Hey, I know one or more of y'all will know the answer to this.

With the impending student move out/move in summer cycle approaching, talk recently turned to rentals and how many people are really legally allowed to rent a house (and fill the streets with their cars!) in Philly. I had always heard the limit was three unrelated adults per household, period. Then someone else said that law only applies to women, which I seriously doubt, as it was meant to prevent brothels (something that does, on the other hand, sound reasonable as the law's origin). Then someone else said in Roxborough it is three, but in Manayunk it is four, that the law is different there. Is that possible? I thought it was a city-wide thing. And then someone else said they had heard it was one adult per bedroom. What's the deal??? All this confusion has me curious!

I'm curious about this too. I'm wondering who you report it to if you suspect that there is such a violation, L&I?

I don't know the answer to this, but I imagine it is very difficult to enforce.

Example:

Two or three people are on the lease, but "visitors" (that help pay the rent) always sleep over. Kind of difficult unless you video tape them everyday.

Of course, this is a possible "loophole", but I am still wondering how many are legally allowed to be on the lease.

The law is no more than three unrelated persons. This is difficult to enforce because it is difficult to prove that there is no relation with out getting into blood tests, etc. which probably require court orders.

I don't think you can enforce that law. People would say your were discriminating.

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"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people".

There are many loopholes to this law, including charges of discrimination.

Hmmmm, now I had always heard that it was a maximum of 2 people per bedroom in a house.

That could be a separate occupancy law, based on fire codes. In which case , my family broke the law when I was a kid, as I had to share a room with my two brothers.

I have documents stating the three unrelated persons law, because I own a rental property, but I've never seen nor heard mention of any per bedroom laws. If that's the case, there are many large families breaking the law.

I don't care so much about the number people living in a single house, as do about the number of cars. Technically, the neighborhood can only accomodate 1 car per house, with on street parking. (The length of a car is roughly the same as the width of a rowhouse). One way to resolve this is by instituting residential parking permits, like they do in other parts of the city.

If the city wants to increase revenue, they should have a cop or someone from the PPA walk through my part of Manayunk and write parking tickets. The parking situation is appalling. Every night I find cars parked on the sidewalks, with other cars blocking them in - IN NO PARKING ZONES! Not only are cars parked too close to corners, they are often sticking out beyond the corner and parked more than 12 inches away from the curb. Not only does this make it difficult to see oncomming traffic, but it makes it almost impossible to make a turn. In fact my oil delivery company has cancelled my service, because they can no longer get their trucks up my street, safely. The only time I saw someone get a ticket was during the bike race last year when I got a parking ticket for parking too close to a fire hydrant - BECAUSE ALL THE PARKING ON MY STREET WAST TAKEN BY VISITORS. Mind you, I don't live near Main St. I live at Hermitage and Mansion, which is a less popular seciton of the 'Yunk.