With classes set to begin this month for thousands of college students in the Boston area, city officials are hoping that a new ordinance will ensure that they have safe and clean apartments.

The Boston City Council has passed an ordinance that went into effect just last Friday that enables tenants who have concerns about the condition of a new apartment to request a city inspection within 24 hours of moving in.

Under the new ordinance, introduced by Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the city’s Inspectional Services Department must provide an inspection within two business days. If violations are found, a property owner could be fined up to $300 and must make necessary corrections within two weeks or face additional fines.

The Inspectional Services Department has sent letters and checklists to property owners and managers, real estate offices and groups like the Greater Boston Real Estate Board to inform them of the new ordinance. The letter cites five criteria that rental housing units must meet when a new tenant moves in, including having functioning smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. Units also must be broom-swept and clean, and safe, and absentee landlords must post their contact information for tenants.

Dion Irish, the assistant commissioner in charge of housing at the Inspectional Services Department, said the ordinance was needed because some property owners are allowing tenants to move into an apartment within hours of another renter moving out. The quick turnaround means that some tenants are settling into apartments that are filthy and unsafe because a property owner or manager hasn’t taken the time to clean and address maintenance issues.

“This is a consistent problem that we’ve seen,” said Irish. “Some landlords have adopted a business practice of letting a tenant move in as soon as someone else moves out. Their thinking is, ‘I don’t want to leave my unit vacant.'”

Irish said inspectors have seen some “horrific” cases, with tenants moving into units with holes in the walls, exposed wiring and, in some cases, apartments that aren’t even completed.

“There are thousands of units in the city that are turned over properly, but we do have hundreds of units that are turned over in unsafe, unsanitary and unclean conditions,” said Irish.

Students are particularly vulnerable because they often rent units through a real estate agent and don’t know who the property owner is or how to contact him when they need a routine or emergency repair, said Irish.

‘Greater Incentive’
“This is an attempt on the part of the city to encourage new tenants to involve the city from the outset when the condition of the unit is not sanitary when they move in,” said Stephanie Balandis, an attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services who works with tenants. “Unlike regular sanitary code enforcement when you should contact your landlord first to give them a chance to make repairs, I think the city is really sending a message with this ordinance to say, ‘We want to know which landlords are not turning over units in a sanitary condition.'”

Balandis said she has worked with tenants who remember moving into dirty apartments 10 to 20 years ago and having to spend days cleaning.

“This truly happens with some frequency,” she said. But many tenants feel like they’re stuck and can’t do anything because they’ve signed leases, she added.

“So many units have problems from the outset. This is the best way for tenants to be able to enforce the right to decent housing,” said Balandis, who described the ordinance as an important enforcement tool.

“This will hopefully give the city a snapshot of which landlords are really not conducting business as they should,” she said.

The new ordinance gives inspectors the ability to issue a fine on the spot if they see code violations while inspecting the unit, according to Irish. Before the ordinance was passed, inspectors who found a violation would have to go through a lengthier process that involved issuing a citation and giving landlords at least a month to correct violations and then re-inspecting a unit. If repairs or corrections were not made, then a hearing process would take place.

“[The new ordinance] creates greater incentive for landlords to make sure that these things are in place before the unit is turned over,” said Irish, who noted that it is intended to lead to speedier compliance.

The city has had a rental re-inspection ordinance for more than 20 years that requires rental units to be inspected every time a new tenant moves in to check for compliance of the state’s sanitary code. The ordinance, which was revised in 2003, requires landlords to request an inspection from the city or another qualified inspector within 45 days of a new tenant’s move-in date. Owner-occupied dwellings with one to six apartments are exempt.

Landlords who don’t comply with the ordinance are subject to a $300 fine for every month that they’re not in compliance.

But community leaders like Juan Gonzalez, who is the director of community organizing for the Allston Brighton Community Development Corp., said he has seen many landlords and tenants bypass that re-inspection process.

“I know so many people – landlords and some tenants – who are not doing it. They know this is what they have to do,” said Gonzalez.

The Allston Brighton CDC, which provides counseling and information to tenants, is particularly interested in the new ordinance because it is battling a bedbug problem in the neighborhood. The neighborhood draws many students who attend nearby colleges and universities in the fall and many of them aren’t aware of a property’s conditions and problems.

Allston/Brighton was one of the first neighborhoods in the city to notice a bedbug outbreak several years ago, but other parts of the city have seen infestations over the last year.

Gonzalez said last year he encountered tenants who moved into an apartment with newly purchased furniture and quickly discovered there was a bedbug problem. But by then all the new furniture was infested and they had to get rid of it, said Gonzalez.

“We got several cases [last year]. People were fighting to get their money back and looking for new apartments,” said Gonzalez.

The organization is organizing a conference on bedbugs that is scheduled to take place Sept. 16.

Last Friday, volunteers from the CDC, the Boston Health Commission and city inspectors scoured the streets slapping stickers on discarded furniture to warn people that they may be infested with bedbugs and making sure that city trash collectors were picking up leftover debris from the moves.

The Inspectional Services Department also started contacting real estate agents and property owners, as well as the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, soon after City Council approved the ordinance.

Patricia Baumer, GBREB’s director of government affairs, said last week that the board would be contacting members to update them about the ordinance.

“Initially, our membership felt that they were already complying with the law so they didn’t feel that they would be impacted,” she said.