BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �






           SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE       BILL NO: SB 1167
          SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN              AUTHOR:  hueso
                                                         VERSION: 3/26/14
          Analysis by:  Mark Stivers                     FISCAL:  yes
          Hearing date:  April 1, 2014



          SUBJECT:

          Vector infestations

          DESCRIPTION:

          This bill requires property owners to abate substandard building  
          conditions causing vector infestations, in addition to  
          destroying the vectors.  

          ANALYSIS:

          The State Housing Law contains a long list of conditions  
          relating to inadequate sanitation, structural hazards, faulty  
          weather protection, and unsafe wiring, plumbing, or mechanical  
          systems that make a dwelling unit substandard.  One of these is  
          an infestation of insects, vermin, or rodents.  The law further  
          empowers code enforcement officers to cite substandard  
          conditions and to require that a property owner correct the  
          violations.  If the owner fails to do so after 30 days' notice,  
          or within a shorter notice period if the enforcement agency  
          deems it necessary to prevent or remedy an immediate threat to  
          the health and safety of the public, the enforcement agency must  
          institute appropriate actions or proceedings to prevent,  
          restrain, correct, or abate the violation.

          Likewise, state environmental health law requires a person who  
          possesses (i.e., owns or leases) any place that is infested with  
          rodents to endeavor to exterminate and destroy the rodents.  The  
          law allows the Department of Public Health (DPH) and local  
          health officers to inspect places for infestation.  If the  
          possessor of the property fails to endeavor to exterminate and  
          destroy the rodents, DPH or the local health officer must  
          exterminate and destroy the rodents and may place a lien against  
          the property to recover its costs.  Independent of any  
          particular property, a city or county may also order and pay for  
          the extermination and destruction of rodents on both private and  
          public property.




          SB 1167 (HUESO)                                        Page 2

                                                                       



           This bill  amends the State Housing Law to provide that if a  
          dwelling is substandard due to an infestation of insects,  
          vermin, or rodents, the enforcement agency's order shall include  
          a requirement that the owner abate any other substandard  
          conditions causing the infestation.  

          The bill also amends state environmental health law to expand  
          the authority and obligations of DPH and local health officers  
          to abate substandard conditions causing a rodent infestation.

          COMMENTS:

           1.Purpose of the bill  .  According to the sponsors, pest  
            infestations and structural housing deficiencies are  
            inextricably intertwined.  The structural conditions that  
            provide entry, food, and water that pests need to survive  
            deteriorate further with the pest infestation.  Because many  
            abatement orders relating to infestations only require an  
            owner to exterminate and destroy the pests, the structural  
            deficiencies remain unaddressed, virtually assuring repeat  
            infestations.  This bill will ensure that owners address  
            structural deficiencies that contribute to pest infestations.

           2.New authority for health inspectors, not for building  
            inspectors  .  This bill requires both building and health  
            inspectors responding to an infestation to order the abatement  
            of both the infestation and substandard building conditions  
            that cause the infestation.  Building inspectors already have  
            the authority to cite any substandard building condition and  
            theoretically should already be doing so.  As a result, the  
            authority that this bill grants to building inspectors is  
            redundant.  The bill's authority, however, for health  
            inspectors to cite substandard building conditions that cause  
            an infestation are in fact new and should reduce the need for  
            multiple inspections to address a single problem.  
          
          POSITIONS:  (Communicated to the committee before noon on  
          Wednesday,                                             March 26,  
          2014.)

               SUPPORT:  California Association of Code Enforcement  
          Officers (co-sponsor)
                         Physicians for Local Responsibility, Los Angeles  
          (co-sponsor)
                         Regional Asthma Management and Prevention  




          SB 1167 (HUESO)                                        Page 3

                                                                       


          (co-sponsor)
                         Alameda County Healthy Housing Department
                         Asthma Coalition of Los Angeles County
                         California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
                         Merced/Mariposa County Asthma Coalition
                         Sierra Club California
                         Western Center on Law and Poverty

               OPPOSED:  None received.