An East Lansing landlord has landed in hot water with the city for what some officials say is a blatant attempt to take away her renters’ rights.

Members of the East Lansing Housing Commission spent more than an hour Thursday chastising Betty Feintuch for what they said were unfair leasing practices and threats of eviction to her tenants if they reported code violations to the city.

Feintuch, who owns seven rental properties in East Lansing, was found guilty in February of coercive conduct for an August incident. She was fined $500.

“The average landlord in East Lansing doesn’t do this,” Commission Chairman Darryl Svochak told The State News. “Tenants have rights and they’re entitled to have those rights enforced.”

Feintuch declined repeated requests by The State News for comment. She and her attorney denied any wrongdoing during Thursday’s Housing Commission meeting.

Education junior Erica Grech, who filed the complaint that led to the coercion charge, said the house she rented a room in didn’t have smoke detectors, the lock on the front door was broken, and she wasn’t given a key to the house.

“She said if myself, my mother or anyone else in the house called an inspector that we would be held responsible and I would be evicted,” Grech said.

But not having a working lock on the house door led to its own set of problems.

“I was told I didn’t need a key to the house because it was summer, and she said why would we close the door anyway,” Grech said.

Grech found out why in December, when she said she awoke to a man on top of her in her bed.

Grech said she feared she would be sexually assaulted, but was able to leave the house unharmed.

She and two roommates moved out the next day.

“We called Betty and said we were moving out of the house at that moment,” she said.

Grech’s case caught the attention of the Housing Commission, which then began a closer investigation of Feintuch’s rental practices.

Svochak said Feintuch includes language in her leases that seems to skirt truth in renting laws or is simply outlandish.

“This is the single most reprehensible lease I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The 12-page lease includes a $25 monthly fee for having a bicycle and numerous inconsistencies with rental laws and proper lease structure, Svochak said.

The commission ordered her to redraft the lease by its July 18 meeting. If she fails to do so, the commission may suspend Feintuch’s rental license.

“I have no idea why anyone who read it would sign it,” Svochak said to Feintuch at the commission’s Thursday meeting. “The whole lease in my mind verges on coercive conduct.”

Feintuch said she didn’t enforce the bicycle charge and is working to update her lease.

“This (lease) has evolved in my trying to be a more responsible landlord,” Feintuch told the commission.

East Lansing housing officials said renters should make sure they carefully read their leases before signing them and should consider consulting with services offered by ASMSU Legal Services or the MSU-Detroit College of Law Rental Housing Clinic.

“Take your lease and have somebody look at it, it doesn’t cost anyone anything,” Svochak said. “Maybe if people did that, they wouldn’t get in situations like this.”

But Grech is not alone in her complaints against Feintuch and her properties. Tenants from four of Feintuch’s properties also filed complaints in August, said Annette Irwin, operations administrator of for East Lansing Code Enforcement and Neighborhood Conservation.

And other tenants living in Feintuch’s properties say they’re having problems with her now.

“She’s horrible and I just absolutely hate her,” said kinesiology junior Claire Campbell, who lives at 426 Park Lane. “She’s not a very cooperative lady and not very nice.”

Campbell said she and other residents of the house plan to file a lawsuit today against Feintuch for a $175 ticket they received from East Lansing for their grass being too long.

The ticket had originally been written to Feintuch, but the landlord had the name changed to the residents of the house.

Campbell said Feintuch is responsible for supplying a lawn mower according to their lease, but never did.

“She’s kind of blowing it all off,” she said. “It seems like she doesn’t even care.”

Chemistry and criminal justice senior Joe Cox, who lives 436 Park Lane, said he’s experiencing similar problems. He said he and his roommates had to borrow hedge clippers to cut any weeds and grass longer than 6 inches in their yard.

“We’re not going to do it next time,” he said.

Cox said Feintuch pushes the blame onto the people living in his house.

“When our inspector came, she tried to blame everything on us,” he said.

Cox said she told the inspector it was “the boys’” fault there wasn’t much grass in the front lawn because they throw their cigarette butts on the lawn.

“No one in the house smokes,” he said.

But the biggest problem for Cox is simply reaching Feintuch, he said.

“She’s just so hard to get a hold of that everything turns into a big deal,” he said.

Staff writers Katie Byrne and Tara May contributed to this report.

Amy Bartner can be reached at bartnera@msu.edu.