I am wondering if Rep. Stacey Campfield's tenants also happened to be College Republicans from the University of Tennesseee...
City condemns lawmaker's rental home, says 'unfit':Campfield contends tenants want out of lease, will fix property
By Scott Barker
Originally published 05:25 p.m., January 22, 2009
Updated 05:25 p.m., January 22, 2009
photo tour - STACEY CAMPFIELD'S CONDEMNED HOME
Tenants living in a condemned rental house belonging to state Rep. Stacey Campfield allege the Republican lawmaker has dragged his heels making repairs, threatened to sue them if they break their lease and pumped raw sewage out of the basement that went into a storm drain.
Rep. Stacey Campfield, R- Knoxville
rep.stacey.campfield@capitol.tn.gov
Campfield counters that his tenants just want out of the lease, and he would have the property up to code in time to pass muster with city officials.
The city codes office deemed the house on Silver Place in North Knoxville "unfit for human habitation" after a Jan. 8 inspection that found the basement flooded with water and feces, leaking faucets, inoperable windows, missing gutters, "bootleg wiring" and other problems - 47 violations in all, according to city records.
Under city law, the tenants have to leave by Feb. 8, while Campfield has until May 8 to make repairs. The four tenants, all University of Tennessee students, say they only want to move somewhere else. They allege Campfield threatened to sue them during a meeting at the house Wednesday morning and use his influence to out-muscle them if they tried to spread the word about the situation.
"He's telling us if we leave he will sue us," said tenant Ben Fish, a 22-year-old senior from Etters, Pa.
Campfield said this afternoon that he would make all the necessary repairs before the tenants would have to move out.
"All I can say is, it's being handled," Campfield said.
Some of the problems, he said, could be blamed on the tenants, while others weren't problems at all.
"They shut off the breaker for the hot water heater. I turned on the breaker," Campfield said. "I had a heat-and-air guy over there yesterday and he said there wasn't a problem."
Campfield said he did not threaten to sue the tenants and would abide by the lease.
Campfield said sewage pumped from the basement did not go into the storm drain.
Fish, however, has a videotape that follows the sewage from the house to the storm drain. Dumping sewage where it can get into the waters of the state is a violation of Tennessee law.
And if Ben Fish should happen to post his video to YouTube alledging that Campfield's sewage was flowing out into a Knoxville storm drain, ask the UT student to post a link here!
This is not the first time that problems have surfaced with Campfield's rental housing empire --- back in 2005, the Koxville News Sentinel revealed that
Campfiled had a convicted sex offender flocking together with him in the state rep's 18th district home as a renting roommate and details about Campfiled played out his carpetbagging ploy in 2002 by renting out a 18th House district apartment the day before submitting his qualifying petition before his first and unsuccessful run as the Tennessee 18th House District Rep.
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