Bellingham tenant advocates push for professionalism after ‘hostile’ inspection
A city of Bellingham residential rental inspector is no longer employed at the city after a renter and tenant advocates reported his “hostile and aggressive” behavior toward them during what was supposed to be a routine inspection.
Maria Alexander, a renter at Baker Vista Apartments in Bellingham, was notified in December that the inspector would be coming to her apartment to do a walk-through.
At the time the inspection was scheduled, her unit had holes in the walls, nails sticking out of the floor, non-functioning smoke detectors and a non-functioning stove top, photos and videos of the unit show. At least half of the washing machines in the pay-to-use communal laundry facility at her complex were also non-functioning, according to advocates.
Alexander also said her energy bill is extremely expensive — costing her anywhere from $200 to $250 a month. She told The Herald she tries not to run her heating system much in the winter months because it skyrockets her bill.
“We’ve been living with this situation for five years,” Alexander said. “It’s been miserable, but we have no choice because we cannot afford to move. So we just settle.”
Some of these issues have since been addressed by her property management, Alexander said. But at the time of publication, she was still dealing with visible black mold in every room of her apartment, among other issues.
Ethan Martez, an advocate with the local group Tenants Revolt, has been supporting Alexander. He told The Herald the mold in her apartment is “some of the worst” he has ever seen.
“I’ve gone on a bunch of other inspections with Tenants Revolt, and I’ve seen a lot of bad situations,” Martez said. “But in this case, every wall in that unit is covered in black mold all the way up and down.”
Alexander said she was looking forward to sharing her habitability concerns at the scheduled inspection, hoping it would encourage her landlord to make the necessary improvements to her unit.
“I’m not looking for sympathy. I just want them to do the right thing for people who are also going through the same thing,” Alexander said.
What happened at the scheduled inspection?
But when the inspector arrived, Alexander and Martez — along with other tenant advocates who were present for the planned inspection by phone — said they were surprised by his “unprofessional” demeanor.
While inside the unit, the inspector allegedly declined to be recorded for the inspection, something tenant advocates commonly do to document issues in rental units. The city of Bellingham also recognizes that “tenants or authorized agents of the tenant” are allowed to film inspections.
The tenant and her advocates say the inspector quickly became defensive and used intimidating language. He claimed to be a representative of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a Department of Homeland Security, and then demanded identification from everyone present, according to tenant advocates.
When Alexander and Martez declined to provide identification, the inspector refused to conduct the inspection and left. That’s when tenant advocates decided to publicly report the incident at a city council meeting in December.
“The city should know how their employees are representing them. That was a representative of the city coming out to homes. If he is representing them in an aggressive and intimidating way, then I would hope that the city would have problems with that,” Martez told The Herald.
As a formerly unhoused senior and full-time caregiver for her disabled adult daughter, Alexander told The Herald she was already hesitant to complain about these habitability concerns for fear of losing stable housing.
“I don’t want to stir any waters because I’m afraid of being evicted,” Alexander said.
Still, she said being met with this kind of behavior from the inspector was alarming and warranted speaking up.
“The big takeaway here is that he tried to intimidate me as well as Maria, an elderly woman who is taking care of her daughter. It’s wrong,” Martez said.
City officials say professionalism is ‘critical’
City officials told The Herald in December they were aware of the complaint and were in the process of evaluating and reviewing the situation.
They confirmed this week the employee was no longer employed at the city as of Feb. 11.
“We agree that professionalism is a critical responsibility of any city employee — especially when they have been welcomed into someone’s residence to perform a safety inspection,” city of Bellingham Director of Planning & Community Development Blake Lyon told The Herald.
Martez said he and other local tenant advocates have had some positive experiences with other city inspectors in the past. He said this kind of behavior shouldn’t have to be tolerated by renters who are hoping to have code violations identified and fixed.
“If you’re going to be a frontward facing employee who has to be seen by people in the community, you should take a different perspective when going on inspections,” Martez said.
Tenant advocates want stronger code enforcement
Follow-up inspections of Alexander’s apartment did result in the identification and subsequent repair of several code violations.
But tenant advocates argue many more violations went unidentified because the Rental Property Safety Inspection Checklist inspectors use to enforce improvements lacks teeth.
“We want to see that safety checklist not be the only thing that’s enforced on those inspections,” Martez told The Herald. “There are a lot of issues with it. It barely enforces anything.”
The city council intended to bolster the efficacy of this program in 2024 by eliminating “declarations of compliance” and instead requiring actual inspections of rental properties.
However, the city recognizes the checklist is limited in scope and even states “no checklist can encompass every possible scenario, and not all apparent violations present a threat to the health or safety of tenants.”
The checklist is mainly designed to determine if a rental property meets the requirements of the Rental Registration and Safety Inspection Program as outlined by the Bellingham Municipal Code.
“The Rental Registration and Safety Inspection program is designed to ensure safe living conditions for tenants,” Lyon told The Herald. “Residential property owners in Bellingham must comply with specific life and fire safety standards, and this program helps ensure those standards are met by requiring that rental properties be registered and requiring inspections of the properties.”
Still, tenant advocates argue the checklist is “weak” and does not protect tenants from a number of possible habitability concerns.
Lyon told The Herald the city is “always working to further improve the experiences of the community members we serve through the program.”
This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 5:20 AM.
