Cape Girardeau landlords have until April 12 to register with the city.
The City Council passed an ordinance last year that establishes a landlord licensing procedure. It also set up a framework for city staff to inspect rental properties.
Assistant city manager Kelly Green says 133 landlords have already registered. Those landlords operate nearly 1,700 hundred units.
Green says city staff is able to inspect units under certain conditions.
“The ordinance is a complaint-based ordinance,” Green said. “So we only go into a location if there has been a complaint and if the tenant or the landlord will allow us into it.”
Green says the city didn’t really know how many landlords or rental units were in Cape Girardeau until they began this process.
“Our first step really is just to establish this database so that we know where our units are, who our landlords are, who our contacts are, and those kinds of things,” Green said.
The city has received 28 complaints since January first. Those complaints have come from tenants about problems with landlords and from landlords with “problem tenants.” Green says 12 of those complaints have already been corrected.
