In the sweltering heat of this summer, the air conditioning at a 254-unit apartment building in Laurel went out, sending temperatures inside soaring to 90 degrees.

The county deployed employees to go door to door in the building, offering residents water and rides to a cooling center, where they could spend the night, County Executive Steuart Pittman and Councilwoman Julie Hummer said.

One individual, Hummer recalled, had to be taken to a hospital from the cooling center after suffering symptoms of heat exhaustion.

Unlike heating, there was no provision in county law that required landlords to maintain their AC.

That changed Thursday.

Pittman, a Democrat, signed a bill that requires apartment buildings to maintain their AC systems. If those systems fail, the new law, which the County Council passed unanimously on Nov. 3, mandates that the landlords provide cooling relief from the heat or potentially face a fine by the Anne Arundel County Department of Health.

And if the county has to step in, like it did in Laurel, the law allows the government to make the apartment building pick up the bill.

“It gives a bit more incentive to landlords to maintain their properties,” said Hummer, a Democrat whose district encompasses Laurel. “It’s a health hazard.”

Anne Arundel County recorded two heat-related deaths this year, up from one the year prior, according to the Maryland Department of Health. There were also 668 heat-related emergency department or urgent care visits across Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties.

About 130 people complained about heat-related symptoms at emergency departments or urgent cares in 2024 in Anne Arundel County — one of the highest figures in the state and a substantial increase from the two years before, when there were fewer than 80, state health department data shows.

Statewide, the vast majority of people who died from heat were 65 and older.

Hummer said the Laurel apartment building that served as the impetus for the new law housed primarily lower income, immigrant families.

Her cosponsor on the legislation, Councilwoman Allison Pickard, emphasized the unanimous support for the legislation.

“The Council made it clear that safe housing isn’t seasonal,” the Glen Burnie Democrat said in a statement. “Just as landlords must keep homes warm in the coldest months, they now have a clear responsibility to keep them livable during extreme heat. No resident should have to choose between unsafe temperatures and the place they call home.”

In a social media post, Pittman thanked the residents of the Laurel apartment building for bringing their “unsafe conditions” to the county’s attention and lauded the various agencies that responded.

“This legislation is a direct result of constituents bringing a need to the county’s attention and us taking action to get it resolved,” Pittman said in a separate statement. “After repeated air conditioning outages at this Laurel apartment complex left families in 90 degree heat, we knew we had to update the code to give the county a mechanism to protect our residents from this happening again.”