Sunday, October 04, 2009
Editorial: Make landlords install CO detectors
Carbon monoxide poisoning strikes in Christiansburg this time.
From the RoundTable blog
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Last week, four men in Christiansburg wound up in the hospital after exposure to high levels of carbon monoxide. They were lucky. The gas only made them sick. They could have died, as at least one Southwest Virginian has in recent years after carbon monoxide exposure. Dozens more have been sickened by the odorless gas, including two dozen near Virginia Tech two years ago.
Prudent homeowners, especially those with natural gas heating, install carbon monoxide detectors. Renters, like the four sickened men, don't decide on that, and the Republican-controlled House of Delegates refuses to help.
Carbon monoxide can come from sources other than furnaces, of course. In the Christiansburg incident, one of the men accidentally left his car running in the garage when he arrived home late Sunday night. The carbon monoxide rose to dangerous levels in his and his two neighbors' town homes.
Firefighters who responded to the incident did not find carbon monoxide detectors in the town homes, which should surprise no one. The commonwealth does not require landlords to install the devices that might save their tenants' lives.
Many landlords loathe spending money on detectors and oppose legislation to require them in multifamily residential development and hotels. They also cite a flawed, out-of-date study that showed detectors tended to report false positives. In our view, it would be better to deal with a rare false alarm than to miss a dangerous situation.
Sen. John Edwards, who represents much of the New River Valley, sponsored a carbon monoxide bill last year. It passed the Senate unanimously, but a subcommittee in the House killed it. Similar bills have passed the Senate repeatedly in recent years only to die in House subcommittees.
A requirement would be particularly valuable in the New River Valley, where rental properties are plentiful and often occupied by students on their own for the first time.
If delegates do not have the courage to demand landlords take this modest step to protect their tenants, the least the General Assembly could do next year is empower localities to make the decision. State law regarding smoke detectors works that way, allowing each community to decide whether apartments, town homes and so on must install them.
Renters deserve such basic, common sense safety measures. Besides, they will ultimately pay for them anyway through their rent.
