Superskull

Re: Seattle (+1)
pete6677 40 minutes ago
honk
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Re: Seattle (+1)
kenh 3 hours ago
I think think it's great that SF is finally doing something about affordable housing, now that the average rent is merely "obscenely high", down from its previous "F'ing Ridiculous" level.
Bravo San Fran!
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Never a bigger lot of criminals in all of history (+1, Flamebait)
Somervillain 2 hours ago
Awesome for renters, lousy for Landlords..
Sorry, I can't hold in my schadenfreude. Never will you meet a greater lot of lazy individuals who feel entitled to get rich with the world's laziest work ethic. Nearly all I have met have unbridled contempt for their renters and aren't the slightest bit afraid to tell you to your face that they think you're vermin. Also, the most racist lot of assholes I've ever met (when you work for yourself, you don't get fired for throwing the N-word around). There is not enough ill in the world to wish on landlords. 



Nearly every one I've met was a criminal....even ignoring the current occupant of the white house. It's a market failure. Imagine a job where once you land it, you're impossible to fire except once a year and it's really expensive and difficult to fire you...and they cannot afford to hire your replacement until you're gone....also the employee has way more resources than the employer....and, most importantly, the employee would get paid less if they actually did their job. Plus they get your complete history in the credit check, but there's no official way for you to check their record.


The landlord makes more money by sitting on their ass and ignoring you than they do when they follow the law and maintain their investment It's sad flaw in the system...and even the many illegal things they do...you need to go to court to enforce it and tenants rarely can afford a lawyer or even to take off to take their landlord to small claims court...also, do you want to piss off a criminal who has a key to your place and can let themselves in at will (even though that's illegal as well). I've had a landlord let himself into my apartment and wait in my living room for me, sitting on my couch, trying to physically intimidate me...because he was mad that I withheld rent until he fixed a window that wouldn't close.



They have no economic interest in following their law and keeping their building up to code. They can easily steal your security deposit and you really have no reasonable recourse so they get by with it nearly every time. For example, you sign the lease, the heat goes out...you're at their mercy to fix it. In my experience, it's about 75/25 for emergencies (like heat) and 50/50 odds for anything else (like wiring) that they'll fix it in a reasonable amount of time. Leaking roof?...eh, tough shit, keep a bucket underneath it "I'll get to it later" (a sentence that is repeated for about 4 months). Most I've rented for raised rents every year, many times justifying it because they repaired their buildings when they broke...like I am supposed to be so grateful that they followed the law and finally serviced the heater after having no heat in winter for 2 weeks and thus the 15% increase in rent is justified.



I've lived in competitive urban areas and paid everything from poor student rents to overpriced yuppie in nice part of city rents....from small mom & pop landlords to large real estate companies. Every single one tried to rip me off, particularly when it's time to collect the security deposit. I've never met nor even known anyone who has met an honest landlord. Return your apt in pristine condition, they'll make up excuses. 20 years ago, one tried to steal $200 from our security deposit, saying they found dust on the blinds (we were even warned by a fellow student who rented from these people about the scam and dusted the blinds before we left). They did this scam over and over on college students because they could. Few had the resources or time to take them to court.



By law of probability, I am sure honest landlords exist. They're just really fucking rare....but boy, get them talking about tenants and they'll whine your ear off over and over about some guy who ripped them off 20 years ago...so in their mind, we're all vermin and it's all justified....like some Vietnam vet who saw horrors in the war and therefore thinks its OK to be racist to any Asian he runs across.



Fuck landlords. The world is a better place with the real estate market shrinking and being less of a get-rich-quick casino for those who can get huge loans. It's a depressing situation and I was so happy to buy my own place...to never get ripped off by a sleazy landlord again. I realize the industry is needed, but they're only slight less of a blight on society than payday loans.
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Re: Never a bigger lot of criminals in all of histo 
Anonymous Coward an hour ago
 I was so happy to buy my own place
You're lucky you were able to. There are many unfair barriers. The reason why things are so bad and the law is lopsided is because the US is founded on the old ideas (from England?) where property owners and non-property owners are the 2 classes of citizen. You'll notice for most things, only property owners have rights. It used to even be that you had to own property to vote. This legacy of treating renters as sub-human persists today. It's enshrined in the law and protected by the credit agencies.
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Re: Seattle (+1)
Malays2 bowman a few seconds ago
"LandLORDS"
Didn't the US boot out a king 240 odd years ago? Something about abuse of power that kings were rumored to engage in.
Unsorry, but I have no sympathy for LORDS, lords, any kind of lords. Including supernatural ones that talk out of both sides of his mouth "I love you, but I will burn you forever if you dare actually use the free will I have given you!"
https://m.slashdot.org/story/377104