renters may keep lax landlords in line

NEW YORK (Reuters) When Tom Hunter and his two roommates were left without heat for more than a month by a negligent landlord in New York, uk canada goose they began toying with canada goose factory sale an idea: an app that could help renters keep landlords in check.

Two winters and two Canada Goose Parka months of coding later, the friends are ready to launch Heat Seek NYC in late October in collaboration with two canada goose black friday sale not for profit groups.

The new Web app, which tracks ambient temperatures inside apartments with an Internet connected sensor, is designed to be used uk canada goose outlet related web canada goose outlet https://www.getcanadagooseoutlet.ca by New Yorker renters, who filed some 214,000 complaints last year alone, according to the city Department of Housing Preservation and Canada Goose Coats On Sale Development. The data recorded on the app produces canada goose clearance sale a log that can be printed and taken to housing court.

goal is to keep the heat on this winter, Hunter said.

Heat Seek NYC is among a canada goose store growing number of tech based tools for tenants and their advocates to force slack landlords to toe the buy canada goose jacket line. Another is SquaredAway Chicago, a Web app designed to bolster tenant requests for repairs by recording them on a third party server.

Also in the works is RentRocket, a website that uses crowd sourced data to show the full cost of rental properties, including utility fees. cities cheap canada goose uk from Bloomington, Indiana, to Burlington, Vermont.

Finally, under development in Los Angeles is an app called Tenants in Action, which will report housing violations in English and Spanish directly to city agencies.

With renters constituting up to 35 percent of households nationwide in early 2013, according canada goose clearance to a report by Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, there should Canada Goose Online be no shortage of complaints in sight.

The new apps are part of a trend by not for profits toward making new technologies available to benefit a wider audience, said Annemarie Spitz of the Chicago based firm Greater Good Studio, which uses design canada goose uk outlet methods to solve civic issues.

In the end, the high tech apps will do something as low tech but canada goose uk shop essential as establishing a paper trail, albeit electronic, said John Bartlett, director of Metropolitan Tenants Organization, which cheap Canada Goose worked with Spitz to build SquaredAway Chicago.

of the issues canadian goose jacket that we continually come up against with tenants canada goose uk black friday is that everything is buy canada goose jacket cheap verbal, so there no way canada goose coats on sale to properly document what happened, Bartlett said.

housing is a business transaction, and proper business etiquette is you put things in writing, he said.

Between October2013 and May 2014, New YorkCity completed about $5.1 million in emergency repairs when Canada Goose Outlet building owners canada goose failed to restore heat, hot water or both after being Canada Goose Jackets served with violation notices, according to the housing department.

Heat Seek NYC canada goose coats requires the installation of a temperature sensor inside an apartment. The tenant then uses a free app to compare the sensor data against outdoor temperatures and indoor requirements set by the New York City heating code to identify violations Canada Goose online as they occur.

In New York, landlords are required to heat buildings to at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit when daytime temperatures fall below 55 degrees outside. At night, the inside temperature must Canada Goose sale be at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit when it is 40 degrees or less outside.