Only Madeline Kahn could convey my true feelings about the author of this piece, and she is gone.
Someone shared this approvingly on FB. I wanted to say something measured and wise, but instead I went with something like:
An interesting, and perhaps revealing (though I know the author's not responsible), choice of headline. ["King of my castle? Yeah, right."] If an ideal housing policy takes the owner of a two-unit building to be a king, that would make the renters of the other unit ... feudal vassals? Serfs, perhaps?
If that article wasn't enough to make you hate its author, here's his book (written under a pen name). Maybe it's a great book, but boy does this breathless jacket copy make me cringe:
Sex, drugs, kink-you can find it anywhere in SoMa, if you know where to look. But first, you'll need your tour guides. There's Raphe, a writer torn between two worlds, belonging to neither. Lauren, the poor little rich girl living on the edge and pushing farther out. Mark, beautiful and cruel, who lives for games, the more extreme, the better. Baptiste, hot, smooth, and maybe as real as it gets. And Julie, both an object of desire and a pretty pawn to be played. In a glittering, surreal subculture of private sex clubs and kept boys, identity theft and betrayal, nihilism, redemption, and sometimes love, they're spinning out of control and into each other's orbits, desperately looking for something real-something that will show them who they really are.
I'm just baffled that this person's point of view merits a New York Times opinion piece. It's like a conversation I imagine having at a bar in Chelsea.
The main support for his "it's hard out there for a hobbyist landlord" shtick is something he admits almost immediately isn't true.
He's white, he's well off, he's in the media already. His opinions should be piped directly into our brains.
4: Obviously the most objectionable part of that write-up is the egregious use of a hyphen when an m-dash was needed.
Maybe it's a great book
You rang?
Would this be a good time to mention what fraction of the average rent on a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco would pay the mortgage on my house?
5 is me. Chrome keeps snubbing me. 8 is me also, of course.
9: Depends on your fondness for your teeth, bub! Ok, I'm better at Dorothy Parker references than threats.
I wonder what a median 1 bedroom looks like in SF. I stayed in a friend of a friend's place in NYC where the rent was more than what I get paid a month and it was pretty small and on the first floor with little natural light. There was a little patio at the back where you could be towered over by neighboring buildings.
I couldn't imagine being able to afford that rent and wanting to live there, and in fact the friend of a friend had moved to SF, which is why I could stay there before all the furniture was packed up.
We do not have much natural light except during the day time.
At night, the many windows and skylights just let in the artificial light from the neighbors' porches.
I'm hoping some of the mold in my bathroom evolves bioluminescence.
9: Wow, yeah, I hadn't really seen numbers for quite awhile. I already have too many crowns, so I won't say, but damn.
I just happened to run into a friend who's moved here from the Bay Area last week. He was complaining that the rents in the gentrified-about-10-years-ago-lots-of-professors-cause-it's-close-to-campus area are comparable to what he was paying out there. Which seemed like hyperbole, and quick googling suggests that, indeed, he is misremembering.
An ex of mine spent her first year in New York in an apartment where you couldn't tell whether it was day or night. I had helped her move in and the first night we kept waking up, seeing it was still dark, and going back to sleep. Eventually we were really not tired and checked the time. It was 2PM. When we went out it was a beautiful sunny early September day.
On the OP - why the hell should it be possible for tenants to be evicted when the building changes hands? They've got a contract and when someone buys the place they buy it as is, together with the existing contracts. Maybe my understanding of the law is all wrong, but my impression was that if someone buys an existing business they don't get to declare all its legal obligations null and void. Why should real estate be any different?
That was the apartment Buck was in when I met him -- literally no natural light other than in the bathroom. It's actually surprisingly peaceful if you get out often enough not to get seriously out of sync with daytime.
17.2: From what the OP said about control of rent increases after the first lease, it sounds like the owner, new or old, has little control over when the tenant moves out. I have never lived where that was the case. Here, when a lease ends, you either sign a new lease by mutual agreement or, again by mutual agreement (or combined inaction).
I hope the other commenter in question will let me know if I'm ever allowed to breach the sanctity of etc. when it comes to the cost of our 6-bedroom house in comparison to NYC real estate. That has been my only consolation on many a night. (My current consolation is that I get to sit in the back yard while the girls have quiet computer time indiors and Lee snoozes. Quiet!)
Big cities, or maybe just NYC and SF (Boston too?), have a lot of folk landlord-tenant law knowledge floating around, of both the "Dude, you don't even have to pay rent!"/"Christ, they don't even have to pay rent!" schools. I suppose restating and reforming the landlord-tenant laws in such places is politically impossible, given all the entrenched interests on all sides, but that stuff wastes a lot of time and money.
I mean, now those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes! Eh, comrades? Eh?
11: Up til 2 years ago I was in a 1BR, 600 square foot apartment in SF's SoMa district. Horrible neighborhood - fresh car window glass on the sidewalk every morning - but a very nice apartment. $1675/month plus a parking space for another $150.
Lots of protections for tenants against eviction, and rent control, so yeah, I can kind of see that *sellers* would want the building empty, but not *landlords*, if that makes sense.
Oh, I guess I misunderstood the Q. The building was built ca. 1984, the apartment was clean, nothing super fancy, but had beautiful hardwood floors with nice accents. The LR and BR had good sized windows overlooking the roof of the garage in the building; landlord asked me not to put furniture on the roof but had no problem with me going out there.
Tenant-landlord law varies hugely in different states. Some states have very strong laws protecting tenants, others don't.
This seems to imply that the tenants can't be (easily) evicted when the building is sold.
You can evict tenants when a building is sold if you're moving into their unit (although there are restrictions, and you'll probably have to compensate them to some extent). You can't evict them just because the ownership of the building has changed.
But the wack-ass thing about the article in the OP is that the tenant moved out *three days* after the eviction proceedings started. The author of the article is a goddamn whiner.
I kind of suspect a lot of landlords' anger at regulations comes from being inherently amateurs - thinking they can just manage their castle according to their inclinations and not being willing to learn the rules. (This guy implies he took at face value the tenant's assertion that he could smash up the place until he talked to a lawyer?)
At the same time, there's presumably a similar proportion of asshole tenants as there are of asshole landlords, roommates, and neighbors.
Friends of mine on this side of the Bay have had their landlord trying to get them out for a while now, and what I've felt listening to their stories is that our laws have decent protections for both tenants and landlords, rather than being biased. At the first attempt, they were able to take advantage of protections but it required doing a lot of advocacy on their own behalf (bringing the issue to the rent board); now the landlord is trying a new tactic for which the law makes specific allowance and may well work.
I have a supremely responsive landlord, incidentally; to the point of being freaky. He installed a bike rack for me when I moved in, gets repairs done within a day of calling, and hasn't billed me for damage he got fixed that was my own fault.
I kind of suspect a lot of landlords' anger at regulations comes from being inherently amateurs
That is a good observation.
In the teraz ruled world there would be mandatory rent stabilization laws for all apartments rented by people under x income, adjusted by household size, set at inflation plus a couple points, and all apartments would reset to market rate when a tenant moved out.
NB One of my pet peeves is that people don't point out the crazy hypocrisy of all those oh so impartial and objective economists who scream about rent control but never utter a peep about the market distorting effects of property tax control.
First, "landlord" is offensively medieval. Please use "property owner" or "rentier" instead.
Second, although I love to hate on economists as much as anyone, rent control and property tax control don't quite seem comparable. One is a market price control, the other is just a limit on tax assessments. The main arguments against rent controls (whether you buy them or not) are that they create shortages of supply and disincentives for investment, etc., none of which seem analogous to the sort of distortions (if any) that might be expected from a limit on property tax increases.
30.2 to 29. 30.1 to the rest of the thread.
Even rentiers call themselves landlords, but maybe that's their word.
Anyway, I just saw a craigslist ad placed by someone who is, he says, giving away a house in the town across the river from me. Says he is from another state and has never seen the house in daylight. I think he qualifies as an amateur landlord who failed to lease. The house is probably priced correctly now.
I think he qualifies as an amateur landlord who failed to lease.
Rather than a scammer?
He could be, but if I were betting, I bet he was the scammed and has now figured out that he was the mark.
I'm reminded of the clear-cutters in Maine who avoided the legal obligation to clean up their mess by finding someone drunk and selling him the land for a nominal sum.
32
Even rentiers call themselves landlords, but maybe that's their word.
Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 06- 8-13 6:39 PM
Right, I don't mean offensive to them, I mean offensive to everyone else.
Cola k.
My first thought on looking at the sidebar on the front page was that someone commented as "The Man from URPLE".
That house is in Homestaed? Someone got fricked.
30. Property tax control provides a significant disincentive to moving. When applied to non-owner occupied residential property it means that the profit margin on new construction is going to be lower than on older buildings. When applied to commercial real estate it means that existing companies have lower costs than new ones.
Rent control does create disincentives to investment in existing property except when a tenant moves out. The same is true to an extent for new investment. However, in my version rent control only really kicks in when you are in an apartment that is rising in value at a rate significantly above inflation over a sustained period of time. Or in other words in an area getting hit by rapid gentrification. All this does is moderate the shock on existing tenants and communities.
On the other hand, the kind of property tax control you have in California has limited assessments to below inflation. That means it affects everywhere that isn't suffering from a sustained economic downturn or localized blight.
Also, property tax control encourages the hollowing out of all non urban and inner suburban areas in favor of exurban sprawl. The older communities have lower revenues and thus are unable to provide the same level of services and infrastructure as the new developments further out.
Definitely a whiner. And I would like to know what H-G thinks about the point in 17 and so, about leases. Have you only ever done month-to-month rentals or some such? (You can force renters in Massachusetts out under a relatively small number of circumstances - the one that seems to come up occasionally is taking a rental building and converting it into condos, which allows evictions after a 1-year notice period, and that covers most residential lease renewal issues already).
22, 23: That does sound nice. Except the car window glass.
Some people may remember the time I nearly bought a house by accident. DC's tenant-landlord laws seem similar to San Francisco's. Its actual laws, not the imaginary "tenants can break windows with no consequences" laws. Which seem more and more reasonable in hindsight. I mean, it would have sucked for us to buy a place that came with a legal battle, but that legal battle seems justified to some degree based on repairs and other work the place needed. This was not a case of a tenant going nuts and breaking windows, this was a case of the owner not doing basic maintenance. (So why did we make an offer on it? Because it was the most affordable house in its neighborhood that was at least kinda livable, but in hindsight I'm really really really glad we broadened our horizons to another neighborhood, where we could afford a house that's actually livable.)
A few months ago we heard from some guy who said he was looking to buy that place, asking to buy our appraisal of it. We said we'd have to get back to him, but as far as I know neither tigger or the buyer ever followed up. And this inspired me to check, and apparently he bought it in April, for basically the same amount as we were under contract for. So either the tenant left or was successfully evicted, or this guy got trapped in the legal battle we squirmed our way out of.
Oh, I don't think owners ought to be able to evict when they buy a building. I just haven't lived anywhere where they couldn't.
Under the common law, if a new owner buys some property with a tenant who has a lease for some term, the new owner can't evict the tenant until the term ends. This seems to be true even in Texas, although not in cases of foreclosure. Of course, if you had a month-to-month lease and someone bought the building, they could terminate the tenancy with proper one-month notice, just like the old owner could.
Things get interesting when there are additional protections for tenants. So the Mass condo conversion law gives tenants extra time when the new owner wants to make condos. In some jurisdictions, you can't evict a tenant (even one who has a month-to-month lease) as long as there are significant conditions of disrepair in the premises, although in practice many tenants don't know how to exercise their legal rights in such situations, and even if they do the new owner can often make a deal with the tenant to move out.
God, I swear 4 is a description of every novel ever written about San Francisco, with the names and details moved around. And I am just going to draw ASCII smut for the next ten comments if anyone quotes that with "about San Francisco" crossed out, because no, there is really truly something the matter out here. I guess there was McTeague.
My offer to Mister Smearcase is still good, if possibly unwelcome.
I was originally going to say "every novel [...] in the last 15 years," but then it seemed arbitrary, and then I hit post, and then I remembered that things were a little different for a while. Nonetheless, since 98 or so...
God, I swear 4 is a description of every novel ever written about San Francisco, with the names and details moved around.
I solemnly swear that I have ten comments' worth of smut, but I don't know which HTML tags to use to format the comments.
Yep, <pre> and </pre> should do it.
****** ****** ****** YYY ()()()()()
|| ||
oo XXXX
****** ****** ****** oo YYY XXXX ()()()()()
|| ||
****** ****** oo* YYY XXXX ()()()()()
|| ||
**
****** oo**
YYY XXXX*
()()()()()*
*
|| ||
****** oo***
YYY XXXX**
()()()()()**
*******
|| ||
**** ** oo
YYY XXXX*
()() ()()()*
*******
|| ||
**** ** oo
YYY XXXX*
()() ()()()*
*******
|| ||
oh no "candlesticks"
/ /
**** ** oo
YYY XXXX*
()() ()()()*
*******
|| ||
**** x ** oo
YYY x XXXX*
()() x ()()()*
x
|| x ||
****** ***** ****** YYY ()()()()()|| ||
_oo
XXXX
Dammit, I got cocky and didn't preview the last one. Effusive apologies and a good night to all!
8888 8888888
888888888888888888888888
8888:::8888888888888888888888888
8888::::::8888888888888888888888888888
88::::::::888:::8888888888888888888888888
88888888::::8:::::::::::88888888888888888888
888 8::888888::::::::::::::::::88888888888 888
88::::88888888::::m::::::::::88888888888 8
888888888888888888:M:::::::::::8888888888888
88888888888888888888::::::::::::M88888888888888
8888888888888888888888:::::::::M8888888888888888
8888888888888888888888:::::::M888888888888888888
8888888888888888::88888::::::M88888888888888888888
88888888888888888:::88888:::::M888888888888888 8888
88888888888888888:::88888::::M::;o*M*o;888888888 88
88888888888888888:::8888:::::M:::::::::::88888888 8
88888888888888888::::88::::::M:;:::::::::::888888888
8888888888888888888:::8::::::M::aAa::::::::M8888888888 8
88 8888888888::88::::8::::M:::::::::::::888888888888888 8888
88 88888888888:::8:::::::::M::::::::::;::88:88888888888888888
8 8888888888888:::::::::::M::"@@@@@@@"::::8w8888888888888888
88888888888:888::::::::::M:::::"@a@":::::M8i888888888888888
8888888888::::88:::::::::M88:::::::::::::M88z88888888888888888
8888888888:::::8:::::::::M88888:::::::::MM888!888888888888888888
888888888:::::8:::::::::M8888888MAmmmAMVMM888*88888888 88888888
888888 M:::::::::::::::M888888888:::::::MM88888888888888 8888888
8888 M::::::::::::::M88888888888::::::MM888888888888888 88888
888 M:::::::::::::M8888888888888M:::::mM888888888888888 8888
888 M::::::::::::M8888:888888888888::::m::Mm88888 888888 8888
88 M::::::::::::8888:88888888888888888::::::Mm8 88888 888
88 M::::::::::8888M::88888::888888888888:::::::Mm88888 88
8 MM::::::::8888M:::8888:::::888888888888::::::::Mm8 4
8M:::::::8888M:::::888:::::::88:::8888888::::::::Mm 2
88MM:::::8888M:::::::88::::::::8:::::888888:::M:::::M
8888M:::::888MM::::::::8:::::::::::M::::8888::::M::::M
88888M:::::88:M::::::::::8:::::::::::M:::8888::::::M::M
88 888MM:::888:M:::::::::::::::::::::::M:8888:::::::::M:
8 88888M:::88::M:::::::::::::::::::::::MM:88::::::::::::M
88888M:::88::M::::::::::*88*::::::::::M:88::::::::::::::M
888888M:::88::M:::::::::88@@88:::::::::M::88::::::::::::::M
888888MM::88::MM::::::::88@@88:::::::::M:::8::::::::::::::*8
88888 M:::8::MM:::::::::*88*::::::::::M:::::::::::::::::88@@
8888 MM::::::MM:::::::::::::::::::::MM:::::::::::::::::88@@
888 M:::::::MM:::::::::::::::::::MM::M::::::::::::::::*8
888 MM:::::::MMM::::::::::::::::MM:::MM:::::::::::::::M
88 M::::::::MMMM:::::::::::MMMM:::::MM::::::::::::MM
88 MM:::::::::MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM::::::::MMM::::::::MMM
88 MM::::::::::::MMMMMMM::::::::::::::MMMMMMMMMM
88 8MM::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::MMMMMM
8 88MM::::::::::::::::::::::M:::M::::::::MM
888MM::::::::::::::::::MM::::::MM::::::MM
88888MM:::::::::::::::MMM:::::::mM:::::MM
888888MM:::::::::::::MMM:::::::::MMM:::M
88888888MM:::::::::::MMM:::::::::::MM:::M
88 8888888M:::::::::MMM::::::::::::::M:::M
8 888888 M:::::::MM:::::::::::::::::M:::M:
888888 M::::::M:::::::::::::::::::M:::MM
888888 M:::::M::::::::::::::::::::::::M:M
888888 M:::::M:::::::::@::::::::::::::M::M
88888 M::::::::::::::@@:::::::::::::::M::M
88888 M::::::::::::::@@@::::::::::::::::M::M
88888 M:::::::::::::::@@::::::::::::::::::M::M
88888 M:::::m::::::::::@::::::::::Mm:::::::M:::M
8888 M:::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::MM:::::::M:::M
8888 M:::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::MMM::::::::M:::M
888 M:::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::MMM:::::::::M::::M
8888 MM::::Mm:::::::::::::::::::::MMMM:::::::::m::m:::M
888 M:::::M::::::::::::::::::::MMM::::::::::::M::mm:::M
8888 MM:::::::::::::::::::::::::MM:::::::::::::mM::MM:::M:
M:::::::::::::::::::::::::M:::::::::::::::mM::MM:::Mm
MM::::::m:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::M::MM:::MM
M::::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::M::M:::MM
MM:::::::::M:::::::::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::M:M:::MM
M:::::::::::M88:::::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::MM::MMM
M::::::::::::8888888888M::::::::::::::::::::::::MM::MM
M:::::::::::::88888888M:::::::::::::::::::::::::M::MM
M::::::::::::::888888M:::::::::::::::::::::::::M::MM
M:::::::::::::::88888M:::::::::::::::::::::::::M:MM
M:::::::::::::::::88M::::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
M:::::::::::::::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::::::::::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
M:::::::::::::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::::::::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
M:::::::::::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::::::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
M:::::::::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
M:::::::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
M:::::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::::M::::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM::::::M:::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::M:::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM::::M::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::M::::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM::M:::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:M:::::::::::::::::::MMM
MMM::::::::::::::::::MMM
MM::::::::::::::::::MMM
M:::::::::::::::::MMM
MM::::::::::::::::MMM
MM:::::::::::::::MMM
MM::::M:::::::::MMM:
mMM::::MM:::::::MMMM
MMM:::::::::::MMM:M
mMM:::M:::::::M:M:M
MM::MMMM:::::::M:M
MM::MMM::::::::M:M
mMM::MM::::::::M:M
MM::MM:::::::::M:M
MM::MM::::::::::M:m
MM:::M:::::::::::MM
MMM:::::::::::::::M:
MMM:::::::::::::::M:
MMM::::::::::::::::M
MMM::::::::::::::::M
MMM::::::::::::::::Mm
MM::::::::::::::::MM
MMM:::::::::::::::MM
MMM:::::::::::::::MM
MMM:::::::::::::::MM
MMM:::::::::::::::MM
MM::::::::::::::MMM
MMM:::::::::::::MM
MMM:::::::::::::MM
MMM::::::::::::MM
MM::::::::::::MM
MM::::::::::::MM
MM:::::::::::MM
MMM::::::::::MM
MMM::::::::::MM
MM:::::::::MM
MMM::::::::MM
MMM::::::::MM
MM::::::::MM
MMM::::::MM
MMM::::::MM
MM::::::MM
MM::::::MM
MM:::::MM
MM:::::MM:
MM:::::M:M
MM:::::M:M
:M::::::M:
M:M:::::::M
M:::M::::::M
M::::M::::::M
M:::::M:::::::M
M::::::MM:::::::M
M:::::::M::::::::M
M;:;::::M:::::::::M
M:m:;:::M::::::::::M
MM:m:m::M::::::::;:M
MM:m::MM:::::::;:;M
MM::MMM::::::;:m:M
MMMM MM::::m:m:MM
MM::::m:MM
MM::::MM
MM::MM
MMMM
lk's smut is disappointing. Nosflow's, on the other hand, is familiar to me from high school, that very same picture.
Would be-writer Raphe survives the dot.com crash by manning a penis enlargement scam joint while testing the limits of his sexuality in the "anything goes" SoMa sex world. When a homeboy roue, Baptiste, shows interest, Raphe can't help but perk up and love him back, finally coming out in an explosive sex encounter. Simultaneously, Raphe pines for stylish, redheaded Julie, a successful web executive who persuades him to begin what turns out to be an addictive regime of high colonics. Will bisexuality suffice, or will Raphe's anomie seek bigger thrills?
pre works?
I thought it did not?
()_____ !!! _______ || /___________________________ooO_(o o)_Ooo______________________\ / || | ___ |\ ___ (_) * | / || | __| . \_| \ | __| ___ ___ __ __ | / || | / \ | _| | __|| _ || ~ | * * | / || | /' .\ |_| |_| |___||_|_|_| * | \ || | \ . | .______________________________, | \ || | \. _. *<---| stylesie@sydney.DIALix.oz.au | | \ ||---| |__---' \_._/' `------------------------------' * |____\ ^^ |________________________________________________________________|
I don't know what a high colonic is, but I assume that high colonics : colonics :: high modernism : modernism; i.e., high colonics represent the fullest, most ipseic flowering of colonics.
Oh, I see. "High colonic" is really just the term for what I thought "colonic" meant.
BBC
"He was best known for his novels The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road and Complicity.
The writer also penned sci-fi titles under the name Iain M Banks."
Are there "low colonics" that are like "low church", like a colonic with less Latin?
(I hope that is what low church means. Christianity is a mystery wrapped in a TL;DR so I've never known some really basic things about it.)
like a colonic with less Latin incense and bells.
FTFY.
Hmm, I was a bit of an arsehole to Cyrus in that thread.
83: A very small bit. I honestly hadn't noticed, or if I had I'd forgotten about it until now. Sorry.
If we're confessing problems with past threads, I may have put in a bad pun or two. Probably nobody noticed.
I may have said some intemperate things about nerds. I just want to reiterate them, in general.
It is regrettable that mistakes were made.