Happy Fake Labor Day to the Americans, because their government wants to hide real labor day from their citizens so they don’t have to educate them about the Haymarket Affair.
Labor Day being in September is absolutely about erasing labor history. If more people knew labor history, more people would understand why All Cops Are Bastards.
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According to others in the thread, you should have known your whole life about the Wikipedia article on it! Duh! /s
I sort of knew about this but not the details. Reading that article shows just how far America has failed to come in 50 years.
Interesting stuff
May day! May day! We’ve got socialism over here!
May day!
I see what you did there.
You are correct, the American website Wikipedia definitely does not have an article on Haymarket
The average American has a seventh grade reading level (with 54% of the population with less than a sixth grade reading level), and you expect them to be educated enough to 1. know what it is and 2. look for a Wikipedia article on it?
Jesus, half this fucking country doesn’t even live in reality anymore. Somehow, they’re supposed to just know that it’s on Wikipedia.
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So you want like some mandatory Ludovico Technique for this piece of information, or what? There’s literally a library of Congress article. It has been part of AP US history for as long as I can remember. I’m not even sure what point you are trying to make. That there are tons of wilfully ignorant people in the US (true)? Or that this piece of history has been censored (objectively false)?
Erasure is different than censorship, and I think you’re intelligent enough to know that. I took that AP history class, and it was super biased against the workers, so that’s kind of a joke to reference.
Also, if we’re talking about a country with a seventh grade average reading level, we’re mostly talking about people who have never taken an AP fucking US history class.
Choosing the September date is part and parcel to why more people don’t know about it, because it’s not generally part of the public consciousness or conversation. That’s called erasure, not censorship.
If it was an AP class, that shits not getting to the ears of who really needs it most.
I would argue that it’s completely erased in most States
I mean we’re talking about a country that is literally in the process of redefining the history of slavery and running with “but the slaves learned valuable skills!” Yeah, I’m trying to meet these people at their level, but it’s clear that in huge swaths of the country, it isn’t talked about, period.
More that the US has successfully managed to censor entire swaths of history by limiting education (especially in red states) and ensuring that critical thought is not taught or enforced in any meaningful capacity. This is all totally intentional and verifiable. The information is there, but people are literally not ever taught (in academia) to think critically and seek answers to things they are unsure of. It’s mostly just memorization until you get the churned to the next year of memorization and if you do dare question any of it you get shit on by peers and teachers alike for being a know it all. It’s rare that you find people willing to foster curiosity in children which ultimately blooms into people eating up whatever they’re told as truth.
I had a great public education and this one of the very few things that wasn’t mentioned.
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be me american sees OP comment googles haymarket affair first result is Wikipedia article for haymarket affair 😐
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Mentioning America on a post that has nothing to do with America specifically? Yeah, this type of thing is ripped straight off of Reddit.
You mean when some rioters tried to kill people with a bomb?
It was reasonable at the time to separate celebration of labor from Haymarket massacre, where an anarchist through a bomb into otherwise peaceful labor rally killing both the police and the civilian with many workers being injured and triggering the riot. The labor leaders in US then decided to make labor day to be not associated with these bloody events, which have little relationship with the labor movement itself. Not sure why you refer here to ACAB, the policemen were victims here.
At the McCormick reaper plant, a long-simmering strike erupted in violence on May 3, and police fired at strikers, killing at least two. Anarchists called a protest meeting at the West Randolph Street Haymarket, advertising it in inflammatory leaflets, one of which called for “Revenge!”
The crowd gathered on the evening of May 4 on Des Plaines Street, just north of Randolph, was peaceful, and Mayor Carter H. Harrison, who attended, instructed police not to disturb the meeting. But when one speaker urged the dwindling crowd to “throttle” the law, 176 officers under Inspector John Bonfield marched to the meeting and ordered it to disperse.
Then someone hurled a bomb at the police, killing one officer instantly. Police drew guns, firing wildly. Sixty officers were injured, and eight died; an undetermined number of the crowd were killed or wounded.
But sure, the cops who were told not to show up, and then showed up when they were angry that people were pissed that they murdered workers, they deservedly got a bomb in their faces. Cops are always a bunch of authoritarian pieces of shit who can’t stand being criticized for being the violent fucking thugs they are.
Cops are always a bunch of authoritarian pieces of shit who can’t stand being criticized for being the violent fucking thugs they are.
Such blanket statements about all the cops is intellectual dishonesty at best. While there are shitty people working in all professions, and having some police officers shitty means very bad things can happen, the majority of the force is not that, as I am sure you aware. Yes, structural changes are needed, but this is not the same as calling all of them as bunch of authoritarian pieces of shit. There is crime in this country, and police does have its function and is needed by society.
Just admit you were wrong. Just say “Actually, you’re right, the cops were committing violence against striking workers first.” It’s not that hard.
No need to split hairs or change the subject.
Not on May 4. And I did not change the subject - you did with the ACAB statement.
To the topic: The bomber was anarchist. Labor was not behind this attack and wanted to distant itself from it. Thus they selected the September.
You’re really dedicated here to handwaving away the violence committed by the police before the bombing and also handwaving away that the cops were asked by the Mayor to not interfere. Maybe, just maybe, if the pigs hadn’t fucking showed up, it would have never happened.
It’s also handwaving away that only 2 of the 8 men put to death for the bombing were actually at the Haymarket event, and it was never conclusively proven that any of them built the bomb. They also never proved conclusively who threw it, but they put 8 men to death over it.
Also, it’s handwaving away the brutal crackdown on union organizers afterwards. Maybe, just maybe, the reason the labor organizations acquiesced and distanced themselves is because all the businesses, property owners, newspapers, and government were busy vilifying them. How much choice did the labor movement actually have in the date?
There was disagreement among labor unions at this time about when a holiday celebrating workers should be, with some advocating for continued emphasis of the September march-and-picnic date while others sought the designation of the more politically charged date of May 1. Conservative Democratic President Grover Cleveland was one of those concerned that a labor holiday on May 1 would tend to become a commemoration of the Haymarket affair and would strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the globe. In 1887, he publicly supported the September Labor Day holiday as a less inflammatory alternative, formally adopting the date as a United States federal holiday through a law that he signed in 1894.
So the labor movement is Grover Cleveland? And so it’s pretty clear it was because they wanted to prevent socialists from strengthening their numbers. Give me a break. Stop trying to rewrite history and get that boot out of your slobbery mouth.
Also, finally, stop repeating “anarchist” like it’s supposed to be an insult. “Not on May 4th” is the definition of splitting hairs, chucklefuck.
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ACAB
Look, I kind of agree with your sentiment, but the historical event in question did involve what the commenter you’re replying to insists happened. I that instance, all the cops involved were assholes. In that era, law enforcement was tied to power by necessity, since only the powerful (read: rich) could start townships and such and afford to pay for law enforcers.
But now? Things are a little complex. This is on purpose, as the powerful class has continually meddled in police affairs through lobbying and unions (ironically the police union is hilariously well funded due to rich interests wanting am army to keep the poors in line), and we’re (in the US) trending back towards police basically being an official branch of Pinkertons.
Still, I’ve met good cops. Genuinely good people. Last year, I had a flat (entirely my fault. In CA) tire and a passing motorcycle cop stopped to help. He not only helped me replace it with a spare, he offered to call and pay for a tow truck for me. Truly a kind man, and believed in his social position perhaps more than the average.
But yeah, that’s not how it is in most places. Even in CA you have sheriff gangs, prison guard gangs, corruption, you name it. Like I said, the US as a whole is generally trending backwards as of late.
Anyways we need nuance. But we’re increasingly approaching a world where nuance is shunned or laughed at as missing the point, or being needlessly picky. Not only that, people seem even more desperate to feed into tribal groupings. Even on lemmy, you’re either pro US or pro China/Russia. It’s like people think they need to pick a side.
Sorry, just needed to rant I guess. I just hope we manage to keep the planet alive while we figure our bullshit out.
Cheers mate, thanks for the nuanced take.
I don’t think most folks like me reject the idea that good cops could exist, it’s more that we’re so aware of how many bad cops exist (at least in the US), it’s one of those situations where good cops are run off the force (or worse, targeted and murdered before they can testify) or put up with so much bad behavior themselves that over time, they’ve become a bad cop, because they’re not stopping other bad cops. Even if they’re nice to citizens, if they’re covering for crimes of their fellow cops, they’re a bad cop. The fact that more cops aren’t standing up against things like qualified immunity when it’s painfully being abused or civil forfeiture when it’s abused shows exactly how little they care for the public and how much they care for their right to abuse the public without recourse.
Unfortunately, that leaves most cops in the USA falling under the umbrella of ACAB.
Oh, and the whole 40% of cops self-reported as beating their spouses. On top of the whole “Killology” mess that trains them to be an occupying force in their own cities. It’s really hard to make excuses for them at this point.
You’re a good human. I don’t get to say this enough, please never change.
One thing I’ve learned on reddit is that you never tell people on platforms like that or even this one that you’re a landlord. You could be the best landlord, never raise a reasonable rent, keep a well and promptly maintained property, and LanDlOrDs aRe The ScUm of ThE Earth!!1! is all you hear.
The very idea of being a landlord is pretty evil though? Like in a housing shortage you’re hoarding property and profiting off it.
So while I generally agree with your sentiment, there are some obvious ways that sometime could be an ethical landlord.
What if you have a house that’s too big, so you convert a floor into an apartment? You’re adding to the number of housing units available. Should you be forced to sell a portion of your house/building to whoever wants to live there? Or should you be able to rent it out to someone at a reasonable rate? Do we want rules that discourage people from potentially adding units to the market?
I feel like the “all landlords are evil” narrative is way too simplistic, and that simplistic view turns off people who would otherwise support reasonable limits on landlords and housing ownership. Like, it’s obvious that we need limits and taxes on people who own multiple properties, and it’s obvious that there are companies that exploit renters and drive up prices, but it’s all more complicated than just “landlords evil lol”.
I rent my property because it’s the only way I could’ve bought it at my age and I use that money to pay for the mortgage of it while I live somewhere I don’t want to (under parent’s wing in a crappy city) but angry people rarely if ever consider all scenarios
Someone else is litteraly paying your mortgage for you because you cannot afford it otherwise. How out of touch do you have to be to say that with a straight face?
Thanks for the insult and making my point, I can afford it but in my country you have to make a downpayment of 20% of the value and that ate into my savings, I want to recover some of my savings before moving to another city and eating into those savings more, plus I have to wait a year for my wife’s job, is it wrong to rent it for that year before I move?
How am I making your point? You litteraly said that you could not afford the place, so you rented it out instead.
Someone is paying your mortgage for you because you cannot afford it, and then you will kick that person out when you want to. That person will then have to move again in a market that gets worse by the month.
I’d say that is pretty bad all around.
How can I not afford the place? This is just to make my life easier I would not artificially make it harder on me if I can rent it to some europeans that will stay on a sabatical in my country.
What is my other choice? Leave the place abandoned for a year until I move? Prices get worse every year and I found a great opportunity to buy now instead of wait until I could buy it without a bank loan. Prices doubled because I waited so this time I don’t want to wait. My mortgage is 25% of my salary that’s not bad is it?
So you’re keeping home ownership away from someone who can afford to pay your mortgage is what you’re really saying.
How did you come to this conclusion? If someone is renting it means they they can’t pay for mortgage. Otherwise they would’ve done so. He said, that he needed to make a 20% payment to even get the mortgage. Idk how much money that was for him, but where I live that would be around 130k$. Clearly not everyone has that kind of cash.
And what’s your solution? Disallow renting properties for which mortgage wasn’t posted in full?
If you buy it, live in it. Stop contributing to the housing crisis. Greed got us here, it certainly won’t get us out.
So disallowing renting. So you don’t control your property, which means you don’t own it but lease it.
This is problematic, since not being able to open your house is worse than having difficulties with obtaining it. I agree that generally having some people own a lot of housing units is bad, but not being able to own a house means communism. And not as a scare, but quite literally, as in definition.
Your assuming everyone wants to own property over renting.
House and property ownership has a lot of responsibility and expenses involved. Your water heater breaks well there is $1000+ your roof needs replacing there is 30K. All of that goes away when you rent as it isn’t your responsibility.
If you own property it can be harder and more risky to relocate. I know a few people that bought in 2007 and then were stuck as they couldn’t afford to move because they were upsidedown on their house.
Not saying renting is all sunshine and roses. I personally would rather own then rent but home ownership isn’t for everyone.
But I do think it is a major problem when you have a few companies buying up all property so no one else can afford it. But I don’t think being a Landlord is inherently evil.
Threw down over 20k in fixes so far in our first year of homeownership, and due to interest rates and closing costs, we don’t really have the opportunity to move anywhere else without taking a significant financial hit.
You bet it’s not for everyone.
Yeah but you know what, you always have a home. It is very unlikely the bank will ever foreclose on you, they rarely do that, even in 2008 almost nobody lost their homes.
But me, I lose my home on my landlords whim. At any given time I may have just 30 days to pack my life up and fuck off, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
You have stable permanent shelter. Don’t undervalue that just because you have to maintain it.
Um, you have rights depending on your country of I’m not mistaken
Rights that allow me just 30 days to pack up and leave.
Right now the news in my area is rife with “renovictions” and landlords kicking people to “move family in” but they never have to give any proof of those things. There is regulation, but there is no enforcement.
That certainly sucks. Can you sue for wrongful eviction? I know that’s a thing where I’m at.
Definitely not undervaluing it, however it’s worth pointing out that 20k is over a years worth of rent for a similar property where I’m at.
Are you renting month to month? Typically where I’m from you sign 1 year long rental agreements, so that is surprising to hear. Additionally, in some states, if the tenant has been living in a location for over a year, the owner has to give two months notice.
At the end of the day, being financially locked down to a location vs having a “permanent” home, as well as having the opportunity to move wherever you want vs having no permanent home are two sides of the same coins.
You don’t have the opportunity to move where you want when you’re paying 50% or more of your takehome on rent. As an owner you have way more opportunity because you have equity you can leverage if you want to move. Renters have no equity.
It is the furthest thing from two sides of the same coin.
That sounds like an income vs cost of living issue to me. It wouldn’t really be feasible to move until many, many years in if you were making mortgage payments of 50% or more of your takehome.
Ngl in this imagined scenario where shelter is taking up 50% of your income, you’re kinda fucked regardless of renting or owning. There’s no way you’d be able to save enough money to replace the roof (25k?) Replace aging sewer pipes (9k to reline, maybe 15k to replace?) Or replace the windows (haven’t gotten quotes for this yet, but I’m dreading it). You’ll have to get financing for those fixes, so that’s even more interest.
However if you get a better job elsewhere, it is far easier to take advantage of that opportunity if you rent.
You have no equity when renting, but you also haven’t spent a cent on maintenance, and you don’t have to deal with closing costs, taxes, and whatnot.
Rentals should be socialized, not owned by corporations or private citizens.
Yikes
I actually recently learned about housing co-ops. Basically an apartment complex led by a committee of residents. It’s non profit high density housing, so you can buy a share (meaning rent an apartment) at much lower rates. As an example, in my area the co-ops are at 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of traditional rentals. The downside is, from what I hear, the folks managing the apartment complex can be even worse than an HOA if you’re unlucky.
IMO this is the sustainable way forward for housing.
I would love a co op
Yeah, I hope more open up. I reached out to one and they said they have a 2 year wait-list unfortunately, haha…
Don’t forget food too. No one should profit on necessities.
Correct, but only one mountain can be climbed at a time. We have more reliable food sources than housing sources right now.
In a perfect world sure, government is fully funded and runs smoothly people care about the everyone etc… etc…
But in reality I really would be very hesitant to want to live in that world. It is very scary to have a single organization control all your housing. At least with the way it currently is if you don’t like your landlord you can go somewhere else. If the government owns everything your kind of stuck dealing with the same organization no matter where you go. Governments are not immune to corruption and can screw you over even worse in some cases then an organization.
In my opinion the best solution is many private citizens and small rental companies combined with government enforcing laws protecting both parties. However one big issues I am seeing is huge companies buy up everything in a small area and build a monopolies on rentals. That isn’t good either.
Governments are not immune to corruptions, but in the democracy there are ways to influence the government. Private companies that buy all the property are doing the corruption by design, in this case it’s not even called corruption, it’s normal profit-driven business, it’s supposed to be like that. And you can’t do shit about that, there is no ways to influence them
And you can’t do shit about that, there is no ways to influence them
You influence them via your business and local laws. That is why I specifically mentioned that the best solution is having multiple small companies. If you have problems with one you go to another one. Just like what you do with any other company. Yeah it stuck to have to move but it is better move and get a better situation then be stuck in a bad situation.
You’re still paying for those repairs when you rent, it’s just spread out.
You are basically insuring yourself against those expenses, which has a premium. If you are good with money and have a savings, you can afford not to pay that premium. Not everyone is in that position or smart enough with money. So many people are bad with money, that stuff really should be taught in school.
But you’re not researching, hiring, and scheduling a contractor to fix it. You don’t need to become an expert in long term planning and anticipate problems. You’re not mentally cataloging basic maintenance tasks like when you last painted the siding or mowed the lawn.
Home ownership vs renting goes beyond equity and I know a lot of people who were happy renting because it gave them a huge chunk of free time back for trips, hobbies, etc.
Like in a housing shortage you’re hoarding property and profiting off it.
Housing shortages are caused by bad government policy: namely, low-density zoning. Direct your anger towards the entity that deserves it, and make them fix their fuck-up.
(Note: I’m not making some kind of Libertarian “all government is bad” argument here. I’m saying that in this specific case, the laws need to be changed.)
There is enough empty property to house every homeless person 30 times. Some of those empty property are summer houses and shit, but even then the problem isn’t the lack of housing, it’s treating homes as a mean to make money out of people’s basic needs. You can build the best walkable city in the world, but if it will be bought by professional landlords immediately it will not solve shit.
Not everyone is able or willing to own their property, what would they do if landlords didn’t exist?
Privatizing the right to have shelter is pretty scummy to be a thing to exist.
What if I build a house on a piece of land I own and want to rent it out?
The second construction is completed I’m all of a sudden a scumbag for privatizing someone else’s right to shelter? Even though it’s a house I built on my land? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
Why would you build a house and not live in it?
As I stated in the very first sentence: to rent it out.
I suppose your response will be “but renting it out is bad! We should make that illegal because you’re extracting wealth from the tenant!”
Then I will say to you “fine, I suppose I will not build that house at all”
This is how you get a take a housing shortage in the US and make it far, far worse.
Well you’ve just got it all figured out eh?
You’re moving the goal posts here. Did you buy the land for the purpose of building property? Bad. Did you convert arable land into housing? Bad. Was it a rocky bad piece of land that you invested in to build something more out of it? Good. Housing policy isn’t binary but in most cases the current personal private multiownership model doesn’t help anyone. My perspective is no one should be allowed to own more than one house, and if so anything beyond the first house should be heavily taxed.
Buying land for the purpose of building property is bad? I think any policy that discourages development of additional housing is probably not going to be great for house prices. Or if you’re handing out houses in a lottery system, it won’t be great for housing supply at least.
I’ll give you an example; my country has food insecurity, rich people take arable farmland and build suburbs on that land instead of infilling the city downtown which has single detached homes less than a kilometre from the centre of the city. Do you think that this is a good thing they’re buying this farmland for suburbs, or a bad thing?
So they would still have a landlord it would be the government instead and people would be pissed when the government increases rent or throws people out because they’re destroying the place or not paying their rent…
I’d much prefer to have social housing than slumlords that want to make a profit on the rented space while also keeping the value of the building.
So, how does the government decide who gets beachfront property and who lives behind the power plant?
The same way that it works now? The unit is for rent, you take an appointment and the first person that qualifies get it.
This is not the gotcha you think it is. What so different than the current system?
Make it illegal to rent out property you don’t live on.
If you want to rent out your basement, or build a seperate dwelling on your property then you are adding to the available housing and can rent that. Most people would rather build their own equity given the chance, and this would provide rentals for temporary living situations.
Rent their property from nationalized government services with controlled prices.
Lol so many people here hate landlords but state ownership is just a step too far apparently
I think everyone in your replies is conflating being a full time landlord and a part time landlord. One of them is definitely more evil than the other.
Idk my previous landlord was part time and was still hell.
My previous landlord was amazing. Dealt with every issue that arose in a timely fashion, never raised my rent (which was already very fair based on the location), and even installed central AC after my first kid was born since the house was old and could get pretty hot in the summers.
And she wasn’t the only good landlord I’ve had.
Sorry your experience has been bad with renting, and I agree that most landlords are terrible (I’ve had plenty of those as well), but just because you haven’t ever had a good landlord doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
The vast majority of landlords are normal people renting out a portion of the home they live in as well.
What you are asking is that they should close those doors or have the rental be free? Either of those situations is bunk.
What’s the alternative here? Only letting big companies without any ethical regards rent housing?
Sure, there’s a good argument to be made that housing is essential to survive and as such should be provided by the government, but that’s not the world we live in. In this society, it’s likely someone is going to have to rent it out and I’d rather it be a person who actually gives a shit and can be held responsible rather than some faceless corporation.
Simple. Only individuals can buy single family homes. No renting of single family homes. And remove zoning restrictions to allow for more multifamily units.
Oh hoo hoo, when you talk about removing zoning restrictions things get hairy fast. The city of Houston has no zoning restrictions and from what I can tell (I’m not from there) some people love it and some people hate it. Apartments bring with it noise and generally clutter an area. You need nee infrastructure to manage an apartment, the tall place blocks the sun. Now if you’re in a city then you still have to think about where those apartments may be built. If they’re cheap and in a nice neighborhood then they’ll be snagged up so quickly. If they’re in a bad neighborhood then no one is going to want them. So what zoning restrictions would you recommend removing?
Actually in my experience faceless corporations tend to follow the rules much more stringently.
No, certain corporate landlords, like Blackrock, is even. Most small-scale landlords are not inherently evil because they rent out their properties. Having a few is not “hoarding.”
Well, renting out property is the only way for most people to achieve some moderate wealth.
You should never achieve wealth by the oppression of someone else. Housing is a human right, not a salary.
Should farmers not make money? Healthcare workers? Mechanics? Bus drivers? You can argue that this should be socialized, but it is still a salary.
I said achieve wealth. These people aren’t generating large amounts of personal wealth by withholding a basic human right from someone
Best case scenario, rent is low and only covers taxes and building upkeep. Then you’re essentially getting a zero interest loan since property is valuable and it’s being loaned for free.
Rent is obscene virtually everywhere. Rent should not preclude someone from saving money towards owning their own home, and it really does.
Also, the available, functionally livable land is going to quickly get smaller with climate change. So the more viable land is hoarded, the more people are pushed into desperate and bad living situations. (For example, who are the people with homes on coastlines affected by rising sea levels going to actually sell their soon-to-be-underwater property to? Won’t it effectively be valueless under water?)
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is being gentrified because it’s an area least likely to be affected by climate change. A lot of the mega-rich are buying property around that area.
Yeah, that’ll push the prices up even higher.
I don’t disagree. Obscenely high rent is common and bad. That means the interest on the loan that you are getting is extremely high. The solutions would be subsiding it by government owned housing, allowing new housing (especially high density) to be built, and discouraging people from living in cities. I think we should do both the first two.
Like you’ll ever buy a house yourself and support all of the taxes and upkeep with your nonexistent pay
If the rent is covering the taxes and upkeep then the renter is paying it anyway through a middle man.
If the rent isn’t covering costs then the landlord is bad at this and won’t be a landlord for long.
Where would people live then? Those don’t want to buy. Under the bridge?
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No it’s absolutely not. Your comment displays a complete ignorance of the business.
It’s not a business, it’s a scam to take advantage of people
Not a scam. Not taking advantage of people. You’re just wrong on all accounts.
Get a real job
I have a real job. It’s called being a landlord.
what do you do as a landlord? Like when you come into work during your weird landlord schedule they always seem to have - what do you actually do?
Being a landlord means being self-employed. There’s no set 8-5 M-F schedule like there is when working in an office.
It could mean meeting a contractor at 7:30am on a weekday or it could mean working on the weekend. Or staying at a property until 11pm painting to get it ready for a tenant.
There’s no set 8-5 M-F schedule like there is when working in an office.
that’s why I mentioned the weird schedule they always have. My current one has some shit like Saturday 1 pm to 4 pm and then they don’t reopen until Tuesday at noon then are closed again on Wednesday. Like what the fuck.
I never see my landlord doing shit like that. Just show people to new apartments usually.
I work from home and look outside. I see people move in and move out all the time. I rarely see the guy in charge doing anything other than handing over some keys.
or it could mean owning cheap apartment complex and having a building manager take care of almost everything.
Wrong.
I’d make a point, but you didn’t bother. Typical landlord unwilling to put in the work.
Another person who doesn’t know what they’re talking about who is anti-business.
I’m sure they’re not anti business, just anti exploitation
Well then it doesn’t make sense because being a landlord has nothing to do with exploitation.
I mean, even the dictionary spells it out pretty clearly.
“Explotation: The act of using someone unfairly for your own advantage”
it has everything to do with maximizing rents and minimizing costs at the expensive of the people living in those properties. There is a reason why there are rules about increasing rents and protests / laws against demovicitions.
What’s more pro-business than wanting the people doing all the work to get paid without the leech shareholders that contribute nothing taking all the incentive for that work?
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Not a scam in any way.
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“It’s not scalping, iT’s A bUiSnEsS!”
Not the same thing.
Purchasing something that there is a limited amount of in order to profit off someone else wanting it. Sure sounds the same to me…
No, wait, they are different. Concert tickets are necessary for survival.
This is a textbook case of “I don’t understand that thing, so I’m going to irrationally fear and hate that thing”. Making a comparison of two things that are completely different displays that lack of understanding.
This is a textbook example of “I can’t defend a thing, so I’m just going to say you’re wrong for disliking without offering any actual arguments for it.” Making no statements other than “No, your wrong!” Displays your lack of justification.
I’ve had shitty landlords and good ones. My current one hasn’t changed the rent price in 4 years, comes out same day or next day to deal with issues… to be honest I wish I could copy and paste my current landlord to my next place too 😭
One of my old landlords tried to charge me for damage I didn’t cause… but guess who recorded every nook and cranny in 4K after accepting the keys, and used that footage to dispute and get my full deposit back 🤪🤪
Small-scale landlords also usually have full time jobs and use rent to supplement their income. Not every landlord is just rolling in cash.
Probably because most users are americans and there renters barely have any protections.
I’ve never really seen a landlord who does all those things, unless they also live in the property and wanted roommates to help with the mortgage.
Anyone with a mediocre amount of business sense or anyone that actually owns / owned (or pretends they own via a mortgage) real estate knows exactly how terribly difficult it is to just keep everything running.
This alone explains why reddit and such have no damn clue why renting is so expensive.
Not just being a landlord, owning a property at all, no matter how much you paid and when, means you’re rich…
As a couple we own a condo paid 85k in the early 2010s and a cottage paid 50k in 2020 (that was on the market for months)? I’ve had many users tell me I’ve got no business talking about the housing crisis because I’m privileged… Because the two of us are able to afford the mortgage on 135k in property???
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As a landlord and someone who loves shenanigans, it’s been great. It’s never been easier to piss off dozens of people I don’t like at once.
Like, sure dude, my owning a few houses is totally the reason your city that I don’t live in won’t build new housing to meet demand, and I totally enjoy spending all of my weekends doing manual labor fixing shit for my tenants.
never mind the fact that that landlord probably worked hard to buy his first property and subsequent properties to self-employ themselves in the first place
There’s no such thing as a good landlord
I’m sorry for your negative experiences, but please be mindful that not only your subjective world exists. I might have been extremely lucky, but all my previous rental places were maintained by nice folks.
Its not that the person themselves cant be “good” but the act of hoarding and limiting access to a basic human need, like shelter, to use it as leverage in order to extort profit from others is wrong.
Landlord-ing is inherently bad it doesnt matter if the person doing it is the nicest person on earth.I’d say it depends on the scale and the intentions.
“Nice folks” doesn’t mean shit if they are paying the absolute minimum to upkeep a building and never missing a chance to raise the rent. The overwhelming amount of landlords are the above.
None of these points have applied to them. I get the feeling it might be a case of culture differences, maybe the toxic landlording mentioned in the meme is more prevalent in the US?
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Sure he did, but he provided me with a place to live at, which otherwise I couldn’t have afforded. Just like any other service or goods provider.
Will you tell us a story about a good ethical landlord?
Perhaps, if you could explain what “ethical” means in this context.
You can click on the “Show context” button to see who I responded to in order to gauge the proper context of ethical landlord in this case.
My previous one hasn’t raised rent for five years, and even then he asked if it would be okay with us. Which it was, for even the raised rent was significantly below the market rate and he always responded quickly to any issues we have raised. He was a blue-collar worker who inherited a flat he didn’t want to sell, so rented it out to those who couldn’t afford to buy a property on their own.
why didn’t he want to sell it?
To use it later when his children would need it.
I am my hamsters land lord. Ask me anything
What’s their rent?
What’s their rent?
5k on the hamster wheel every day
And a few hundred brown pellets
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Do you have any rooms open right now?
How does it feel being a monster
my cat and I started as roommates but now I’m pretty sure he’s my boyfriend.
Yeah, first my dog and I just kinda coexisted, but then we were forced to talk to each other because turns out that he’s my coworker.
I know landlords that work way fucking harder than I do, and I have a “real job”. I get that a lot of landlords are assholes but in the end this is the system and some are playing the game as fairly as they can (being reasonable, very rarely raising rent, attending to maintenance themselves and in a timely manner) while others are cheating (not maintaining the property, raising rent, forcing tenants to sign burdensome leases, etc). Stop lumping them together.
All the landlords I know have more than 1 job. My boss is the landlord of 7 rental properties. He also owns a local breakfast diner and his ass is there every Sunday on that grill flipping eggs and bacon with his employees. He also owns a private security business. If one of the guards calls out sick. Its him that covers their shift. And he pays himself for those hours at the same wage he pays the employee hes covering.
My uncle. Owns 2 rental properties. He also runs an electronics recycling business where he loads and hauls E-Waste and he does that and all the manual labor of it by himself.
My old landlord. Young guy about 30. Boughtkmy building from the previous slumlord owner during the pandemic. Dropped 25k putting brand new stairs and decks on the building for safety. During a time where the average going rate on the market for a 1 bedroom apartment was 1100$ he chose to leave all of our rents at 700$ a month because he didn’t feel right about screwing people.
I am not a landlord. I have no desire to be a landlord. But not every landlord is a lazy sack of shit.
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My slumlord individual landlord was much worse than the corporate landlord I have right now. Mileage varies significantly between corporations that run rental companies. I’ve also had rental agencies that were shit.
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It’s also how they turn to technology to make it harder to really feel like you’re actually renting. Instead of keys, you have a door with a code, but you don’t control it, so if you’re even five minutes late with rent, they’ll change the code and lock you out. Just like with places like Google, it’s about removing humans and having a lot of this shit automated, despite how dehumanzing the automation is to the people who have to use such services. When you’re being fucked over and can’t even find a human to talk to, it’s dehumanizing.
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At least that’s how it is in blue states and cities.
I see you have never lived in a blue area with a Sheriff that refused to enforce things they don’t like. I lived through a COVID denying Sheriff getting so many cops killed from COVID that they had to shut down the local jail because too many cops and inmates were dying because bad ventilation and general refusal of the cops to take any type of masking or social distancing seriously.
I mean, nationwide, COVID became the number one killer of cops during the pandemic.
I mean fuck, right now in most major cities in Washington (Seattle/Tacoma) you have had cops admitting that they were refusing to respond to calls as a political act. Literally trying to make people afraid by not showing up.
But sure, you can totally rely on the cops in these situations to show up and help. Especially in a reasonable amount of time. /s
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I can see the landlord just pressing charges about property damage and claiming it wasn’t locked.
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It’s an evil industry.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. -Adam Smith
That’s a good point. I could probably just buy a house if all the corporations weren’t buying up properties and inflating prices.
What’s ruining the real estate market is the fact it’s literally illegal to build enough housing on the vast majority of urban land (same situation in Canada, too). Add in insane parking minimum laws, setback requirements, lot size minimums, etc., and what you get is artificial government-mandated ultra low-density sprawl.
It’s the ultimate form of regulatory capture to protect the “investments” of speculators and homeowners. Typically under the guise of “protecting property values” or “protecting neighborhood character”. Just consider: who benefits most from artificially restricting new competition than the owners of existing housing? Restrict new supply so that you can see the value of what you already possess go to the moon… all at the expense of the rest of society, of course.
If you have 9 homes for every 10 households, price will go up until one of those households is priced out of the market. If we built more and made there be 10 homes for every 9 households, landlords – corporate or not – would be stripped of their market power to raise rent.
The evidence backs this up. Any new housing, even “luxury” or market-rate, improves affordability:
New buildings decrease rents in nearby units by about 6% relative to units slightly farther away or near sites developed later, and they increase in-migration from low-income areas. We show that new buildings absorb many high-income households and increase the local housing stock substantially.
And more flexible zoning helps contain rising rents:
But what happens to rents after new homes are built? Studies show that adding new housing supply slows rent growth—both nearby and regionally—by reducing competition among tenants for each available home and thereby lowering displacement pressures. This finding from the four jurisdictions examined supports the argument that updating zoning to allow more housing can improve affordability.
In all four places studied, the vast majority of new housing has been market rate, meaning rents are based on factors such as demand and prevailing construction and operating costs. Most rental homes do not receive government subsidies, though when available, subsidies allow rents to be set lower for households that earn only a certain portion of the area median income. Policymakers have debated whether allowing more market-rate—meaning unsubsidized—housing improves overall affordability in a market. The evidence indicates that adding more housing of any kind helps slow rent growth. And the Pew analysis of these four places is consistent with that finding. (See Table 1.)
In addition, we can tax land:
Land value taxes are generally favored by economists as they do not cause economic inefficiency, and reduce inequality.[2] A land value tax is a progressive tax, in that the tax burden falls on land owners, because land ownership is correlated with wealth and income.[3][4] The land value tax has been referred to as “the perfect tax” and the economic efficiency of a land value tax has been accepted since the eighteenth century.[1][5][6]
It’s a progressive, essentially impossible to evade tax that incentivizes densification and development while disincentivizing real estate speculation. Oh, and it can’t be passed on tenants, both in theory and in practice.
And even a milquetoast LVT – such as in the Australian Capital Territory – can have positive impacts:
It reveals that much of the anticipated future tax obligations appear to have been already capitalised into lower land prices. Additionally, the tax transition may have also deterred speculative buyers from the housing market, adding even further to the recent pattern of low and stable property prices in the Territory. Because of the price effect of the land tax, a typical new home buyer in the Territory will save between $1,000 and $2,200 per year on mortgage repayments.
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Yes, there is price fixing. You know how that works? By artificially restricting competition through regulatory capture, aka restrictive zoning.
All the evidence point to zoning reform and actually legally allowing things like missing middle housing to be effective ways to control rising rents. If you clicked on one of the above links, you’d see this table:
Also recall from the same report:
In all four places studied, the vast majority of new housing has been market rate, meaning rents are based on factors such as demand and prevailing construction and operating costs.
You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.
I have found that the people calling for just changing the zoning laws usually have a bulldozer right behind their shoulder waiting to be sent.
Well you didn’t even read the second half of my comment where I also called for taxing land.
PS Trickle down housing doesn’t work. The end.
Ah, yes, the old trick of calling everything you don’t like “trickle down”. Should the solution to the toilet paper shortages of 2020 have been to lock down new supply and wage a moral crusade against toilet paper scalpers? Or just actually get supply back to normal to avoid the whole situation in the first place?
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Hmmm, market rate is determined by price fixing so the people living there have to make more so they can live there and then the rent is price fixed up, and so on, and so on, and so on…
Look at the chart I showed in my last comment again. Clearly landlords in Minneapolis aren’t raising rents in perpetuity. Gee, could that be because they abolished single-family zoning in 2018, and they’re already seeing a stabilized rental market despite being a large, desirable, high-QoL city? So much for your assertion that it “takes 30 years to see results”.
Raising taxes
My goal isn’t raising taxes. My goal is to replace bad taxes like sales, income, and property taxes with good taxes like land value taxes, carbon taxes (and other taxes on negative externalities), and severance taxes.
all of your points are meaningless to me because you’re not operating in good faith.
My guy, who do you think I am? Do you think all YIMBYs are actually just a secret cabal of developers rubbing our greedy little YIMBY hands together to demolish your historic gas stations and parking lots?
I’m a fresh-out-of-grad-school engineer who rents an apartment in a major city. I’ve seen the power of YIMBYism first hand, as I was able to negotiate down the landlord on rent before signing the lease, because there was a credible threat of me leaving and finding somewhere else cheaper. The reason why? My city, Montreal, is the most affordable major city in North America, with some of the lowest barriers to density, and extensive neighborhoods of “missing middle” housing (e.g., townhouses, plexes, low- and mid-rise apartments). All despite being a very desirable, very high-QoL city. Turns out having options gives you actual negotiating power against your landlord.
If you have all the fear of homelessness and your landlord has no fear of vacancy, then your landlord has all the power over you. If you have plenty of options, and your landlord has a credible fear of vacancy, you will have actual negotiating power. NIMBY policies only serve to empower landlords and weaken tenants.
Unlike you, I want to actually grant tenants (myself included) more negotiating power against their landlords by granting them more choices in housing.
Further, do you legitimately believe the current crony capitalist system has produced enough housing in America and Canada? Or is it possible vested interests have captured local governments to artificially limit supply and thus limit competition, and that NIMBYs like you are the pawns to protect their speculative investments?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/OUNXFHpUhu8?si=GmRtLvxOPxkpsf5N
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
mine just jacked the rent again, more than doubled now in three years. it had gone up a grand total of one time over the previous 20 years (a whole $20) before he bought the building (pretty cheap, too).
i knew this shit was gonna happen, soon as i saw that notice of the building being sold three years ago to an llc with “investments” in the name. the previous owners were also tenants themselves.
That sucks, I’m sorry to hear that. Some people just have no concern for anything but money.
Why would you not raise the rent on your tenants? These people didn’t get into being landlords because they care about the field or the people. Those some people might as well be almost all those people.
yeah I’ve had some pretty nightmare landlords that I knew personally or even lived with in some instances.
Be thankful on this great socialist American holiday for the people.
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Sorry, I couldn’t hear your pleas from my speedboat. Oh, you were busy working because I set your schedule to work on Labor day? Obviously we’re of two different classes of people. /s
Outlaw all landlords
ALAB.
What if someone wants to rent an apertment
With an absence of landlords, buying an apartment unit like a condo would be how that works.
But what if I don’t have money for an apartment or don’t want to commit myself to one?
Are you talking about the current situation or my hypothetical? Because money and commitment are a big part of renting an apartment.
I’m just talking about in general, how there’s reasons to rent
Not everyone wants to buy a property.
If rent was just paying for the costs of utilities, insurance, taxes, general upkeep costs, and the mortgage for my unit I’d have no problem with it. When corporations start sucking up money to line the pockets of investors it becomes a problem.
do you not think a landlord is by default an investor?
Scalpers are investors of sorts, yes. Doesn’t make it a good thing that we should have in society
Im the guy saying get rid of all landlords. Being investors is what makes them bad.
I’m not playing word games today, sorry. In this context “investor” means someone who is investing in corporate ownership of housing.
Its no word game, this is layman’s terms, rental properties are bought by investors. I just dont get why unincorporated investors also sucking up money get a pass.
Because it’s greatly dependent on context. Someone with an ADU in their own back yard charging below market rent to a tenant (real life situation one of my friends is in, as the renter) is wildly different from Bill at the investor’s meeting demanding they raise rent again because he wants to buy a fourth mansion. Investing any real energy in decrying the former while the latter still exists just seems like a stupid waste of time to me.
would you like to get back all the money you spent on a rental property when you move out?
I would like to sure, but I don’t think that’s reasonable. Why would I get my money back?
It’s how mortgages work. You make a monthly payment to live somewhere, same as renting. In the rental scenario, it all stays with the landlord. In the mortgage scenario, you have paid off some portion of the price of the house. When you move out, you sell the house, and use that money to pay the rest of what you owe, and the difference is yours. It’s like selling your car when buying a new one, except housing in the US tends to go up in price even when used.
You don’t need to explain it to me, I’m paying a mortgage and have rented before. But a rental isn’t a mortgage. You don’t get your money back when you return any rental item, why would a property be any different?
The landlord is offering a service: a property that you can move into almost right away, sometimes even furnished, with little risk and without having to manage the property. They’re the ones who have taken on the risk of taking on a mortgage or have spent a lot of money buying something outright.
I’m not defending all landlords here, but the concept. I think rentals are an important part of the market and for social mobility.
But a rental isn’t a mortgage. You don’t get your money back when you return any rental item, why would a property be any different?
right, thats why Im confused why anyone would rather rent.
also Im hearing an alien language. Im living in a rental property, I’ve never had one furnished, and I’ve been threatened with eviction for not managing the property myself. I aint seen my landlord in years.
Also, please dont buy into the propaganda that wealthy people are taking on risk. Its never about risk, its about having enough money to own the things that people need. They’re not gonna stop needing it.
right, thats why Im confused why anyone would rather rent
Maybe because you’re young and you don’t want to commit to buying a house yet? Or you’ve just got a new job in a distance place but need somewhere quickly? You can’t exactly tell your new employer you can’t start until 6 to 9 months while you look for a house and go through all the legal process to buy one. Also some people just don’t want to have to maintain it themselves. Boiler breaks? Landlords problem. Need a new roof? Landlord takes the hit.
Furnished rentals are definitely a thing here. Unfortunately shitty landlords exist everywhere.
That doesn’t make any sense. Are you connecting mortgage payments to “getting money back” or something?
In a non private ownership situation the government “owns” the housing and citizens contribute via taxes. (Scaled to their ability/income) No argument on the validity of that approach, just saying someone still “owns” everything, and the money spent isn’t just sitting around, waiting to come back
who said non-private ownership? Landlords are not the only property owners, as much as they would like to be.
As in government owned
I said who said non-private ownership?
You proposed getting money back. I discussed options of who you might hope to be getting money from, because it wasn’t clear from your comment
No Landlords on Lemmy I imagine
Edit: *greedy. No greedy landlords on Lemmy
I have a few rentals. Only one of them was purchased as a straight up investment. The others were just the places where I used to live. I also have a job. Theaye posts are honestly pretty childish. I rent my places out more or less at cost, and often take applicants who are seen as too risky by most landlords (I basically guarantee my own rentals, because I don’t really need the cash flow). I see it more as community service than a revenue stream.
That’s why I just think this shit is childish. Almost everyone I rent to is in no position to buy. I guess they’d just be homeless without landlords. I’ve had people who have literally been turned down 50 times, who were living in their car, and broke down crying when I told them I’d rent to them without a co-signer.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Shame they’re in no position to buy, I wonder if they would be if people or corporations weren’t allowed to own a “few” rentals. Or if reducing the pressure on the market brought by people or corporations who own a “few” rentals would at least make it easier for them to rent in the first place since other people who have to rent would be buying instead.
There would just be less housing. Construction workers are workers too, and as much as it sucks, they aren’t going to put $50k of their own labor and materials at risk so that a person living paycheck to paycheck can own a home, regardless of how noble that pursuit might be.
I also support radical action to end housing shortages and homelessness, and believe secure housing is a fundamental human right. If the government wanted to buy my properties at cost, using my own tax dollars, and gift them to those in need, I would support that. If they wanted to turn my current home into high density housing, I would support that. I am doing many things on my own, both through advocacy and direct action to address the real moral problem of housing. Unfortunately, I have no interest in being a smug slacktivist, so it often seems like lemmy doesn’t have any interest in my ideas.
Not everyone wants to own and it can even be profitable not to… It’s like if the anti landlord movement wants to force ownership on everyone…
Obviously not. The “movement” wants to remove profit intensives from the whole process
So landlords should rent for the price of their mortgage only? What about when they’re done paying their mortgage, they should rent for free and take a risk that the person “renting” the place will damage it and the landlord then has to pay for the damage? What’s the incentive to rent then? Wouldn’t that create more scarcity? What about if they’re on a mortgage with variable rate, should the rent price vary every few months?
By “at cost” do you mean they’re paying your mortgages and property taxes for you? If so, they could afford to buy if they had a down-payment. They probably don’t have a down-payment because all their money goes to rent :)
I don’t blame people for being capitalist when living in a capitalist system, but it still sucks. You could try something like a non-predatory form of rent-to-own where they gain equity over time (though these arrangements are usually predatory).
I guess they’d just be homeless without landlords
See. This is why I don’t like landlords.
It’s either I’m stuck with some transactional fake as fuck relationship or I’m homeless.
It’s super fucked up how people basically are constantly essentially getting taxed more and more for the right to survive. No one should be profiting off basic needs
That being said, the system is fucked up, and if you’re mainly using their rents to pay for equity, you’re playing by the rules while doing more good than harm. It can still be a win-win, and I think it’s ok to feel good about that
Homes shouldn’t be an investment vehicle, but they are - you should seek to help fix the broken rules, but it’s foolish to just ignore them. Most investments have a similar effect somewhere down the line anyways
But the real question is - are you actually a landlord? Technically yes, but in spirit? If you’re not making much of a profit from rent, you’re not what people mean when they say landlord. The upper middle class has been dabbling in rental properties for a while, but that’s not who the term refers to - it’s people who own enough that the rental income is the line item they’re keeping track of.
The starting line is like 20-30 units, and it’s mostly held by investment groups or families that inherited a town… They’re who own most rental properties out there
If you rent out a few places and don’t put much thought into adjusting the rent, you’re not the problem here. You’re not the one we’re talking about when we talk about landlords
Oh, that is very generous of you! I’ve edited my comment
Very thoughtful and agreeable comment. Fuck any greedy landlords and corps for buying up properties and driving up housing costs, but landlords and rentals do need to exist for people who need temporary housing or aren’t in the position to buy.
In a capitalist society, sure.
I wonder why people are in no position to buy, when homes are treated as a source of revenue for corporations and some people. I wonder why people have to jump through hoops to be able to have a roof, if the property are bought as an investment.
Yeah, maybe you aren’t lying and not making a profit out people’s suffering, but even you should see that it’s not the norm, otherwise your benevolence wouldn’t be needed at all. The whole system is cruel, and everyone who participates contributes to it, some more than others.Thank you for your service.
It’s easy to demonize and dunk on people for being greedy and just removing houses from the market, but as you well have stated, some people are not in a position to buy. So rent becomes the only true and logical solution.
Sure, they could well be down on their luck. But I would also present the case of the immigrant, new to a country (and having moved with a job offer), having no opportunity to sign for a mortgage (no credit history, didn’t gather enough work time in the country to provide payslips). And even if they had a suitcase of money just lying around, it takes a bit of time to decide if you want to settle. The best one can hope for is finding a landlord who’s not an asshat.
And no, other solutions proposed in the comments probably would not help, since, for instance, communal rentals tend to have long waiting lists or require some sort of reputation (like knowing some of the community) before allowing you to move in.
Usually not, I try not to mingle with the…riff raff…who we allow to occupy our homes. And when they forget the manditory tip, whelp out to the streets with you since you can’t manage your finances.
Since you can’t manage our finances*
Is this a double negative?
Don’t light no grill?
I think it’s southern slang
Ahh, that makes sense, when i say it out loud it makes more sense, i just don’t read slang very much.
Yea, getting Destiny’s Child vibes
Pretty sure it was TLC that didn’t want no Scrubs. I thought it was a pretty fun show too 🤷
It’s not Labour Day, you moron. We already had that earlier in the year.
This isn’t about own vs rent, it’s about house vs apartment.
Open flames are dangerous and smoke is annoying to neighbors. Condos and coops typically won’t let you grill. Some of them have designated grilling areas and those often have restrictions on how you can use them. Even many apartments with fireproof balconies won’t allow them because not all the neighbors want a balcony full of smoke.
Every house I’ve ever rented, allowed grilling. Even the cheapest one, a row-house in Baltimore, let you grill in the back “yard”.
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The amount of communists in this thread is simply astonishing. I thought we had accepted the concept of property rights. Why even stop at immovable property and not movable?
