Shop

The Columbus code-enforcement department is responsible for ensuring that the city's buildings are safe and sound. But city policies have inspectors chasing minor complaints instead of chronic housing-code offenders. Lax laws and lenient judges have left people living in fear that a sagging porch roof will fall, that the second-story bathroom floor might collapse or that the electrical wiring could be defective. The deaths of a young couple and child on Christmas Eve 2011 exposed significant problems. In the aftermath, the city promised changes but didn't follow through with substantive reforms, prompting a Dispatch investigation.