These homeowners have endured loud parties broken beer bottles littering sidewalks and garbage strewn across their lawns. Plunging property values has forced the homeowners to stay and weather the storm wreaked by unruly students.

There are good students, who don’t cause problems and just want a nice place to live while going to school. Unfortunately, in this debate, they have been lumped together with their unruly peers.

Many of the landlords in this fight are taxpaying, voting Oshawa residents who have provided safe and legal accommodation for students. They have lived by the book, but are now impacted by new rules set out by local councillors.

It’s a shame that a handful of students -- who can’t seem to control the volume knob on their stereos or their alcohol intake – and absentee landlords – who let their tenants park cars on the lawn, with little property upkeep – have ruined it for others.

Throughout the ordeal, a lot of talk has erupted over poor planning. And it’s undeniable that poor planning plays a part. Durham College and its neighbours co-existed peacefully for decades, partly because a college draws mostly from its own community. But a university is a different story.

Most of its students aren’t from the area and need to find a place to live while they are at school. When UOIT opened its doors, where did they intend for their students, a population increasing year by year, to live?

Neither the school nor the city, a champion of UOIT, seemed to anticipate student-housing needs and now hundreds are paying the price.

City politicians are now trying to control the situation by interfering with a free-market, real estate system, and are trying to limit the number of rentals by forcing landlords in this area of the city to pay $250 for a “licence” to rent out their properties.

This “licence” forces the landlords to register with the city and can spark an inspection by city staff if there is a complaint about noise, unruly tenants or property standards issues. City politicians have no right to monkey with a free-market system and should confine themselves to upholding property standards, a job that they haven’t done particularly well in the past.

These silly city politicians need to go back to school, to learn their own boundaries as local law makers, and behave themselves while they are at it.