A downtown alder’s recently proposed city ordinance designed with tenant rights in mind has been received with mixed feelings among students and property managers. The ordinance would require landlords to document any damages deducted from their tenants’ security deposits with photographs. Ald. Eli Judge, District 8, said he feels the ordinance is a necessity. “Ever since I’ve been elected, there’s been a problem of bad landlords taking advantage of students, or people who don’t know their rights,” Judge said. “It’s really expensive to go to court over damages that have been claimed by landlords, and some landlords are claiming damages with the assumption that the tenant will fail to challenge it.” University of Wisconsin senior Kira Brenner said she has had firsthand experience with being taken advantage of as a tenant. “We completely cleaned out the apartment, and then found out we were charged for damages that were already there,” Brenner explained. “About $400 was taken out of our security deposit for nothing.” According to Judge, the new ordinance would protect tenants from being unnecessarily charged for damages, as well as help landlords in situations with dishonest tenants. “By setting a burden of proof on the landlord, hopefully it will both protect tenants from bad landlords, and also landlords from fraudulent tenants,” Judge said. Some landlords and property managers are a bit hesitant, however. Darrick Dischaw, a landlord of The Aberdeen apartment building on West Gorham Street, agrees that the ordinance would be helpful, but said it would be difficult to uphold. “I think it’s a good idea to photograph significant damages, but if you want to photograph every single thing a landlord has to deal with, that’s going to be tricky, especially because you’re not going to have an accurate picture of what the apartment looked like before,” Dischaw said. “It would be hard to have before-and-after pictures of every square inch of every room of every apartment in the complex.” Michael Greiber, corporate counsel for Madison Property Management, said while the plan itself is a good one, it would not be efficient. “I’ve found that in my experience, normally, damages within the apartment at move-out are not disputed,” Greiber said. “Where the disagreement lies is when the tenant says the condition was preexisting — where they claim they didn’t see it or forgot to mark it. The other issue is when people say they shouldn’t be responsible for ‘normal wear and tear.'” Greiber said taking so many pictures is a lot of extra work and an unnecessary step. “It would expand tenant rights, but for that many apartments, only a small percentage would actually ask to see the photos,” Greiber said. However, Greiber said he could also see how photographs would be helpful in the courtroom. Judge responded to these sentiments by explaining that landlords would indeed benefit from the ordinance as well. “[Landlords] are going to get a lot of money out of this. If they take these pictures, it’s going to protect them against some pretty heavy liability issues and legal fees in the long run,” Judge said. “Landlords would also be protected against made-up charges.” Despite some of the uncertainty, however, the ordinance has garnered support overall from renters. “I think it seems like a pretty fair ordinance,” Brenner said. “It wouldn’t really cost landlords anything, and it would protect them as well.”