How Keeping Track of Slumlords Became One Baltimore Woman's Full-Time Job

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/07/how-keeping-track-slumlords-became-one-baltimore-womans-full-time-job/6222/



Carol Ott is used to words of concern from Baltimore city bus drivers. They tend to reveal their surprise that a diminutive, middle-age white woman would want to walk through neighborhoods where boarded-up or burned-out vacant properties—and the crime that tends to pop up in such areas where no one’s looking—are a common sight.

Her response never changes. Yes, she tells them, this is my stop.

After all, she needs those boarded-up houses. Ott is the instigator behind Baltimore Slumlord Watch, a blog documenting blighted, vacant properties owned by individual or commercial landlords in Baltimore.

On a good week, Ott takes photos of almost 20 different properties. Then comes the research: combing through city and state property tax records; making crafty queries on Google; the occasional trip to the city courthouse to determine a property’s chain of ownership. Finally, Ott publishes those photos of vacants, their addresses, and any information she’s discovered about them—including who the owner is—on Baltimore Slumlord Watch. Since 2008, when she first started the blog, Ott has published more than 700 posts calling out absentee landlords who do nothing to fix up derelict properties.