Published: November 07, 2009 08:27 pm      

There's a lesson to be learned

There’s a lesson to be learned



This past week a handful of unsuspecting renters in Goshen had their utilities turned off. They had no idea it was coming. These residents had been including their utilities payments in the rent to the local rental management firm, 1st Choice Property Management.

The owner of the company, Stuart Gingerich told The News that the recession has been increasingly difficult on his business with vacancy rates rising from around 5 percent all the way to about 15 percent. That increase, along with rising utility costs, Gingerich said, put a squeeze on his company’s cash flow and caused him to fall behind on utility payments that he was supposed to make for residents.



While many of us can sympathize with Gingerich’s dilemma, we feel it is extremely unfortunate that people who were doing what they were supposed to do were inconvenienced as they were. Discovering there is no water in the house is no way to start the day.

Susan Hochstetler is one of the residents who had her utilities shut off Tuesday. Again, she was shocked to see the Goshen city utilities truck in front of her house, especially since her payments to 1st Choice have included a portion for monthly utilities. She had no idea that the utility bill at her residence was in the arrears, in this case by about four months ($172).

After spending the entire day trying to figure out what was going on, Gingerich approached the Goshen City Council with a question. Why wasn’t she informed?



We feel that is a fair question for the council to consider. Why shouldn’t the residents of properties be notified should their landlord fall behind on utility payments? That way the resident can deal directly with the landlord to resolve the issue before a cut off is necessary. It seems logical that a delinquent notice can be left at the property as well as the landlord’s mailbox.

Goshen Mayor Allan Kauffman seemed agreeable to looking at the existing procedure and exploring the possibility of dual notifications.

We hope Gingerich and his company are able to recover. Again, most of us can understand what it’s like to try and persevere through these tough economic conditions. In the meantime, Maplewoods Property Management has taken over some of the 1st Choice properties and helped those renters who had their utilities shut off get them back up by the end of the day. It was not a cheap undertaking for the company. Good for them.

This was indeed an unfortunate situation. It’s also one we can learn from.