SHERMAN, Texas (KTEN) — For the last 18 months, the City of Sherman has been cracking down on hotels that haven't been abiding by the law.

About half a dozen hotels are operating as apartments or have major health and safety violations.

"We had a couple of others where there were issues," said city spokesperson Nate Strauch. "They were allowing people to stay for weeks or months at a time; that's not allowed, so we had to force them to change that."

The city said the facilities have also played host to criminals.

"A number of these hotels are hot spots for criminal activities," Strauch said. "We have a lot of police calls or fire calls to one of these locations."

Eric Harp has been staying at the Lone Star Inn and Suites on Texoma Parkway for about a month. He says he has to bounce around from room-to-room every couple of weeks.

"It's been a hassle for sure," Harp said. "I'm paying $360 a week, and cable is spotty, and it's not what it should be for the cost. It's been a struggle financially and physically... just an overall hustle."

Strauch said the city had been failing to enforce city codes for years.

"We probably had about a half dozen different hotels that we either gone up against court with them, or just come alongside them and encourage them to kind of clean up the way they're doing things," he said. 

It's an ongoing effort to make sure the owners of the hotels are following the law.

"We kind of looked at the worst locations to start with, and really try to rectify those with a lot of success in bringing them down the number of calls for service  for a number of these locations," Strauch said.