Bravo for your reporting on the private residence recently busted while operating as a home restaurant and overcrowded house in Freehold Borough. Our town really appreciates the special attention the News Transcript is paying to its efforts in dealing with bad landlords and inconsiderate tenants.
While not all absentee landlords necessarily make bad neighbors, we seem to have stumbled upon a large pocket of troublesome borough slumlords, trying to disguise themselves as solid citizens.
So far in a series of articles, you have successfully unmasked several code violators and in so doing, revealed the faces of police officers, code enforcement officials from other towns and religious members of the Lakewood community. You have also introduced us to numerous tenants who have shown little regard for federal, state and municipal laws; the public’s health and safety; their neighbors’ quality of life; and, least of all, any terms of the rental leases they allegedly signed.
While I praise the efforts of our code enforcement and health departments for doing an excellent job dealing with the people we just discussed, I highly commend your newspaper for taking the lead on this entire issue and realizing that bad landlords and bad tenants deserve bad press – and giving it to them. Keep up the good work.
Marc Le Vine
Councilman
Freehold Borough