Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

A "for rent" sign is on a house on Davis Street in Radford's east end. Most of the rental inspection requests to the city come from this part of the community, which is predominately made up of housing for Radford University students.

RADFORD -- Broken screens. Peeling and chipping paint. And lots and lots of dismantled and smoke detectors without batteries.

Those are the majority of problems seen by David Stilwell, a rental inspector and firefighter for the Radford Fire Department.

According to the city's building codes, each rental residence should be inspected at least every four years. But some wonder if that's a possibility, given Stilwell's part-time inspecting schedule.

The rental inspection program is part of the fire department. Stilwell, a full-time employee, works 24-hour shifts, splitting his time equally between his fire duties and inspection duties.

He's also the head fire inspector and does fire inspections when needed -- more often since one of the two Radford fire inspectors left.

"To be honest, we're short on personnel," said Fire Chief Lee Simpkins.

Since the program's Jan. 1 inception, there have been 106 inspections, 53 re-inspections and 34 requests for inspections by residents, Stilwell said.

By having Stilwell serve as rental inspector and firefighter, the city "was able to kill two birds with one stone," said City Councilman Bruce Brown.

The city used a Community Development Block Grant to help fund the position, which was budgeted at $66,000 a year in the 2008-09 budget.

"It would be great if the city could find money in the budget for a full-time person," said Mark Williams of Price-Williams Realty, which manages 10 apartment communities in Radford.

"If he's there on a part-time basis, I think we need to pick our battles."

Williams said although he hasn't had a problem with the program on his properties, he said he feels the code has too many "piddly" infractions.

"I'm behind the program, but it needs some tweakage," he said.

Most of the inspection requests come from the city's east end, which is predominately student housing, Stilwell said.

"It's not to say there are no problems in the other quarters, but we just get most of the complaints there," Simpkins said.

Before the program, the city had no other recourse for tenants except small claims court. Now, depending on the severity of the violation, landlords have between five and 30 days to fix violations.

The severe violations must be fixed in five to 10 days, Stilwell said, and minor violations, such as broken screens and peeling paint, have a 30-day deadline.

If the violations aren't corrected, Stilwell comes back for a third time. Fines are $50 for the third visit and $75 for each subsequent visit.

Multiple visits have only happened on two properties, Stilwell said.

"It's not all of the Realtors," Stilwell said. "We have some reputable Realtors in the city, and there are only one or two we really have issues out of and those are private individuals who are usually in it for the money."

Although the rental inspection program officially started Jan. 1, it was in the works for a few years before that. Council discussions and public hearings about the program go back to at least 2004, and the city instituted a pilot inspection program in 2008.

Bill Bondurant, president of Bondurant Realty, which manages nine student apartment properties in Radford, said his company has been "pretty happy with it."

"We were quite concerned a year ago," Bondurant said.

He said his staff was worried that the inspections would be unreasonable and picky -- such as asking for major outdoors paint jobs in January, he said.

"I'm glad we've gotten somebody with common sense doing inspections," Bondurant said. "He's not overlooking anything and he's doing his job, but he's not being unreasonable."

The intent was not to be a problem for landlords, but to make some properties more livable, Brown said.

"We want this to be a partnership instead of policing," Brown said. "Clearly ... there are some housing issues in Radford, but this is working to resolve them."