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Terrible take. I never had a problem with any of my landlords, and I always rented houses. If something went wrong, fridge stopped working, HVAC broke, washin

Terrible take. I never had a problem with any of my landlords, and I always rented houses. If something went wrong, fridge stopped working, HVAC broke, washing machine stopped draining, etc. the landlord would have someone out that day or the next or have an appliance delivered. My roommates and I didn't need to maintain an emergency budget for these things or be responsible for annual maintenance of everything. I always had multiple roommates and we split the rent and happily had access to a much nicer home and neighborhood than we had any right to. One landlord I had lived just one street over, in a similar house, so his family wasn't getting rich by any means. Another was some SE Asian immigrant woman and she was just getting by but the rental house was her retirement plan instead of a 401k. When I eventually bought my first house at 26, I had a roommate come with me for a couple years until I had my first kid. Technically I was a landlord in that scenario, so does that make me scum too? I mean he was incredibly happy with the situation despite knowing I was turning some modest profit.

underwater 2y ago
You misunderstand. I was specifically addressing the post which was encouraging bad landlords think in business terms to stop their emotional antisocial behaviour. But in reality the ideal is that landlords are considerate and decent towards renters. And, for when that fails, there are enough protections that renters aren’t at the mercy of a petty and vindictive landlord.
Voultapher 2y ago
You are looking at specific instances. For me it's about the systemic, large scale effects of the system. People routinely partake in exploitative systems without ill intent. The examples you provide could be applied in spirit to child labour. Is every instance of child labour immoral? I don't think so. But using the example of, how you as a 15 year old mowed some lawns to defend systemic child exploitation seems to miss the mark for me. I believe not all instances of landlordism are bad, but as a whole its effects on society are very negative. And that remains true even if all landlords were friendly and full of good intentions. The systemic effects remain the same. This talk for example while focused on a different topic covers some of the large scale effects https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A.

underwater 2y ago

You misunderstand. I was specifically addressing the post which was encouraging bad landlords think in business terms to stop their emotional antisocial behaviour. But in reality the ideal is that landlords are considerate and decent towards renters. And, for when that fails, there are enough protections that renters aren’t at the mercy of a petty and vindictive landlord.

Voultapher 2y ago

You are looking at specific instances. For me it's about the systemic, large scale effects of the system. People routinely partake in exploitative systems without ill intent. The examples you provide could be applied in spirit to child labour. Is every instance of child labour immoral? I don't think so. But using the example of, how you as a 15 year old mowed some lawns to defend systemic child exploitation seems to miss the mark for me. I believe not all instances of landlordism are bad, but as a whole its effects on society are very negative. And that remains true even if all landlords were friendly and full of good intentions. The systemic effects remain the same. This talk for example while focused on a different topic covers some of the large scale effects https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A.