency -- to enforce the standards of care, but for the last few years, there has been no enforcement of the standards of care at homeless shelters. so i have no confidence in dph

enforcing these nuisance standards. finally, in terms of garbage disposal being precluded from 11:00 at night until 7:00 in the morning, i think that is unwise. as you know, sro's have one elevator, at best when there are working. so you have this activity at the entime of the day when tenants e coming and going. it is not a good idea. >> thank you. next speaker? >> good morning, commissioners. i am a landlord. i think you have heard comprehensive testimony about how many landlords are opposed to this today. if you are really interested in

giving tools to the department of public health to help in the eradication of bedbugs, then seriously consider including a tenant as a responsible person under this legislation. if you read through the legislation, making the landlord the sole responsible person insofar as bad bugs, is unworkable. as you have heard, landlords do not go through their building looking for bedbugs. in my own case, it is difficult to get the tenants to apply -- comply with proper medication measures. there are a series of information, pamphlets that we send out to get ready for the system in place. we often walk into the building with the staff that we have

hired to do the work and the work is not done. it is not the landlord's fault. if you want this to be more than just another wedge issue coming from city hall, make the tenant a responsible person. i suggested this to the doctor in a couple of weeks ago. it was rejected. nobody wants to touch the third rail in san francisco. i would also like some clarification on the amendment that was made today on the removal of refuse from buildings. does that mean that before it is removed, it has to be brought down to the ground floor? as the legislation was written last week, this will be a big issue, in chinatown, parts of north beach where you have virtuallyon the ground near the

alleyways. i would like clarification on that amendment. >> my name is andrew long. i am a small property owner. i think this piece of legislation needs to be tabled and reworked. you are making landlords the sole responsible party for bedbugs for a $1,000 a day fine, which is draconian. the reality is, 99.9% of the time, bedbugs are brought into the location by the tenant. there is not much we can do about that. people take free furniture from the city and bring it into their apartment, and all of a sudden you have bedbugs.

you have a lot of duplication of enforcement. we have the department of public health doing what dbi does. to we really need two agencies doing the same job? as it is, we are plighpaying foo agencies that are duplicating a lot of work. i think this whole thing needs to be rethought. we need to have a task force with all responsible parties and come up with a better system. that would be a much better path to go down then this legislation, which is just going to become another wedge issue. food there is no responsibility

on the tenet -- there is no responsibility on the tenant's part to deal with the issue. >> good morning, commissioners. first, i would like to thank you, supervisor, the doctor, for confirming the fact that most landlord to what they can to maintain their buildings and keep them the vector-free, including doing what they can to prevent bedbugs. unfortunately, the landlord is not the person who is able to stop the bad bugs from entering the unit. it is important that we do this. it suggests the tenants within the unit has some responsibility. i do not know how that is going to work, we can have a discussion, but in the cases of discussion, but in the cases of the less than 1% that go ove