HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — On Friday, 10 Tampa Bay shared a story of a local woman's efforts to stop illegal short-term rentals from operating in St. Pete. Since then, viewers across Tampa Bay have emailed in, sharing similar concerns.
In Hillsborough County, short-term rentals are allowed but must be rented out for at least seven days. One neighborhood in the county says it's easy enough to find rental after rental available for stays shorter than a week.
Greg Thole moved to his neighborhood 25 years ago. He describes Twelve Oaks as quaint, quiet, and deed-restricted.
"It's rather frustrating. I love living in Twelve Oaks," Thole said. "It's a beautiful community. It's well-run, and my serenity is being invaded upon."
In Hillsborough County, code enforcement investigations begin when a complaint is made. After a group of neighbors in Twelve Oaks have made a total of dozens of complaints, now, they say not enough has changed.
Thole said there is an ongoing problem of illegal short-term rentals, which violates the county code. He also said homes are being split up and rented out as multiple apartment units, which doesn't comply with deed restrictions.
Thole said he's filed code complaints, called the sheriff's office, and even tried reasoning with the homeowner for renting out units in her home. Code enforcement said this is a particularly tricky ordinance to enforce.
"So, that is a complaint we get, but that's very difficult to enforce because if you can imagine, we'll get a complaint, we'll knock on the door and say, you have more than five unrelated people, well 'he's my cousin' and we're not going to do DNA tests, we're not going to do that type of thing," Jon-Paul Lavandeira, the code enforcement division director said. "So, the investigation pretty much dies on the vine with situations like that."
Code enforcement said about half of the complaints they receive result in a violation citation. Homeowners are given time to right their wrongs. If they don't, a hearing is held and then fines are issued.
"That's up to the magistrate and it could be anything from a dollar to $5,000 a day," Lavandeira said.
For neighborhoods that are deed-restricted, many have Homeowners Associations to enforce the rules and issue fines when rules are broken. While Twelve Oaks is deed-restricted, it does not have an HOA.
"The only way that those deed restrictions then can be enforced is for one neighbor to sue another neighbor," said Susan Pritchard, the president of Twelve Oaks Civic Association.
Now, that is what Thole and other neighbors are considering.
"Several of us are willing to do that, or at least have a letter sent by an attorney to the owner noting that she's in violation of the deed restrictions here, and that no way does she have permission to have five couples living in these homes that are drunk," Thole said.
In Hillsborough County, last year, code enforcement received 50 complaints for illegal short-term rentals. This year, they've already received 34 complaints.
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.