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About a year ago, Chloe Holloway noticed that a leaky ceiling in the kitchen pantry in her Duluth apartment — an issue she says she had complained to her landlord about for months — had grown into a severe mold problem.
So she donned an N-95 mask, goggles and rubber gloves to scrub the mold, when “my hand ended up going through the drywall. Pieces were falling onto my face,” she recalled.
Her landlord finally fixed the ceiling a few weeks later. But that experience inspired Holloway to get involved with Duluth Tenants — a new tenants union advocating for a ballot initiative dubbed “Right to Repair.”
"If Right to Repair had been in place when I noticed the leak, I would have been able to take care of the leak before it became this much more costly issue,” Holloway said.
Here's how it would work: A tenant would notify their landlord of a needed repair. Landlords would get two weeks to fix it. If they don't, the tenant could do the work themselves or hire someone to do it and deduct the cost from their next rent payment — up to $500 or a half month's rent, whichever is greater.
Advocates say it’s a common-sense approach that gives frustrated renters another tool to get simple repairs done in a timely manner — from a broken window or doorknob to a leaky faucet or clogged drain.
Skeptics, including several Duluth city council members, landlords and the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce, say the ballot measure duplicates renter protections already available through the city of Duluth and state statute, and it could put renters at legal or financial risk if they pay for repairs that are later disputed by their landlords.
The “Right to Repair” referendum has the support of several labor unions and Democratic state lawmakers in Duluth, where about 40 percent of the population are renters, living in some of the oldest housing stock in the state.
"Way too often, landlords, for any number of reasons, just aren't prioritizing those relatively small issues that make a huge difference in the quality of life for regular Duluthians,” said DFL State Sen. Jen McEwen.
The measure is backed by the progressive nonprofit Take Action Minnesota, which is based in St. Paul but also has a Duluth office. The group has pumped more than $225,000 into the campaign — including nearly $15,000 since Oct. 20 — to knock on doors, print yard signs and produce online ads.
Shortly after Duluth Tenants began collecting signatures to place the measure on the November ballot, Duluth city councilor Roz Randorf said she began meeting with the group to try to find common ground.
Eventually, she helped craft local legislation that she said meets the same objectives as the Right to Repair initiative.
"The ordinance that the City Council put forward really should have fit the bill for what they were seeking. And so I'm quite surprised, actually, that they didn't feel it did,” said Randorf.
The ordinance the council passed in June gives landlords two weeks to reply to repair complaints lodged with the city’s Life Safety Division within the Duluth Fire Department. If they don’t comply, they face fines and could lose their licenses. It also requires landlords to provide tenants with information about their rights and resources.
Randorf said the ballot initiative, while well-intentioned, places the financial risk on tenants who have “to pay up front and hope for reimbursement.” Under the council’s solution, she said, “the landlord is held accountable to fix or face fines."
Right to Repair advocates say their solution is simpler, and allows tenants to get needed repairs done more quickly — without having to wait for the city to issue a citation and then the landlord to schedule a repair.
But Barbara Montee, a longtime Duluth property owner and manager who founded the Duluth Landlord Association, said only property owners should conduct repairs jobs in case they go awry.
"I've had a plumber snake a drain, and the snake has gone through the drain, and then the water comes out the ceiling. And then I've got to repair the ceiling, and then the $50 call became a $500 call,” Montee said.
There could also be disagreements over whether a repair is required. A tenant may want the knob fixed on a bedroom door, for example. But a landlord is only required to fix a broken doorknob on a door that leads outside the unit.
Montee and others say renters should instead take better advantage of existing protections. State law allows renters to pay their rent into an escrow account and take their landlord to court for failing to make vital repairs.
In Duluth, despite the increased attention from the Right to Repair campaign, city officials don’t receive many tenant complaints, said Jon Otis, Deputy Chief of Life Safety for the Duluth Fire Department.
“On average, we're right around 20 complaints annually. This year, to date, we have only had 27 cases opened here in the city,” Otis said.
The city has met with Duluth Tenants and is working to increase the public’s awareness of renter’s rights to have repairs done quickly. In a city where half of the homes were built before 1940, Otis said Duluth’s creaky and somewhat worn-down housing stock also can surprise some newcomers. “We want tenants to know that they’re not alone,” the deputy chief said.
But that small number of complaints to the city doesn’t tell the whole story, said Eric Hauge, co-executive director of Home Line, a statewide tenant advocacy group based in Bloomington. He said renters often refrain from reporting landlords out of fear of retaliation.
He said so far this year, Home Line has given legal advice to nearly 300 renters in Duluth. More than a quarter of those calls were about repairs.
A policy like Right to Repair, Hauge said, helps even out the power imbalance between landlords and tenants.
"There are countless housing units in disrepair in the state, and tenants are putting up with it because they are fearful about what might happen if they go about enforcing their rights. This gives them another option,” Hauge said.
It's not a new concept, Hauge said. Similar policies exist in several states and cities, including Maine and Chicago.
If Duluth voters approve the initiative next week, it would be the first law of its kind in Minnesota.
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