Oakland Series: Part 1

The first year I moved out of the dorms to an off campus house was my sophomore year, when 3 of my Pitt girlfriends and I moved into a house on Chesterfield Street in Oakland [Google Earth shot]. Chesterfield is a 45 degree cobblestone road that leads down to a 5 minute walk to Pitt’s main campus, nestled between the UPMC hospital system and Carlow College.



Our landlord’s name was Robert “Bob” Eckenrode, a noted “slumlord” who even had an entire section of a June 2006 Pittsburgh Post Gazette article devoted to him. I wish that article was a little more timely because I would have known to stay away from him in 2004! The article states;

“Mr. [Robert] Eckenrode, of Mt. Lebanon, faced 34 complaints in Pittsburgh Municipal Court from 2003 through early last year. At that point, the court changed from a city operation to part of the county-run court system, and it no longer provides data on building code complaints. Mr. Eckenrode owns 28 Oakland properties.”
~ Pitt students find landlords slow to make repairs in off-campus apartments, By Rich Lord and Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sunday edition: 06/18/06

The stairs leading to our home on Chesterfield were crumbling and unsafe, one of many of the issues we noticed when we were looking at the house freshman year. But, we were late in the rental game, brand-new to looking for housing, and Bob promised that the stairs would be replaced before August, our move-in date. So, we signed a lease and move-in day came and went. But… no repairs were made.



The first half of the school year passed and we called Jimmy, the building inspector, who quickly became #1 on my speed dial. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in June ‘06 that “Oakland has one building inspector, which it shares with the South Side. For about a decade, a second inspector, James King [our dear friend Jimmy], has worked primarily in Oakland. In a unique arrangement, Pitt pays half of the inspector’s salary and benefits, or about $23,000 a year.”



Upon Jimmy’s multiple inspections (and I’m sure the many calls from my mother helped), the city fined Bob for the unsafe stairs, but it was still not until winter when, under intense pressure from the city (and my mother), Bob tore the stairs down.



This was a small victory in itself, yet the hard part was getting the new stairs built. For weeks, we had to climb up ourneighbor’s stairs and over our porch railing, jumping down 4 feet to our own porch in order to enter the house. This was in the middle of winter, when snow and ice blanketed both porches.



Finally, after two months passed and more calls were made to Jimmy, new stairs were erected! Unfortunately, the new railing shook violently and the pile of rubble left from the original stairs remained in our front yard. Yet, we felt it was a small price to pay to enter their home from our own set of stairs.



After we moved out, we were horrified to learn that money was extracted from our security deposit for a broken drawer in the kitchen and some peeling paint on the wall. The drawer was actually broken when we moved in, and the peeling paint was a result of the landlord’s use of a bad paint mixture; neither issue was our fault, yet we had to pay. We also received no compensation for our stair troubles. Sadly, my story is not an isolated incident. Many students residing in Oakland have similar horror stories to share.



After my experiences with terrible Oakland housing, I applied and earned the position of Off-Campus Housing Chairperson within Pitt’s Student Government Board for the 2005-2006 year. Thanks to my experiences with the off-campus housing committee and my deep knowledge of Oakland, the subject of housing and community is one that I have much to write about. Unfortunately, it seems as though the committee has fallen off SGB’s agenda for the time being, a sad loss of a great committee that helped to bridge the gap between the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation (OPDC) and other community organizations.



Keep an eye out for more blog entries on slumlords in Oakland, the expansion of the University of Pittsburgh and its effect on the community, and the state of the community of Oakland today.