You have to watch out for those criminal professors.
But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year’s pension as a solatium for his wounded character.
Holmes on Moriarty, The Valley of Fear
Some deadbeat tenants know every last loophole of the laws and regulation to delay getting tossed out on the street. (Or more likely, on to the next victim.)
Lots of people who might do this (on both sides) have never rented a private apartment in their life, or did so long ago enough that that stuff wasn’t normal. The victim here is in her 70s. She might have been living in that house for 40+ years. I have known lots of people who have been on both ends of the sabbatical house “rental” deal from the 70s to the present, and they have had mostly positive experiences compared to the average rental. But they always did it via word-of-mouth referrals, with common acquaintances, and participation in the same social circles, which is a fairly powerful behavioral regulator for most people.
[quote] If you’re renting to someone and /not/ doing those things (and don’t know the person, and they don’t have an online reputation) then… what do you think all those things you do when you rent are for?
[/quote]
I think the issue is more interpreting the online system with its “narrowed” scope to be similar to renting to your colleague’s postdoc. When you open up your pool from “2 degrees of people you know” to “anyone on the internet”, you have to treat the people like complete strangers until proven otherwise, but a lot of people don’t understand this.
Again, I observe a lack of forethought coupled with misjudgement issues leading to an adverse possession issue.
It’s like you just had to give the keys to your sister but, but then her boyfriend kicked her out to the street and he’s still living in the doublewide. And she wants to move in with you. Again.
There are eight million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them
Stories like this make me realize how lucky my parents were when they rented out a house to a guy who was more than a little problematic. He tried to do his own repairs without telling them (and no knowledge of what he was doing), he called the cops on them for dropping by, and after he’d been there a while he quit paying rent telling them he’d given them enough money.
He was surprisingly easy to evict, but maybe they’re more used to weirdness in Florida.
My parents’ renters had a dodgy used boiler installed, flooded the place and then wanted to sue my parents because their home was partly uninhabitable. College professors, as it happens.
Do not get me started on academics and their DIY home “improvement” projects! Why do people think that just because they are an expert in their academic field, that means they can use power tools just like someone who actually trained in one or more of the building trades?
My landlord experience, even with background, credit, and reference checks, still resulted in 4 evictions in 5 years.
Illinois really only requires a month to kick tenants out, but the loss of income not just for the months they didn’t pay, but also the cost of eviction, the cost of repairs, and the potential income lost while that’s all going on and the place can’t be rented nearly drove me to bankruptcy. The deposit didn’t do much to offset that.
I saw this happen to a neighbor. I was selling my condo at the same time as the neighbor was selling their identical unit, so it was sort of a competition to see whose would sell first.
I was jealous when they found a seller right away, but I was not so jealous when it turned out that the “buyers” of the neighbors unit were actually squatters. They had included a rentback clause in the purchase agreement for the interim period. The purchase agreement fell apart, and these “renters” which were never vetted ended up staying several months squatting.
Anyone can run a credit check on anyone with a signed housing application. Sad but true.
Watch out, if you defend landlords, you’ll get called some nasty names. I see it happen all the time (I’m a landlord and it has become something to not mention in public for fear of being on the receiving end of a rant about how horrible you are and how you’re out their to screw over poorer folks).
I’ve had a few terrible landlords, mostly nondescript landlords, and exactly one good landlord. I think what engenders such visceral negative reactions is resentment towards anyone who holds that much power over such a basic need as shelter. Threatening someone’s shelter is not much different than threatening to strangle or starve them. Especially when, often as not, those threats are in service of naked greed.
I’ve had almost entirely indifferent landlords my entire life.
You know what the priority of most landlords is? Getting rent (so they can pay the debt on the property, a lot of the time) and not having the property damaged by the renters. Most of my headache in the last few years is one particular tenant that only pretends to live in my place, damages it in ways that I could never prove in a court, or just ignores damage that occurs as it gets worse. Good luck getting rid of anyone in Berkeley though. I’m stuck with her for life. With rents having gone the way they have in California, she’ll never leave and I can never evict her without either moving in or taking the place off the market.
A few years of that and you begin to understand how landlords get attitudes.
I’m not saying “poor poor me” though. I mean, yeah, I own the building (or will in 27 years…) so I’ve got a good deal as long as property values increase but most people seem to assume that all landlords are sitting on a pile of cash, waxing a mustache. The reality is a lot of people invest in a property or two because they save up money for years (we did) and it is their retirement plan. We have full time jobs too and have the mortgage on our own place to pay as well.
I love that you can’t be suddenly made homeless on the whim of a landlord without due process. This is the cost of that protection, but one that a business like Sabbatical Homes should be covering with insurance, even if it’s self-insurance. There’s no excuse for a lot of gig economy setups not to throw a little into a fund for these sorts of situations.
[quote=“chgoliz, post:29, topic:91993”]
Why do people think that just because they are an expert in their academic field, that means they can use power tools just like someone who actually trained in one or more of the building trades?[/quote]
Well, in my case it is from time working for a furniture refinisher when I was young. That said, there are plenty of power tools I won’t go near; I know my limits.
Our experience with our tenants is the opposite problem, eg utter helplessness in the face of a jammed garbage disposal.
This should never be a problem for this particular niche business, since there is a clear and firm end time for the tenancy, just as students thrown out of the dorm at the end of the semester can’t be described as “suddenly made homeless on the whim of a landlord”. In more general situations, both tenants and landlords need the protection of clear, enforceable, balanced rental laws.
