Abstract
Arkansas is the only U.S. state that does not have a landlord’s implied warranty of habitability, meaning tenants have a requirement for maintaining their rental properties at certain habitability standards, but landlords are not legally required to contribute to those minimum health and safety standards. This project assessed the possibility that this lack of landlord responsibility affects tenants’ perceived health. Using surveys and interviews, we collected self-reported data on the prevalence and description of problems faced by renters who needed household repairs from their landlords. Of almost 1,000 renters, one-third of them had experienced a problem with their landlord making needed repairs; and one-quarter of those had a health issue they attributed to their housing conditions. Common issues included problems with plumbing, heating, or cooling systems, and pest or rodent control. Reported health problems included elevated stress levels, breathing problems, headaches, high blood pressure, and bites or infections. Hispanic respondents and those with less than a high school education were both significantly more likely to report problems with their landlords not making repairs as requested. These data suggest that the lack of landlord requirements may negatively impact the condition of rental properties and, therefore, may negatively impact the health of Arkansas renters.
Highlights
We spend a great deal of time in the spaces in which we live, and it has been long understood that housing conditions have a significant impact on health status [1,2,3]
Model legislation introduced in 1972 called the Uniform Residential Landlord Tenant Act (URLTA) established a balanced framework for landlord–tenant laws which outlined rights and responsibilities of both parties for maintaining basic minimum habitability standards
Surveys Survey questions, developed by course instructors and the community partner, included two screening questions asking if the participant currently or had ever rented in Arkansas, awareness of Arkansas’s landlord–tenant laws, frequency of problems with the condition of rental property, an inventory of those maintenance issues, handling of issue by landlord, and attributable health effects
Summary
We spend a great deal of time in the spaces in which we live, and it has been long understood that housing conditions have a significant impact on health status [1,2,3]. Individuals who live in substandard housing are more likely to encounter material or physical hazards such as pest infestations, mold, leaks and dampness, poor ventilation, noise pollution, injury hazards, extreme temperatures, exposure to lead, or other poisoning and carcinogenic air pollutants or allergens that may trigger negative health effects [4,5,6,7]. Model legislation introduced in 1972 called the Uniform Residential Landlord Tenant Act (URLTA) established a balanced framework for landlord–tenant laws which outlined rights and responsibilities of both parties for maintaining basic minimum habitability standards. The vast majority of states have adopted some form this model legislation [15]
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