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I read this and realized I fully support landlord tech. - Tenant screening? I want to live with good neighbors. - Cameras in the apartment building? Yes pleas

I read this and realized I fully support landlord tech. - Tenant screening? I want to live with good neighbors. - Cameras in the apartment building? Yes please. I want to catch package thieves. - Brokers for home sales? Absolutely - traditional brokers take 3-6% and drive up the cost of housing. - Rent to own? The renter / owner divide has gotten wider in cities and we need solutions to fix this. Landlord tech is certainly not good for city renters who think they deserve lower than market rent purely on account of (1) how long they have lived in the city and (2) how little they earn. But being pro tenant doesn't mean you need to oppose everything that landlords do. Technology is one the very very few ways an oppressive system can change. The oppressors are not always landlords - they are brokers, real estate developers, law makers, voters, other tenants who sit on their rent controlled housing until they die. P.S. I'm a tenant paying market price for rental housing.

caseysoftware 6y ago
> "Tenant screening? I want to live with good neighbors." And there's the other side. A landlord has an obligation to ensure things are in good working order, pay the mortgage, upkeep common areas, and pay the taxes. Whether your tenant pays or not, those bills are still due. One tenant being late once is irritating but not catastrophic. Tenant(s) not paying for months burns through reserves quickly. It's in everyone's best interest to ensure tenants can pay the rent.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  > It's in everyone's best interest to ensure tenants can pay the rent. Which is why it's so weird to see landlords advertising "no Section 8" (which is unlawful in California, FYI). Section 8 is an ironclad guarantee that you will get paid in full and on time every month. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=%22no+section+8%22&availabilityMode=0&sale_date=all+dates https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=%22no+section+...
  - jakear 6y ago
    But of course it means you’ll have “those people” as tenants, for whatever worst-nightmare definition of “those” the landlord can concoct.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      In my property management experience (~80 units), Section 8 tenants have no assets and limited income, so when they incur thousands of dollars of damage to a unit, there is no recourse. Non section 8 tenants have skin in the game: assets to pursue or income that can be garnished using a judgement if there’s damage beyond what a security deposit covers. This encourages a shared responsibility model where they treat the property with enough respect that the only damage is expected wear and tear (there are outlier events, kids will be kids and whatnot). It’s not about race (in my case, at least). It’s about resources and means.
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        This is one of those small-time landlord urban myths. Section 8 tenants stay for a _lot_ longer than average, and because of that they are systematically less likely to trash the place. By comparison someone with a high income and a lot of assets is very, very likely to leave as soon as they can, meaning even if they don't trash the place you still have a higher vacancy cost (which is a landlord's main risk) and because of their wealth you'll never get anything out of them other than the deposit, because they have and can afford lawyers.
        toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Can you provide data to backup your assertion? My data points come from experience of myself and other large scale residential landlords (100s of doors, a mix between Florida and Midwest properties). Personally, I will happily take vacancy risk over damage risk. Vacancy risk is limited by monthly burn (mine is low for each property), damage risk is much greater amount imho.
ebiester 6y ago
Question is - is it "good" neighbors or "white" neighbors? Our country has had a problem conflating the two.
- monkeywork 6y ago
  I'm assuming your question is rhetorical however I do want to ask you why you brought race into that discussion? Instead of asking "what do you consider to be a good neighbor" you instead phrase the question to try and make the poster look racist or at least bring that option into readers heads. Was there something in their post that made you believe they were racially motivated in their comments? If the goal of a discussion forum is to have discussions why would you go at someone assuming the worst without first having a discussion and understanding where they are coming from?
  - oarsinsync 6y ago
    One of the first comments on the webpage linked is: > Stonelock biometric cameras have been installed in various residential buildings, in which tenants are forced to subject their faces to a technology proven to reproduce racial biases. Race is a topic of the discussion at hand. It was omitted by the GGP, possibly as the GGP doesn't consider that to be of consequence (as it may not be to them, depending on which side of the camera's bias they are). I don't read the GP's comment as attacking the GGP, so much as noting the omission.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >I'm assuming your question is rhetorical however I do want to ask you why you brought race into that discussion? Instead of asking "what do you consider to be a good neighbor" you instead phrase the question to try and make the poster look racist or at least bring that option into readers heads. I'm not gonna speak for GP but a lot of people are hair trigger about screaming racism because it's an easy way to reduce fundamentally complicated questions about standards and double standards of behavior based on economic class into a simple issue of good vs evil. There's really nothing fundamentally different about Kevin the yuppie changing the oil in his "classic" 2001 4Runner on the street but when you start talking about people like Cletus, Manuel and Jamal doing the same on domestic minivans of the 90s suddenly there's a problem. The fact that Kevin's bank account has more digits to the left of the decimal shouldn't matter but for some reason it does...
aluminum96 6y ago
Have you actually had a landlord install cameras around your complex? I'm skeptical that you would actually want this if you'd experienced it in practice.
- techsupporter 6y ago
  Yeah, the last thing I want my landlord doing is installing cameras on every approach to my front door and doing facial recognition and storing the footage for 60 days (yet, somehow, it's conveniently "not available" if a package of mine goes missing but it's for damn sure attached to the posting on our group discussion forum if someone's dog pees in the wrong spot). Funny how 90% of anything landlords do--other than the existence and some light upkeep of the building--never seems to accrue to tenants.
- liability 6y ago
  My landlord installed cameras in the car garage a year ago after a series of car breakins. My car is in that garage, and I am not a thief, so why shouldn't I view improved security as a good thing? If the camera were pointed at my door instead then I wouldn't like it much, but it isn't.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    But the point of capturing package thieves was that it would be pointed at your door. Beyond that, I don’t get why people want to capture footage of package thieves. It’s not like police actually go after these people. Has anyone here ever actually heard back, “yeah, we got the guy and here’s your packages!” Pretty rare as far as I hear.
    - liability 6y ago
      In my building packages are left in the lobby. It would be pretty easy for package thieves to walk off with packages, but I've not heard of anybody having trouble with that here. From what I've seen package theft is more a problem for stand-alone suburban houses where packages are left on the front porch visible from the street. I think a lot of people living in such homes think there is value in cameras, and those cameras aren't being imposed on them by landlords. I don't know if there is any real value to those cameras though, and I suspect a better solution involves some sort of lockbox with a one-way door, similar to mail slots in front doors or bear-proof trashcans..
Nextgrid 6y ago
Problem is that once you open the floodgates there's nothing preventing the tech being extended to use-cases that would be against you, or recourse when things go wrong and the "computer says no".
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  Yep. Go in to complain that the AC is still broken and they'll pull up their surveillance AI that shows every time you violated their overreaching curfew and guest authorization policies. Train the tenants to take what they're given and stay in line like good passive income streams.
mafuyu 6y ago
I think it's important to recognize that you or I may not be the ones at risk here, and the same convenience/safety tools that we don't think much about might have an outside impact on others. I was in a fancy managed apartment for a while and they had carded access, security cams, electronic package lockers, etc. That relationship is pretty unique in that I'm paying a lot of money for a more "luxury" experience, and I have more leverage if something goes awry. (This management company totally dropped the ball on making the actual units nice to live in, but that's another story...) There are plenty of horror stories of landlords being shady, the classic one being coming up with an excuse to hold the security deposit. I really would not trust them with putting "smart" devices in my home. I once rented in a complex where the online credit card payment cost an additional $15 fee over walking to the office and handing over a check, because it was some service that they bought in that skimmed off the top. Rent-to-own also has a history of being predatory towards people with lower income. On top of the typically terrible value of renting to own, it's the same relationship as renting where a bad landlord could do all sorts of things, but now you have even more to lose since your money is locked up in the relationship.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  > I'm paying a lot of money for a more "luxury" experience, and I have more leverage if something goes awry No. That's a sales line. There are so many cases where paying more gets you worse treatment. Enterprise software pops to mind. So do luxury hotels. A $150 room will have free wifi, free breakfast, and no surprises. A $500 room will nickel and dime you on wifi, breakfast, parking, non-smoking, gym, a valet you didn't ask for, and they'll tack on a few fake tax fees for good measure. Because they can. > This management company totally dropped the ball on making the actual units nice to live in, but that's another story... No, it's the ending of the same story. We've all been there, it sucks, and you have my sympathies, but please don't believe or repeat the sales nonsense. It's a bunch of socially normalized lies designed to close a deal, nothing more.
  - mafuyu 6y ago
    Yeah, that's fair. My take may have been a bit naive. It is a bit like Enterprise software, though. Even if you're getting screwed, they'll be polite to you at least. When I badly broke an appliance, they replaced it no questions asked. Going through the same with my current individual-owner landlord would definitely be an event.
jorblumesea 6y ago
All of those ideas or tech could be used for very nefarious purposes. Two sides to every story. The site pretty much handles all of the counterpoints. - Tenant screening means local income or felons cannot live anywhere other than the worst crime ridden housing. It's neo-redlining or housing covenants. - Cameras means persistent surveillance and monitoring of your tenants. Imagine this with facial ML tech. - Brokers for home sales result in an uneven playing field and high potential for corruption. The incentive structure is not in the favor of individuals. - Rent to own might increase default rates, debt and speculation. It's hard to view this with much positivity.
crumbshot 6y ago
> Landlord tech is certainly not good for city renters who think they deserve lower than market rent purely on account of (1) how long they have lived in the city and (2) how little they earn. Why shouldn't low income earners pay lower rent? From a humanitarian perspective, it doesn't make sense to have a landlord greedily siphoning off the vast majority of a person's income, just so that person can have fulfilled the basic human right of not being homeless. It's parasitic.
- fbrchps 6y ago
  OP never claimed that those with low income shouldn't pay lower rent, they simply claimed that "Landlord tech" is not good for those individuals. Someone is allowed to see the benefits to certain things while also realizing that it may not benefit everyone the same way.
  - crumbshot 6y ago
    To my reading of their comment, it was implied later on: > The oppressors are not always landlords - they are [...] other tenants who sit on their rent controlled housing until they die.
- quotemstr 6y ago
  Of course rent shouldn't be income adjusted. Neither should and other good be income adjustment. The price mechanism works and is a good thing. What would be the point of striving for a raise if your costs increased proportionately to income? The possibility of a higher quality of life gets people to work hard and benefit us all.
- superflit 6y ago
  Because they already get a tax break? Why should the landlord fit the bill because Jonhy does want to live in a high sought place? The 'humanitarian' causes are a way to disguise totalitarian acts. We have laws, property and trade so we don't have to go back to primitive ways.
  - 6y ago
leetcrew 6y ago
> Tenant screening? I want to live with good neighbors. > Cameras in the apartment building? Yes please. I want to catch package thieves. these two could be good or bad depending on the implementation. I would like to share my apartment building with people who won't make a lot of noise, smoke cigarettes in the stairwell, threaten or steal from me, etc. I really doubt that you can screen for this without having a lot of false negatives or false positives. I have no issues with my current neighbors, but I suspect that has a lot more to do with the neighborhood and price than any active measures taken by the management. regarding cameras, I don't have any issues with cameras at the entrance point(s) to the building. I already have to swipe in with a keyfob registered to me, so it's not like I'm losing much privacy by having my face recorded. I think the residents benefit from having at least some record of what guests are entering the complex. I'm certainly not okay with more cameras inside the building.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
content_sesh 6y ago
Technology is orthogonal to system change. It can be used to bolster existing modes of oppression or oppose them. Sometimes even the same technology can be used to do both, based on who uses it! The real question is what is being deployed, who's pushing for the deployment, and who is benefiting. Taking smart keys, I'm skeptical tenants will see any improvement in terms of physical security. But I'm very willing to believe landlords perceive a benefit from increased surveillance of their renters. > The oppressors are not always landlords - they are brokers, real estate developers, law makers, voters, other tenants who sit on their rent controlled housing until they die. Hmm but weirdly enough it seems out of your big list of oppressors I see rent-controlled tenants pulled out more often as a boogeyman than any of the others!
- leetcrew 6y ago
  > Taking smart keys, I'm skeptical tenants will see any improvement in terms of physical security. But I'm very willing to believe landlords perceive a benefit from increased surveillance of their renters. I dunno why you would single these out (I'm assuming you mean the RFID setups they have on most new apartment buildings?). seems like they pretty obviously increase security over everyone having a common mechanical key to the main door. makes it way less of an issue when someone loses a key and/or moves out; you just deauthorize their code. once you give a couple hundred people the key to the front door, you either give up entirely on having the main entrance be secure, or you have to replace the lock and hundreds of keys over and over again.
hammock 6y ago
>- Rent to own? The renter / owner divide has gotten wider in cities and we need solutions to fix this. Careful with this one. It's called seller financing, and can easily be abused in predatory fashion.
approxim8ion 6y ago
>But being pro tenant doesn't mean you need to oppose everything that landlords do. No, but I oppose the very existence of landlords.
- bpt3 6y ago
  Why?
  - approxim8ion 6y ago
    I think it's a perverse display of greed, opulence and power and a driver of inequality that someone is entitled to a major portion of their tenant's paycheck every month. I don't believe someone should be able to generate an income from something they have or have acquired like a house or an inheritance instead of something they do, in the way of actual work. I don't believe it is a fair exchange of goods and I don't believe it's a particularly good way to distribute them either considering the sheer number of people who are homeless and the number of properties that lie empty simply because their owners believe they deserve to generate more passive income from them or just don't care enough.
    - bpt3 6y ago
      To me, this comment highlights a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of landlord's motivations and interests that results in the publication of biased, slogan-riddled "research" like the submission. > I think it's a perverse display of greed, opulence and power and a driver of inequality that someone is entitled to a major portion of their tenant's paycheck every month. Generally, landlords don't feel entitled to a major portion of their tenant's paycheck every month. In fact, landlords want as little of their tenant's paycheck every month, because the higher that percentage is, the higher the likelihood the tenant will have issues paying the rent at some point during the lease. Rents are generally set through market forces, not determining how much of an individuals paycheck can be extracted from them. > I don't believe someone should be able to generate an income from something they have or have acquired like a house or an inheritance instead of something they do, in the way of actual work. People shouldn't be able to use tools or implements of any kind to generate income? Maintaining a habitable property is work, though it can be infrequent and is commonly irregular. > I don't believe it is a fair exchange of goods Why not? People are exchanging money for a good (housing) which is no more essential than food or water, yet I don't see activists organizing to abolish grocery stores or farms. > and I don't believe it's a particularly good way to distribute them either considering the sheer number of people who are homeless People are generally homeless due to issues other than landlords. There is ample support for sheltering the homeless (though I'd like to see more), and almost all research indicates that the core issues with almost all homeless individuals is not a lack of supply of shelter. > and the number of properties that lie empty simply because their owners believe they deserve to generate more passive income from them or just don't care enough. And you wrap up with a statement that is solely based on some version of a landlord that easy for to you to hate, regardless of any relation to reality. Your attitude is no better or more productive than those on the other end of the spectrum who vilify those who need assistance and base all their thoughts and opinions on insulting, inaccurate stereotypes of lower income households.

caseysoftware 6y ago

> "Tenant screening? I want to live with good neighbors." And there's the other side. A landlord has an obligation to ensure things are in good working order, pay the mortgage, upkeep common areas, and pay the taxes. Whether your tenant pays or not, those bills are still due. One tenant being late once is irritating but not catastrophic. Tenant(s) not paying for months burns through reserves quickly. It's in everyone's best interest to ensure tenants can pay the rent.

jeffbee 6y ago
> It's in everyone's best interest to ensure tenants can pay the rent. Which is why it's so weird to see landlords advertising "no Section 8" (which is unlawful in California, FYI). Section 8 is an ironclad guarantee that you will get paid in full and on time every month. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=%22no+section+8%22&availabilityMode=0&sale_date=all+dates https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=%22no+section+...
- jakear 6y ago
  But of course it means you’ll have “those people” as tenants, for whatever worst-nightmare definition of “those” the landlord can concoct.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    In my property management experience (~80 units), Section 8 tenants have no assets and limited income, so when they incur thousands of dollars of damage to a unit, there is no recourse. Non section 8 tenants have skin in the game: assets to pursue or income that can be garnished using a judgement if there’s damage beyond what a security deposit covers. This encourages a shared responsibility model where they treat the property with enough respect that the only damage is expected wear and tear (there are outlier events, kids will be kids and whatnot). It’s not about race (in my case, at least). It’s about resources and means.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      This is one of those small-time landlord urban myths. Section 8 tenants stay for a _lot_ longer than average, and because of that they are systematically less likely to trash the place. By comparison someone with a high income and a lot of assets is very, very likely to leave as soon as they can, meaning even if they don't trash the place you still have a higher vacancy cost (which is a landlord's main risk) and because of their wealth you'll never get anything out of them other than the deposit, because they have and can afford lawyers.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Can you provide data to backup your assertion? My data points come from experience of myself and other large scale residential landlords (100s of doors, a mix between Florida and Midwest properties). Personally, I will happily take vacancy risk over damage risk. Vacancy risk is limited by monthly burn (mine is low for each property), damage risk is much greater amount imho.

ebiester 6y ago

Question is - is it "good" neighbors or "white" neighbors? Our country has had a problem conflating the two.

monkeywork 6y ago
I'm assuming your question is rhetorical however I do want to ask you why you brought race into that discussion? Instead of asking "what do you consider to be a good neighbor" you instead phrase the question to try and make the poster look racist or at least bring that option into readers heads. Was there something in their post that made you believe they were racially motivated in their comments? If the goal of a discussion forum is to have discussions why would you go at someone assuming the worst without first having a discussion and understanding where they are coming from?
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  One of the first comments on the webpage linked is: > Stonelock biometric cameras have been installed in various residential buildings, in which tenants are forced to subject their faces to a technology proven to reproduce racial biases. Race is a topic of the discussion at hand. It was omitted by the GGP, possibly as the GGP doesn't consider that to be of consequence (as it may not be to them, depending on which side of the camera's bias they are). I don't read the GP's comment as attacking the GGP, so much as noting the omission.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >I'm assuming your question is rhetorical however I do want to ask you why you brought race into that discussion? Instead of asking "what do you consider to be a good neighbor" you instead phrase the question to try and make the poster look racist or at least bring that option into readers heads. I'm not gonna speak for GP but a lot of people are hair trigger about screaming racism because it's an easy way to reduce fundamentally complicated questions about standards and double standards of behavior based on economic class into a simple issue of good vs evil. There's really nothing fundamentally different about Kevin the yuppie changing the oil in his "classic" 2001 4Runner on the street but when you start talking about people like Cletus, Manuel and Jamal doing the same on domestic minivans of the 90s suddenly there's a problem. The fact that Kevin's bank account has more digits to the left of the decimal shouldn't matter but for some reason it does...

aluminum96 6y ago

Have you actually had a landlord install cameras around your complex? I'm skeptical that you would actually want this if you'd experienced it in practice.

techsupporter 6y ago
Yeah, the last thing I want my landlord doing is installing cameras on every approach to my front door and doing facial recognition and storing the footage for 60 days (yet, somehow, it's conveniently "not available" if a package of mine goes missing but it's for damn sure attached to the posting on our group discussion forum if someone's dog pees in the wrong spot). Funny how 90% of anything landlords do--other than the existence and some light upkeep of the building--never seems to accrue to tenants.
liability 6y ago
My landlord installed cameras in the car garage a year ago after a series of car breakins. My car is in that garage, and I am not a thief, so why shouldn't I view improved security as a good thing? If the camera were pointed at my door instead then I wouldn't like it much, but it isn't.
- bradlys 6y ago
  But the point of capturing package thieves was that it would be pointed at your door. Beyond that, I don’t get why people want to capture footage of package thieves. It’s not like police actually go after these people. Has anyone here ever actually heard back, “yeah, we got the guy and here’s your packages!” Pretty rare as far as I hear.
  - liability 6y ago
    In my building packages are left in the lobby. It would be pretty easy for package thieves to walk off with packages, but I've not heard of anybody having trouble with that here. From what I've seen package theft is more a problem for stand-alone suburban houses where packages are left on the front porch visible from the street. I think a lot of people living in such homes think there is value in cameras, and those cameras aren't being imposed on them by landlords. I don't know if there is any real value to those cameras though, and I suspect a better solution involves some sort of lockbox with a one-way door, similar to mail slots in front doors or bear-proof trashcans..

Nextgrid 6y ago

Problem is that once you open the floodgates there's nothing preventing the tech being extended to use-cases that would be against you, or recourse when things go wrong and the "computer says no".

jjoonathan 6y ago
Yep. Go in to complain that the AC is still broken and they'll pull up their surveillance AI that shows every time you violated their overreaching curfew and guest authorization policies. Train the tenants to take what they're given and stay in line like good passive income streams.

mafuyu 6y ago

I think it's important to recognize that you or I may not be the ones at risk here, and the same convenience/safety tools that we don't think much about might have an outside impact on others. I was in a fancy managed apartment for a while and they had carded access, security cams, electronic package lockers, etc. That relationship is pretty unique in that I'm paying a lot of money for a more "luxury" experience, and I have more leverage if something goes awry. (This management company totally dropped the ball on making the actual units nice to live in, but that's another story...) There are plenty of horror stories of landlords being shady, the classic one being coming up with an excuse to hold the security deposit. I really would not trust them with putting "smart" devices in my home. I once rented in a complex where the online credit card payment cost an additional $15 fee over walking to the office and handing over a check, because it was some service that they bought in that skimmed off the top. Rent-to-own also has a history of being predatory towards people with lower income. On top of the typically terrible value of renting to own, it's the same relationship as renting where a bad landlord could do all sorts of things, but now you have even more to lose since your money is locked up in the relationship.

jjoonathan 6y ago
> I'm paying a lot of money for a more "luxury" experience, and I have more leverage if something goes awry No. That's a sales line. There are so many cases where paying more gets you worse treatment. Enterprise software pops to mind. So do luxury hotels. A $150 room will have free wifi, free breakfast, and no surprises. A $500 room will nickel and dime you on wifi, breakfast, parking, non-smoking, gym, a valet you didn't ask for, and they'll tack on a few fake tax fees for good measure. Because they can. > This management company totally dropped the ball on making the actual units nice to live in, but that's another story... No, it's the ending of the same story. We've all been there, it sucks, and you have my sympathies, but please don't believe or repeat the sales nonsense. It's a bunch of socially normalized lies designed to close a deal, nothing more.
- mafuyu 6y ago
  Yeah, that's fair. My take may have been a bit naive. It is a bit like Enterprise software, though. Even if you're getting screwed, they'll be polite to you at least. When I badly broke an appliance, they replaced it no questions asked. Going through the same with my current individual-owner landlord would definitely be an event.

jorblumesea 6y ago

All of those ideas or tech could be used for very nefarious purposes. Two sides to every story. The site pretty much handles all of the counterpoints. - Tenant screening means local income or felons cannot live anywhere other than the worst crime ridden housing. It's neo-redlining or housing covenants. - Cameras means persistent surveillance and monitoring of your tenants. Imagine this with facial ML tech. - Brokers for home sales result in an uneven playing field and high potential for corruption. The incentive structure is not in the favor of individuals. - Rent to own might increase default rates, debt and speculation. It's hard to view this with much positivity.

crumbshot 6y ago

> Landlord tech is certainly not good for city renters who think they deserve lower than market rent purely on account of (1) how long they have lived in the city and (2) how little they earn. Why shouldn't low income earners pay lower rent? From a humanitarian perspective, it doesn't make sense to have a landlord greedily siphoning off the vast majority of a person's income, just so that person can have fulfilled the basic human right of not being homeless. It's parasitic.

fbrchps 6y ago
OP never claimed that those with low income shouldn't pay lower rent, they simply claimed that "Landlord tech" is not good for those individuals. Someone is allowed to see the benefits to certain things while also realizing that it may not benefit everyone the same way.
- crumbshot 6y ago
  To my reading of their comment, it was implied later on: > The oppressors are not always landlords - they are [...] other tenants who sit on their rent controlled housing until they die.
quotemstr 6y ago
Of course rent shouldn't be income adjusted. Neither should and other good be income adjustment. The price mechanism works and is a good thing. What would be the point of striving for a raise if your costs increased proportionately to income? The possibility of a higher quality of life gets people to work hard and benefit us all.
superflit 6y ago
Because they already get a tax break? Why should the landlord fit the bill because Jonhy does want to live in a high sought place? The 'humanitarian' causes are a way to disguise totalitarian acts. We have laws, property and trade so we don't have to go back to primitive ways.
- 6y ago

leetcrew 6y ago

> Tenant screening? I want to live with good neighbors. > Cameras in the apartment building? Yes please. I want to catch package thieves. these two could be good or bad depending on the implementation. I would like to share my apartment building with people who won't make a lot of noise, smoke cigarettes in the stairwell, threaten or steal from me, etc. I really doubt that you can screen for this without having a lot of false negatives or false positives. I have no issues with my current neighbors, but I suspect that has a lot more to do with the neighborhood and price than any active measures taken by the management. regarding cameras, I don't have any issues with cameras at the entrance point(s) to the building. I already have to swipe in with a keyfob registered to me, so it's not like I'm losing much privacy by having my face recorded. I think the residents benefit from having at least some record of what guests are entering the complex. I'm certainly not okay with more cameras inside the building.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

content_sesh 6y ago

Technology is orthogonal to system change. It can be used to bolster existing modes of oppression or oppose them. Sometimes even the same technology can be used to do both, based on who uses it! The real question is what is being deployed, who's pushing for the deployment, and who is benefiting. Taking smart keys, I'm skeptical tenants will see any improvement in terms of physical security. But I'm very willing to believe landlords perceive a benefit from increased surveillance of their renters. > The oppressors are not always landlords - they are brokers, real estate developers, law makers, voters, other tenants who sit on their rent controlled housing until they die. Hmm but weirdly enough it seems out of your big list of oppressors I see rent-controlled tenants pulled out more often as a boogeyman than any of the others!

leetcrew 6y ago
> Taking smart keys, I'm skeptical tenants will see any improvement in terms of physical security. But I'm very willing to believe landlords perceive a benefit from increased surveillance of their renters. I dunno why you would single these out (I'm assuming you mean the RFID setups they have on most new apartment buildings?). seems like they pretty obviously increase security over everyone having a common mechanical key to the main door. makes it way less of an issue when someone loses a key and/or moves out; you just deauthorize their code. once you give a couple hundred people the key to the front door, you either give up entirely on having the main entrance be secure, or you have to replace the lock and hundreds of keys over and over again.

hammock 6y ago

>- Rent to own? The renter / owner divide has gotten wider in cities and we need solutions to fix this. Careful with this one. It's called seller financing, and can easily be abused in predatory fashion.

approxim8ion 6y ago

>But being pro tenant doesn't mean you need to oppose everything that landlords do. No, but I oppose the very existence of landlords.

bpt3 6y ago
Why?
- approxim8ion 6y ago
  I think it's a perverse display of greed, opulence and power and a driver of inequality that someone is entitled to a major portion of their tenant's paycheck every month. I don't believe someone should be able to generate an income from something they have or have acquired like a house or an inheritance instead of something they do, in the way of actual work. I don't believe it is a fair exchange of goods and I don't believe it's a particularly good way to distribute them either considering the sheer number of people who are homeless and the number of properties that lie empty simply because their owners believe they deserve to generate more passive income from them or just don't care enough.
  - bpt3 6y ago
    To me, this comment highlights a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of landlord's motivations and interests that results in the publication of biased, slogan-riddled "research" like the submission. > I think it's a perverse display of greed, opulence and power and a driver of inequality that someone is entitled to a major portion of their tenant's paycheck every month. Generally, landlords don't feel entitled to a major portion of their tenant's paycheck every month. In fact, landlords want as little of their tenant's paycheck every month, because the higher that percentage is, the higher the likelihood the tenant will have issues paying the rent at some point during the lease. Rents are generally set through market forces, not determining how much of an individuals paycheck can be extracted from them. > I don't believe someone should be able to generate an income from something they have or have acquired like a house or an inheritance instead of something they do, in the way of actual work. People shouldn't be able to use tools or implements of any kind to generate income? Maintaining a habitable property is work, though it can be infrequent and is commonly irregular. > I don't believe it is a fair exchange of goods Why not? People are exchanging money for a good (housing) which is no more essential than food or water, yet I don't see activists organizing to abolish grocery stores or farms. > and I don't believe it's a particularly good way to distribute them either considering the sheer number of people who are homeless People are generally homeless due to issues other than landlords. There is ample support for sheltering the homeless (though I'd like to see more), and almost all research indicates that the core issues with almost all homeless individuals is not a lack of supply of shelter. > and the number of properties that lie empty simply because their owners believe they deserve to generate more passive income from them or just don't care enough. And you wrap up with a statement that is solely based on some version of a landlord that easy for to you to hate, regardless of any relation to reality. Your attitude is no better or more productive than those on the other end of the spectrum who vilify those who need assistance and base all their thoughts and opinions on insulting, inaccurate stereotypes of lower income households.