In Third Ward, Houston's Cooling Law Comes Due After the Heat Leaves

Houston now requires landlords to provide working air conditioning, and the Houston TV station KPRC reports they have until December 17 to comply. On that date Houston's high usually tops out at 65 degrees. For Cheryl Henderson and renters like her, the law starts working only when they call the city about their own landlord.

When KPRC reported from Cheryl Henderson's upstairs apartment in Houston's Third Ward this July, the station counted eight machines: four portable fans, two ceiling fans and two air conditioners. According to KPRC, building maintenance had supplied one of the air conditioners, a window unit held in place with tape. The larger unit didn't cool at all, because its compressor had failed. The compressor is the part that actually chills the air. Without it, the machine can't do much more than push room-temperature air around.

Henderson had built her days around that broken part. She kept the blackout curtains closed, used as few lights as she could and cut back on running the oven. When she went out, she left the machines on so the rooms wouldn't be unbearable when she came home. Some nights her bedroom didn't cool down until late evening, or midnight. She told KPRC she would wake up sweating, shower, and try to get back to sleep.

Henderson has a disability. She also has COPD, a chronic lung disease that makes breathing harder, and she said the heat makes it worse.

A few weeks later, April Towery of the Houston Press filled in more of the picture. The apartment is 520 square feet. Rent is $813 a month, and a government program covers most of it. The landlord had provided the unit with the failed compressor. Her next electric bill came to $199.98, paid out of her disability income. A neighbor checks on her. One of the fans was on loan from Northeast Action Collective, a local group where she volunteers.

Read together, the two reports show how the work of keeping that apartment livable was divided. The landlord had supplied a window unit held up with tape and a second unit that didn't cool. Henderson supplied the routine, the curtains, the electricity and the constant attention. The rest came from a neighbor who looked in on her and the group that lent her a fan.

What the city decided

On August 19, the Houston City Council passed Ordinance 2026-0732. It requires landlords to provide "refrigerated air" in rental homes, meaning machines that actually bring the temperature down, as opposed to fans. Before the final vote, council members gave landlords 120 days to comply instead of the 90 first proposed. KPRC reported that the law takes effect December 17, 120 days after the vote. (The city's ordinance register confirms the August 19 adoption; I wasn't able to get the signed ordinance itself to check its approval-date language.)

The window opened in the last weeks of the summer Henderson described to reporters. As this story runs, 64 of its 120 days have passed, and it closes in eight weeks. The normal high at Bush Intercontinental Airport on December 17 is 65 degrees.

That timing matters for whoever ends up calling. Under Texas law, what a city inspector writes down after a tenant's complaint can later be used against that tenant in court, and an inspector who shows up in mid-December will find an apartment in very different shape from the one Henderson described in July.

The Docket wrote about Henderson in issue #45, before the vote. Seth D. Carrington wrote then that the ordinance would give her "one more tool, the right to file a complaint and wait."

Henderson helped make the public case for that vote. KPRC's July story was built around her support for the proposal, and in August she was one of the renters the Houston Press interviewed for a story headlined "Houston Renters Say AC Ordinance Could Save Lives." She put her name, her diagnosis and her electric bills on the record in favor of this law. Now it works only if a tenant like her files a complaint with the city against her own landlord.

Published reports don't say whether she has complained, plans to, or has asked her landlord for a specific repair, and they don't describe what condition her machines are in this fall. I don't know what she'll decide, and it isn't my place to guess. What I can do is lay what's documented about her summer beside what the law now asks of renters, and when it asks it.

What landlords now owe

Landlords must provide and maintain cooling in every room used for living, sleeping, eating or cooking. They don't have to install central air. The city's FAQ says window units and portable units count as long as they perform well enough.

Using a 2023 federal housing survey, the city estimated that more than 20,400 rental homes in the Houston area had no air conditioning at all. That number doesn't include apartments like Henderson's, which have air conditioning that only partly works. ABC13, drawing on county records, reported 61 heat-related deaths in 2023 in Harris County, which contains most of Houston.

"Well enough" has a specific meaning. Early coverage, KPRC's July story among it, described the law as guaranteeing 80 degrees indoors. The actual standard was already in city code, and FOX 26 reported that the new ordinance kept it while adding the requirement that landlords put equipment in every one of those rooms. The equipment has to be able to hold indoor temperatures at 80 degrees or at 20 degrees below the outdoor temperature, whichever is higher. On a normal late-July day of 95 degrees, the indoor limit is 80. Hobby Airport, a weather station closer to Third Ward than Bush, hit 102 on July 22, and on a day like that the limit rises to 82. At 109 outside, it would be 89.

Some things the ordinance doesn't touch. Landlords supply the equipment, but renters pay to run it. Henderson was already spending about $200 a month on summer electricity out of disability income, and nothing in the law changes that. It also says nothing about air conditioners tenants buy for themselves: whether a tenant's own unit satisfies the landlord's obligation, whether the landlord owes her for it, or what happens when she moves out and takes it with her. Houston renters have been asking about this for years. In 2023, Sandra Collins, who lived in a senior apartment complex in South Acres and was getting by with six fans, asked her managers whether she could take the cost of a window unit out of her rent. The new law leaves her question open.

What the law asks of renters

Nothing happens under this ordinance until a renter sets it in motion. The city's FAQ lays out the steps. The renter calls 311, Houston's line for non-emergency city services. An inspector comes out. The landlord gets a chance to fix the problem. If it isn't fixed, the city can issue a fine or a court summons. Existing city code requires a written warning and a "reasonable opportunity" to make repairs before a landlord can be criminally cited. Neither that section of code nor the city's FAQ says how many days that means.

A lot else is still unsettled. KPRC, citing city figures, reported that Houston already gets roughly 700 to 800 complaints a year about missing air conditioning. Council Member Alejandra Salinas's office has said renters without cooling can complain once the law takes effect in December, but the city hasn't said what happens to calls made before then. During the 120 days, landlords are supposed to show "reasonable, continuous progress" toward compliance, and the city hasn't explained how a tenant would know whether that's happening in her building. As of mid-October, I found no lawsuit, attorney general opinion or state action aimed at the ordinance in public court, legislative and attorney general records. Separately, Houston is asking the Texas Supreme Court to revive its challenge to a 2023 state law limiting what cities can regulate, and how that case comes out could shape how much any Texas city may require of landlords.

Nothing in the record shows Henderson calling. Ade Adewinke lives at a complex in the Braeburn area where the calls have piled up. Reporting in May on a different city ordinance aimed at troubled apartment properties, KPRC counted more than 130 calls to 311 about the property since May 2024. The station didn't say whether any of those calls were his. Adewinke described going without air conditioning, hot water that kept failing, pests, and violence under a previous management company. He told the station he wanted to move and couldn't afford to, two years after complaints about his building began reaching the city.

For someone in Henderson's position, deciding whether to call breaks down into smaller questions, and each one carries its own risk.

Will the landlord retaliate?

Henderson has already weighed one cost in public. She told the Houston Press she understood rent might go up once landlords had to supply working cooling, and that she'd be willing to pay somewhat more to have it. A complaint raises a different possibility: a rent increase, or something worse, as punishment for calling.

Texas law, Property Code §92.331, protects tenants who report a housing problem to a government agency in good faith. For six months after that report, a landlord can't punish the tenant by filing an eviction, cutting off services, raising the rent, ending the lease or interfering with her rights under it. Houston has had its own anti-retaliation rule since 2011.

If a landlord did retaliate against a tenant like Henderson, she could recover her actual losses, court costs and attorney's fees, plus a penalty of one month's rent and $500, minus anything she owed. The statute has a provision for someone in her situation. Because a government program pays most of her rent, §92.333 doesn't base that penalty on the share she pays herself; it uses one month's fair market rent for the unit. Published reports don't give that figure. If it were close to the $813 the Houston Press reported for her apartment, the penalty would come to roughly $1,300. A tenant can also raise retaliation as a defense in eviction court.

The protection only goes so far. Landlords can still evict for unpaid rent or serious lease violations, and some rent increases are still allowed. Published reports don't name the program that subsidizes Henderson's rent, so it isn't clear how a permitted increase would change what she actually pays; in September, ABC13 looked at whether landlords could pass compliance costs on to tenants. And the tenant has to enforce the protection herself, after the harm is done, by going to court or raising it in a case the landlord brings.

What will the inspector write down?

This is the question that gets harder in December.

Under §92.334 of the same state law, if a government inspector reports in writing that the problem the tenant complained about doesn't exist, a court hearing a later retaliation claim starts from the presumption that she complained in bad faith. She can try to prove otherwise, but the inspector's report weighs against her from the start.

A December thermometer is unlikely to pick up what Henderson lived with in July. She told the Houston Press her apartment reached about 90 degrees when the sun was strongest. That was her estimate; no inspector measured it. Under the city's formula, a 90-degree apartment is out of compliance unless it's at least 110 degrees outside. In the hottest part of a July day, the failed compressor showed up as heat she could feel.

On a 65-degree December day, the indoor limit is 80, and an apartment with a dead compressor can easily stay under 80 with nothing running at all. The city hasn't said how its inspectors will evaluate air conditioning: where they'll put a thermometer, which outdoor reading they'll compare it to, whether they'll check every room, or how they'll judge a summer machine on a winter day. An inspector who only reads the room temperature may write that there's no problem. An inspector who checks whether each unit puts out cold air could document the same broken compressor Henderson lived with in July. A renter who calls in winter is depending on a testing method she can't see, and state law gives whatever gets written down real consequences for her.

An older tenant repair guide from a council office advises keeping copies of every notice sent to a landlord, writing down the 311 case number and the inspector's name, and following up to get the inspection report. It was written before this ordinance existed, and given the weight state law puts on the inspector's report, that paperwork matters more now.

July heat, December deadline

The normal July 28 high at Bush is 95 degrees, with a normal low of 76. On December 17, the normal high is 65 and the low is 45. This July, Hobby logged 28 days at 90 or above.

Henderson's air conditioner gave out during the months these machines are under the most strain, and the deadline arrives after most of them have been switched off for weeks. A landlord can meet a December 17 deadline with a unit that hasn't faced a hot afternoon since September. The heat the ordinance was written for comes back in spring, and none of the city documents I reviewed say what enforcement will look like then.

The six months of retaliation protection sit awkwardly on that calendar, too. A tenant who calls on December 17 is protected until roughly June 17. That covers winter and spring and runs out just as Houston's long hot season starts. A tenant who waits until her unit fails in June gets protection through the summer, but she spends the stretch between breakdown and repair living the way Henderson described: a bedroom that some nights didn't cool until midnight, waking up sweating.

Neither timing is clearly better, and the tenant, whose lungs and electric bill are at stake, is the one who has to choose.

What was already working in July

Some of the help in Henderson's summer never went through 311. A neighbor checks on her. She volunteers with Northeast Action Collective, which works alongside another local group, West Street Recovery, and one of the fans keeping her apartment bearable came through that network. She was giving her time to the same circle that lent her equipment. That help doesn't depend on the ordinance or its deadline, and it was running through the hottest weeks of the year, before the law existed.

The institutional help came with limits. Salinas's office offered 125 portable air conditioners, one per selected household, with eligibility categories that included disability, low income and older age. Applications were due by August 31, or sooner if the units ran out, and applying didn't guarantee a unit. Henderson applied. Reports don't say whether she got one.

State utility rules push electric bills back without making them smaller. Under one rule, power companies can't disconnect covered customers for nonpayment on a day when the National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for their county, or on the two days after. If the customer asks, the company has to offer a payment plan for bills that came due during that window. Customers on prepaid electricity plans have similar protection. The reports on Henderson's bill don't have enough detail to say which of these rules applies to her plan.

Questions Henderson's summer raises

Her experience puts these questions in front of anyone renting in a hot city, whether in Houston or wherever a rule like this shows up next.

• Who supplied each air conditioner and fan in your home, and is that written down anywhere? The law puts the duty to provide and maintain equipment on the landlord, and it hasn't said whether a unit you bought yourself counts.
• If you report a problem in a cool month, what will an inspector actually be able to observe? If you wait for summer, how long can your health and your budget hold out between a breakdown and a repair?
• On what date would your six months of protection begin, and which months would they cover?
• How would a possible rent increase compare with what you already spend on electricity, and on getting through the worst nights?
• Who checks on you now, and does any of it depend on something your landlord or the city controls?

December weather in Houston wouldn't call for the eight machines KPRC counted in Henderson's apartment in July. Whether the landlord's equipment in her 520 square feet can hold a room at 80 degrees on a 95-degree afternoon may not be tested in real heat until summer comes back, months after she and renters like her will have had to decide whether to make the call.

Corrections: An earlier Docket story, "The Cooling System of Cheryl Henderson" (issue #45), said Texas utility rules protect customers from disconnection on the days before a heat advisory. The rule covers the day an advisory is issued and the two days after. Another earlier story, "Steve Brewer Has Electricity but No Water" (issue #51), said Cheryl Henderson lives in Phoenix. She lives in Houston's Third Ward.