Breaking: Residents Of Neighborhood Complain

We all know politicians hate college kids. One, college kids don’t vote, and two, old people hate kids, and politicians are old. And so when City Council — one day after hearing testimony about public urination in Manayunk — holds a hearing about rowdy college-age kids in Manayunk, one might expect it to be another day of college-kid bashing.

Not so! You see, college-age kids also spend money in Manayunk, so nobody wants them to leave altogether. So what can you do? Find somebody else to blame: absentee landlords!

“A lot of times an absentee landlord will buy a home and make it a triplex or duplex without proper permits,” said Patty-Pat Kozlowski, an aide to Councilwoman Joan Krajewski. “A lot of people complain about trash violations, animal violations, overcrowding.”

For the past two years, Krajewski’s office has investigated nuisance renters in Philadelphia and found that absentee landlords who live out-of-area are a major problem. Their solution is to require landlords from outside of Philadelphia to have a “local agent” to be held accountable for L&I violations and quality of life issues.

And then the head of the Manayunk Development Corporation said all the kids need to be watched over by an authority figure, because that is something that all the twentysomethings in Manayunk really want.

Animal houses targeted [Metro]
Yesterday: Old Manayunk Residents Have Pissing Contest With Twentysomething Manayunk Residents