Stamford Sees Rise in Illegal Rooming Houses

The economic crisis has reportedly led to an increase in illegal and sometimes dangerous housing arrangements.

According to an article in the Stamford Advocate, city officials have noted an increase in the number of people illegally sharing rented rooms, apartments and houses — and in some cases landlords are allowing it to happen.

For example city officials recently paid an unannounced visit to a 2,500 square foot house off Long Ridge Road and discovered that 12 people, including two children, were living there illegally, the article states.

Inside the house officials reportedly discovered that some rooms had been illegally partitioned in order to create a total of nine bedrooms. What’s more, officials found “exposed wires, electrical outlets overloaded with plugs, extension cords everywhere, mold, bags of clothing and other combustible clutter, units that had no escape in case of fire, and risk of carbon monoxide poisoning,” the article states.

All but four tenants had to be removed, according to the report. Meanwhile the landlord was charging $625 a month for a room.

The biggest risk is the fire hazard caused by improper electrical wiring, including the use of extension cords to power things like appliances. Such arrangements are becoming more common as landlords illegally partition rooms to create more rentable space, yet they failt to add electrical outlets, leaving it up the the renter's ingenuity to find ways to route power to lights and other items.

The Stamford Health Department’s "Operation Safe Houses" Task Force goes out about seven times a year, at night, to investigate illegal housing arrangements, because that’s the best time to catch people in the act, a city official said in the article. However the Task Force doesn’t have the manpower and resources it needs to fully combat the problem, the city official said.