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> if they can't pay the hundred bucks the government won't I sure don't care I used to have this same mentality. Until the person who was renting one of my pro
by dmarlow 6y ago
> if they can't pay the hundred bucks the government won't I sure don't care
I used to have this same mentality. Until the person who was renting one of my properties decided to lie about certain issues (like claiming a shampoo bottle lodged down one of the toilets was there for years). When I decided to not renew the lease with that tenant, they decided to cause considerable damage to our property.
Sometimes, when things come easy to people, they don't appreciate it. Holding people accountable helps them lift themselves up too.
- cr__ 6y agoDo you have any evidence that they did this because the government assisted them with their housing payments?
- dmarlow 6y agoNo, but the point was to ensure people pay what they're expected to pay. Not to give them a handout.
- ohyeshedid 6y agoThat's on OP to decide for themselves, though, not you.
- bsanr2 6y agoWhat counts as a handout these days? A tech job that pays $50k-$100k over productivity? ("The company has been losing money since its founding, but we need a rockstar engineer so we can survive long enough to get bought by Facebook.") I'm not sure we have any idea of the real value of things these days, including what work is worth. Credit has distorted the system; just because someone who is work full-time (however many jobs that takes) can't pay the rent rate the market seems to be dictating doesn't mean someone stepping in to fill the gap is giving them a "handout".
- marcusverus 6y agoThat is actually the literal definition of a handout.
- bsanr2 6y agoIt is not. They are not "needy." The market, pardon my language, fucked up either their compensation, or the rental rate, or both. This is the failure of an economic system to properly account for a worker's labor and deliver the shelter designated in the social contract, not an oversight or negligence on the worker's part. Especially with unions defanged or non-existent. It's not charity, it's account-settling.
- maxtheman 6y agoThe idea that 'anyone who labors is ipso facto entitled to shelter' is new to me in the context of social contract theory. Where does this idea originate?
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoA lot of people would consider it an example of basic humanity. Widespread homelessness is a bad look for any culture that likes to see itself as civilised.
- bsanr2 6y ago...Locke's social contract. This is its basic premise. People consent to performing labor not directly related to their survival, and in exchange, the state resolves to provide the necessities that are not guaranteed by that specialized labor. If I work full time and can't afford food and shelter, why would I continue to work? Further, if there are structures preventing me from subsisting, away from a state which will not secure my livelihood in exchange for my labor, why would I not dismantle those structures?
- itake 6y agoIf you read OP, he chose not to renew their lease and this caused them to do damage. I think the suggestion here is if a landlord chooses not to renew the lease of qualified tenants, the tenants will voluntarily leave.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- JadeNB 6y ago> I used to have this same mentality. Until the person who was renting one of my properties decided to lie about certain issues (like claiming a shampoo bottle lodged down one of the toilets was there for years). When I decided to not renew the lease with that tenant, they decided to cause considerable damage to our property. Surely the lesson here is that "this person was a criminally inconsiderate jerk", not "all Section 8 tenants are untrustworthy". (cr__ put it more punchily while I was posting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23409805 .) > Sometimes, when things come easy to people, they don't appreciate it. Holding people accountable helps them lift themselves up too. How does denying housing to someone who needs it help them lift themselves up?
- novok 6y agoThere is a 'blood from a stone' aspect from lower income tenants. If they trash a house and cause six figure damages to your property, your not getting your money back, and typically landlord insurance does not cover intentional damage: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CoWtuCHJZL8J:https://www.allstate.com/tr/landlord-insurance/landlord-tenant-damage.aspx+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-d https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CoWtuC... Also people growing up in poverty experience higher stress, so the probability of them doing the 'going mental' thing is higher. Many mom & pop and breaking even on a mortgage landlords cannot afford that kind of catastrophic loss.
- wolco 6y agoIf a rich person or rich person's kid cause this damage. Expect them not to pay and expect lawsuits. You have to be careful who you rent to. Sometimes someone down on their luck would make a much less demanding and better tenant overall. Be careful chasing away the poor because they actual need your place and may take better care.
- BeetleB 6y agoYou can get vandalism insurance. I don't know any landlord that does get it, though.
- tyre 6y ago> when things come easy to people I think you have a very misguided idea of what it's like to live in poverty.
- olivermarks 6y agoI think you have a very misguided idea of what it's like to be a landlord....and perceptions of who/what 'landlords' (a very unfortunate term) are from some tenants... no good deed goes unpunished etc. Plenty of great people around but you have to be very careful who you rent to...
- majormajor 6y ago> Plenty of great people around but you have to be very careful who you rent to... This goes both ways. You have to be careful who you rent from, too. Of all the investment opportunities available to people, I'm not particular sympathetic to purchasing property to seek rents.
- dmarlow 6y agoI wasn't in it to seek rents, we were nearly breaking even. It happened to be a place I previously lived in and it was easier to rent than to sell during the great recession.
- olivermarks 6y ago@majormajor Absolutely. People are untrustworthy on both sides. I've had the stress of being evicted by an unscrupulous San Francisco property shark in the past, and also know people who have had to spend large sums to evict sketchy people and then thousands more to make repairs. It cuts both ways...
- BeetleB 6y ago> Of all the investment opportunities available to people, I'm not particular sympathetic to purchasing property to seek rents. If forbidding renting properties to tenants would solve problems, I would be on your side. People will always need to rent. A society has to allow them to without allowing them to be exploited. But once you allow renting, you have to protect property owners from tenant caused damage as well. I'm not saying we're there - we may be far from it. But renting is not only useful, it is necessary.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- no_wizard 6y agoOne or even a few bad experiences shouldn’t mean disregarding a whole block of people, either
- michaelmrose 6y agoAnyone who thinks anything comes easy because you're poor hasn't been poor except in the poor college student "working" their way through the college daddy is paying for type of poor. Your experience points to the human race sucking not poor people.
- dmarlow 6y agoI don't disagree. I hope I didn't come across any other way.
- bsanr2 6y agoYou "It's not what you did, it's that you lied"ed a tenant who lied to avoid being kicked out, in order to justify kicking them out? Yeah, it sounds like moralizing to avoid coming across as ignorant of class issues. However, ironically, it gives you away, because people who think that's excusable are generally ignorant of class issues.
- 6510 6y agoWhat if the bottle was there for years?
- dmarlow 6y agoThe funny part about that shampoo bottle is that it's the same kind that they keep over the toilet in the cabinet... The reaction when I showed them the bottle was priceless.
- 6510 6y agoWhy did they lie? They feared you would kick them out? The horror of that conversation? You are ofc not responsible for the formula but... The most productive approach is probably to beg you for mercy at your feet?
- 6y ago
- rudolph9 6y agoWhat the probability is of something like this happening with a random tenant vs a subsidized tenet?
- ZeWaren 6y agoI've heard multiple similar stories (in Europe) with non subsidized tenants. Being disrespectful is not probably not correlated with being poor or not.
- monadic2 6y ago> Sometimes, when things come easy to people, they don't appreciate it. Holding people accountable helps them lift themselves up too. Yea I’m invoking Poe’s law on this coming from a landlord. Are you trolling?
- swarnie_ 6y agoI would think not. I assume section 8 is our equivalent of Housing Benefit. I know plenty of landlords who wont accept HB tenants because properties have come back absolutely trashed before.