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Eviction startup gets gig workers to help landlords kick people out
- panpanna 6y agoWhat's next? A gig work where you dress like Clooney and go around firing people on behalf of the company?
- falcor84 6y agoAnd instead of flying around, it'll of course be done over Zoom.
- myvii 6y agoWasn't that the premise of the movie? Anna Kendrick's character was hired by the company to capture the process of firing people so they could do it remotely.
- cattlefarmer 6y agoHere in Japan, you can hire people to resign your job for you. https://www.npr.org/2018/08/28/642597968/for-450-this-japanese-company-will-quit-your-job-for-you https://www.npr.org/2018/08/28/642597968/for-450-this-japane... You want something even weirder? There's also a service where you can hire somewhere to apologise for you/your company's fuck ups. I actually had a roommate that ran such a business. His clients will even issue him official name cards and an email address so he looks like a real employee, which they'll promptly burn once the case is over. Then they get to say that the guy that caused the issue has been fired and everythings all good now. Amazing guy, extremely resourceful, probably would've been running a successful start up if he ever found a way into SV. https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2018/11/never-say-youre-sorry-meet-japans-apology-artist/ https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2018/11/never-say-youre-sorry...
- cvhashim 6y ago> Here in Japan, you can hire people to resign your job for you. Just the a facet of the Japanese work culture. They respect their bosses and upper management so much so that I’m sure the worker feels guilty or shameful when leaving.
- htrp 6y agoThey're called consultants
- raxxorrax 6y agoAnd people say that startups often operate not in line with market trends. In Europe such debt collectors are notorious for very direct intimidation. But people at least still call them gangs instead of startups.
- bzb5 6y agoNot more intimidating than occupying someone else’s property, I guess.
- scarface74 6y agoYou don’t just knock on people’s door and start putting their things out. There is a legal process and you have to get approval from the court. I’m assuming they are doing it legally.
- raxxorrax 6y agoThey do mostly. They also like to remind you of their intend with batons and knifes on their belt. Violence is implied, not enacted. They stay within the confines of the law.
- scarface74 6y agoWhen I was a landlord, rule 101 is that you don’t go near the tenant while the eviction process was winding its way through court. Also, police are monitoring the process on the day of the conviction. Edit: Does someone care to share how the above statement is factually incorrect?
- raxxorrax 6y agoMakes sense and is perfectly understandable. Many people here actually let the renting be done by third party managing companies. Sure, that also costs you, but you can often save you quite some headaches. Even or especially if your tenants are friends of yours. Don't know the rates, but some even continue to pay you the rent if the tenant stops paying.
- mikece 6y agoThis is kinda sick: hire someone desperate to have a job and that job is to evict someone from where they live. How many ways could this possibly go wrong? (And has Fix television optioned this for reality TV yet?)
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoThere's already a series in the UK where sheriffs come to your house to reposes items or evict you. It's brutal but it's their job. I would not be able to do such a job.
- nyx_ 6y ago"Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away", it's some of the most egregious poverty porn out there. These High Court bailiffs (who are employees of a private company, because of course) show up at people's doorsteps; if it's because of a debt, they demand payment or start taking inventory of items to seize. So my only knowledge of this part of UK law comes from watching this garbage TV, but what amazes me is how much freedom the officers seem to have with respect to how strict their enforcement actions are. In some cases they only ask for a small amount of the debt and a payment plan to make up the rest, but if the debtor's uncooperative or a bit of a dick, the officers are going to start towing cars and carrying out TVs.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago>These High Court bailiffs (who are employees of a private company, because of course) Yeah, about that, how the f*ck is that legal?! How can the government outsource law enforcement to private companies? Corruption? It feels like the RoboCop of the 80's where OCP owned the Detroit Police Force and were carying out evictions.
- coldcode 6y agoWho in their right mind would work this type of job? I suppose if you were going to get kicked out of your apartment, you might do this. Evicting people can be very dangerous, not to mention depressing.
- blodkorv 6y agopeople who wants to earn money and dont have capacity to compete in other job markets.
- scarface74 6y agoWhen I was a landlord and had to evict people, I hired a guy who got a crew of day laborers to actually move everything out. If you evict people legally - at least in my state - you have to schedule a 2 hour window with the police and they are present supervising during the entire process. Also, the eviction process required at least 5 people to be present to actual clean the unit out depending on the size of the house/apartment.
- sparrish 6y agoI don't understand why folks are downvoting this comment. It's valid and important information about the legal process of eviction.
- scarface74 6y agoI don’t either. No one is commenting that any thing I’ve posted is factually incorrect. The company is doing nothing differently except putting hiring day laborers online. Home Depot wasn’t liable when the guy I hired picked up a crew from the parking lot. We waited for someone from the police department to show up - as legally required - and started the cleanup process. It is up to the landlord to follow the law.
- CPLX 6y agoThere is a long and storied tradition of members of lower classes being employed in jobs enforcing the will of the powerful against members of other lower classes.
- netsharc 6y agoOh geez, I can only laugh at the absurdity and audacity. The psychopaths who started this sure have a great idea on what to do in this world of cut-throat capitalism. I wonder when someone will start a retail mercenary business... Edit to add: To quote what someone on HN said: the whole gig economy platform is basically like having day labourers hanging out outside your local DIY store until a pick-up truck shows up and tells a few of them to hop in, but this time, it's all happening online!
- dpflan 6y agoCivvl's website reveals nothing about the "who" behind this company - which seems to be expected given the nature of the business.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jto1218 6y agoTheir website has a bunch of broken links on it. Default links from the theme that they haven't changed or something. Sloppy as hell.
- Volscio 6y agoIf you view the source of the agent onboarding page, you can read what appears to be an arbitration clause that is written for Uber. I am guessing they just copypasted the whole thing? Or...? https://civvl.com/agent-onboarding/ https://civvl.com/agent-onboarding/
- cvhashim 6y agoApparently > Civvl is owned by OnQall, a catchall platform for hiring gig workers.
- wegs 6y agoUntrained gig workers. Angry tenants. I can't imagine what could go wrong here.
- scarface74 6y agoAs I said below, when you do it legally, someone from the sheriffs department is involved. A clean out crew is often made up of day laborers anyway. You also don’t have to be gentle with the tenants stuff. You just throw it out on the curb. Edit: I usually don’t comment on downvotes. But why is a factually correct comment being downvoted? I was a landlord, this is exactly the process in my state.
- mercurysmessage 6y agoThat's awful, and you should be careful with tenants stuff. A lot of people on this site are cruel and callous.
- scarface74 6y agoWhy are you telling me? I’m just stating the facts. People seem to think that getting random people to move tenants stuff on the street have to be gentle or they put themselves at risk of being sued. My statements are A) at least in my state, the police are there monitoring the actual eviction either way. B) you don’t hire professional movers who are careful with the tenants stuff. No one does. There is no increased liability from using this service over getting day laborers.
- bserge 6y ago[Sorry, I decided to not get involved in this discussion]
- scarface74 6y agoYou have to schedule an eviction with the sheriff’s department. The police are there during the process. To get to the landlord, you have to go through the police first.
- bearjaws 6y agoHere in Florid an eviction is a legal process fought in the courts, once the tenant is 'convicted' the landlord can use the police to evict. I don't understand how this could be better than the police other than the timing? This is going to end terribly, just some John Doe showing up to peoples homes?
- scarface74 6y agoThe police aren’t “involved” they are present. The police aren’t actually doing the manual labor.
- mxuribe 6y agoThe fact that this type of firm even exists - if they in fact are behaving as reported (not just cleaning out vacated places, but in fact acting as enforcers) - is why i dislike American style capitalism. I'm not saying this firm can't exist elsewhere in the world, mind you. It just feels like awful things are allowed to happen here with justification being something along the lines of "hey, the market presented an opportunity, and someone filled it, yay America!" <sigh> To clarify: I am a proud American, but am frustrated with how distorted life has become to allow business to supersede seemingly almost everything.
- cwhiz 6y agoAn eviction moratorium that does not include help for the landlords is one of the dumbest ideas of 2020. What do people expect to happen? This is going to be an absolute bloodbath. Edit: I'd really like to hear what people think will happen when landlords don't have income for 9+ months. Or what they expect to happen when the moratorium ends and people have 9 months back rent. Just what, exactly, do people expect the outcome here to be?
- Saint_Genet 6y agoI guess that's a way to ensure you're among the first up against the wall.
- adamparsons 6y agoUntil I see the United States with my own two eyes, I will continue believing it’s a made up place / simulation that tests the absolute dead limits you can push capitalism to without starting a revolution
- vcanales 6y agoThe States feel like so much worse and so much better than my country at the same time.
- dawg- 6y agoYes, you should wait until you see it. Don't form your opinions of the world based solely on what you read in the news. Wherever you are from, I'm sure it's a nice place. And I'm sure I could find a hundred news articles saying the opposite.
- Normille 6y agoYay! --someone else who shares my theory. I've always insisted that the USA doesn't really exist. Because no country so fucked up could possibly command so much power and influence in the world. Some day I hope to prove my theory by earning enough money to buy a boat and then sailing due west from Ireland until I reach the east coast of Russia.
- loopz 6y agoYou don't want to go there. The sick part is the elected people tearing down the country.
- mosselman 6y agoMaybe someone will create a startup where you can hire another crew of gig workers to fight the landlord's crew and then create some sort of social media platform to stream the fights and make money from it by making the viewers pay to keep the stream online...
- 0max 6y agoit can be called http://yourpersonalarmy.io http://yourpersonalarmy.io
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tuna-piano 6y agoI understand evictions trigger lots of emotions and can be terrible situations for the tenant. But so many comments here seem to treat an apartment as something the tenant is entitled to, even without payment. How is living at a property without paying for it any different than walking out of Walmart without paying for bread? Staying at a place without paying rent is a form of direct theft. The non-paying-tenant is stealing use of the property without payment. It's somewhat normalized, but that doesn't make it ok or something anyone needs to tolerate.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoWhile I might not agree with a lot of the opinions in these comments the sheer ignorance of the eviction process is what bothers me more. Opinions are pretty easy to write off but anyone here also has a multitude of search engines at their fingertips so there's no excuse for ignorance. It varies by state but evicting someone is not the "just show up and kick out the tenant with threat of violence" process that many comments seem to be operating under the assumption that it is. You might be able to get away with that once or twice but (in the US) even the most shady of slumlord make a profit on a timeline longer than that approach is tenable.
- tuna-piano 6y agoThose people would be surprised to learn how common "cash for keys" agreements are... When a landlord wants to evict a tenant who hasn't been paying rent, it's not uncommon for the landlord to actually pay the tenant cash to leave! This is so the landlord doesn't need to wait months with no rent income while spending significant time going to court, etc[1]. In much of the country it likely takes several months. Each step in the multi-step process generally has lots of loopholes, gotchas and potentially weeks of waiting. [1]https://www.nav.com/blog/cash-for-keys-357679/ https://www.nav.com/blog/cash-for-keys-357679/
- scarface74 6y agoIf I had known what I know now, instead of going through the entire eviction process, I would have done that. It’s a win/win for everyone. The tenant won’t have an eviction on their record making it harder to rent somewhere else, they can move their own stuff out without the risk of it being damaged, they have cash in hand to stay somewhere else temporarily like a weekly stay hotel [1], and/or they could put their stuff in storage. I should have been willing to pay up to two to three months mortgage for a cash for keys deal. They weren’t paying anyway, I could have saved the aggravation and they wouldn’t have trashed the place. [1] all weekly hotels aren’t bad. I stayed in one with my wife and son for months after my lease was up and we were waiting for our house to be built.
- Normille 6y ago1: Stupid cod-Latin name? Check! 2: Takes advantage of desperate people with "gig economy" jobs? Check! 3: Describes itself as "The Uber or Air B'n'B of <something>"? Check! I hated them already. Even before I found out what they did!
- imtringued 6y agoBonus points if the gig workers were evicted by the very same startup that employs them now.
- loopz 6y agoAnother gig is working for Trump making deep learning adversarial networks to optimize riling up his voting base and passifying normal thinking voters.