GREAT NEWS! Seattle increased the expense of doing business again!

The Seattle City Council has approved a program (translation: the seeds of a new giant money-sucking, business-killing, life-stealing bureaucracy) in order to solve the problem of rental units that are not up to snuff. They will now add to the expense of EVERYONE in order to require registration and inspection of all rental property begining in 2014. They say the complaint system isn’t working because they have too few complaints a year but estimate that the problem is much, much bigger.

My guess? With fines to levy against property owners (you know, those evil people who save and invest in order to give people a place to live, then hope those people actually pay their rent), I’m guessing the new inspectors will have all kinds of reasons to find problems to fix.

PSST… those of you in the comment section–I’m not saying there’s never a problem. I am saying this is not how to fix it.