Under current Houston code, a landlord can substitute window screens for air conditioning. Screens. In a city where summer afternoons hit 100°F and the humidity turns breathing into a chore. Council Member Alejandra Salinas introduced an ordinance on July 14 to close that loophole, requiring refrigerated air equipment in all rental housing. The Houston Apartment Association supports it. Nearly 23,000 metro-area homes lack AC entirely.
Between the duty on paper and a cool room, though, there's a long chain of things that have to happen, and the renter's body sits at the far end. If council votes by mid-August, the 90-day compliance window lands around mid-November. Peak heat runs through September. Enforcement is complaint-driven: the tenant must know the law exists, file with 311, wait for one of the city's inspectors, then wait again while the landlord sources equipment and a technician. Federal refrigerant rules now restrict the old fix-it-with-Freon approach, meaning older systems often need full replacement. Dallas, which already mandates landlord cooling, fields 100-plus AC complaints weekly each summer. Austin passed a similar ordinance in April 2025; no public enforcement data from its first summer has surfaced yet.
The ordinance is worth passing. For the person sitting in a 96-degree apartment this week, it's a promissory note on someone else's timeline.
From ordinance to cool room, each step runs on a separate clock:
- Committee hearing → council vote (mid-August target)
- Enactment → 90-day compliance window starts
- Landlord procures equipment → window units qualify; no central-air mandate
- Technician available → BLS projects 40,100 HVAC openings/yr nationally through 2034
- Parts compliant → EPA's 700-GWP refrigerant cap took effect Jan. 2025
- Unit installed → tenant files 311 complaint if not
- Inspector dispatched → Houston had 33 inspectors as of early 2024; goal is 100
- Violation cited → landlord given compliance period
- Room cools
Retaliation protection: Houston Code Sec. 10-365 prohibits rent increases or eviction after a complaint, but enforcement runs through the City Attorney, a separate process entirely.