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Inspections for rental houses and apartments in Fresno begin today as a part of the city’s efforts to bring housing up to minimum health and safety standards.

Landlords were notified 14 days ago in the first round of inspections that city officials would be visiting hundreds of homes and apartments to make sure units are livable for their tenants, according to a press release from the City of Fresno.

Letters notifying landlords about future inspections will be sent out a minimum of two weeks prior to the visitation to give them enough time to notify their tenants.

“Our goal is to be as non-obtrusive for tenants as possible as we hit the ground running in the effort to improve Fresno’s housing stock,” said Kelli Furtado, assistant director of the development and Resource Management Department at the City of Fresno.

The inspections come as the next step in Fresno’s Rental Housing Improvement Act, following the registration period for landlords and their properties.

A website was created as a database for rental apartments and homes and has more than 46,000 units registered of the estimated 85,000-90,000 units across the city.

Property owners are required to register all properties and a second round of notifications is being mailed to people who have not done so. Following 18 days to comply with the letters, fines will be accrued that escalate every 30 days properties are not registered.

Inspections are done based on registered properties and will focus on previous code violators, according to the press release.

The Rental Housing Improvement Act was passed following calls for crackdowns on so-called slumlords across the Valley by advocacy groups and media outlets.