Lead-paint cases fi led against 13 homeowners
Columbus officials have filed 13 cases against homeowners who have not removed lead paint from their properties, even after Columbus Public Health officials ordered them to do so and marked the houses with warnings. All are occupied, either by owners or renters.
The city plans to file up to 50 cases, including against vacant properties, Assistant City Attorney Shayla Favor said Thursday. Some of the orders have languished for six years without compliance.
“We’re working closely with Columbus Public Health, getting the process in order,” Favor said. The cases were filed late Wednesday afternoon in Franklin County Environmental Court.
It’s the first time that city attorneys have comprehensively reviewed lead-paint orders.
The 13 properties are among 51 Columbus residences, most of them rentals, that the Ohio Department of Health placed on a list in May, saying they
must be vacated because of lead hazards. The 51 were among a state registry of 540 where owners had failed to comply. A new list, dated Oct. 22, shows 62 Columbus properties.
Houses are placed on the list when blood tests show that children living there have high lead levels.
David Norris, senior researcher at Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, said the city is doing a good thing in going after the 13 problem sites, but Columbus and Franklin County have as many as 70,000 small rental properties that should be addressed because they could be harboring lead-paint risks based on their age and value.
Norris said that authorities need to move from a system that reacts after children have suffered some injury to one that protects them.
Patricia Barnes, executive director of the Ohio Healthy Homes Network, said her group also supports being more proactive, while still supporting the city’s actions.
“These owners have ignored the lead orders, torn off the placards, failed to disclose lead hazards to tenants, and exposed young children to hazardous levels of lead-based paint,” she said.
Norris, Barnes and other advocates say Columbus would be wise to consider adopting an ordinance similar to one that went into effect in Toledo last year requiring inspections of rental properties for lead.
“I would love for that to happen here,” said Lindsey Loman of Clintonville, a member of a group trying to prevent lead poisoning in Ohio.
Norris said that Toledo’s ordinance provides a good compromise because it requires property owners to take only interim measures, not full lead-paint abatement.
Columbus City Councilwoman Jaiza Page said she’s willing to explore such an ordinance here.
“We want to make sure that any residences where people are living are safe and healthy,” said Page, who leads the council’s housing committee.
Houses built before 1950 are likely to have lead paint. A national ban on consumer uses for lead paint went into
911 Camden Ave. 223 Wayne Ave. 1169 S. 22nd St. 982 E. 16th Ave. 1491 Myrtle Ave. 75 Brehl Ave. 47 Whitethorne Ave. 803 Leona Ave. 72 N. Terrace Ave. 790 S. Wayne Ave. 70 N. 22nd St. 2216 Gerbert Road 1047-1049 E. 17th Ave. Source: Columbus city attorney’s office
effect in 1978. Children are poisoned when they ingest paint chips or inhale paint dust. Lead can affect the nervous system and result in a lower IQ, delayed growth and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders. In extreme cases, poisoning can cause mental retardation, convulsions, comas and death.
Raymond Schrodt owns and lives in a house at 72 N. Terrace Ave. on the Hilltop, one of the 13 homes the city filed civil cases against. He said he plans to apply for a city grant to pay to make the house lead-safe.
Schrodt said that an infant living in the house was found to have high lead levels. He said that he painted over baseboards that had lead paint, and that the infant was too young to eat paint.
But he acknowledged that he can’t prove the house wasn’t the reason for the child’s problem.
“It’s embarrassing,” he said.