How do you feel about Slumlords? Me? Can't STAND them.

[JanMichael]

So here's a proposal:

If you can't be a responsible "Landlord" (Don't like that word either...) and maintain safe, decent, housing then you can't keep it.

Buh-Bye.

[prodigal_green]

1. my grandfather was a slum lord

I didn't speak to him for 4 years before he finally had the decency to die. He was a greedy, horrible person.

[oscar111]

2. all housing belongs to the occupant: A nice law idea

overnight, no ll problems.

compensate the mom and pop ll's, for the loss of revenue some need to be retired on.

Otherwise, "home dictators" should vanish. How can we be a free world and have dictators ruling our home?

Laws giving tennants rights are no go's. Complain and use your rights, and you are suddenly kicked out. A lot like employees's rights... fired next week.

Real nutcases are allowed to become ll's. No screening board keeps them out.

[SmokingJacket]

3. "We only charge what the market will bear!"

So said the last slumlord I talked to.

Oh... you make lotsa money with your crappy shitholes?

Guess God loves you, then.

[YNGW]

4. There are laws governing this.

But along those same lines, if a tenant keeps his place like a pig-pen (unsafe, indecent), then the landlord should be able to tell them Buh-Bye.

[oscar111]

5. Laws? complain and assert your rights, and evicted

as sure as the sun will rise.

use and ownership should be the same person.

more re to the re just above:
the harm a tennant can do to a L.L., is minor in comparison.. simply financial loss from untidy , damaged apartment.

but a ll's harm to a tennant is at times fatal, often life ruining.

ll's evict tennants into hmelessness, where a person dies at three times the normal rate.. ll's leave bad wiring unfixed, fire erupts, tennants die. Ancient Water heaters explode, fire, death. No heat in winter, hypothermia, death. No rat control, bitten, disease, death.

now, mere ruined lives.. forced move placed onto sick who cant pay rent..the stress on a sick person kills. More often , ruins his life tho not quite killing him.

One cannot, as the poster above attempts, view the renter vices as on a par with the l.l. vices.

[YNGW]

7. I complained and never got evicted.

Of course, I took the time to interview the ll and past tenants to see what I was getting into.

>use and ownership should be the same person.

That's why they made mortgages. Buy a house.

[JanMichael]

6. They're spotty at best.

Things have to be pretty much falling down in my particular area to get them condemned.

We also have a couple of first class scumbags that own several hundred very low rent homes who play to system like a fiddle.

So yeah, there are laws, but they suck in many places.

I'm sure that some enlightened municipalities take a harder line on this but in my experience they are few and far between.

[YNGW]

8. It's low rent.

You get what you pay for.

Where are you in NC? I'm in Asheville.

[JanMichael]

9. Oh I'm not living in a bad place at all.

Just being an advocate for those who are but don't have the finances, knowledge, or language abilities, to defend their rights.

The north part of the state.

[YNGW]

11. OK

>The north part of the state.

I knew Myers Park HS was in Charlotte.

[JanMichael]

13. That's where my wife was from.

Somehow she c&p'ed a google search that she was doing onto my profile.

How? I have no idea, when I first saw that I thought that I'd been hacked, but no, it was my darling wife.

[oscar111]

12. Laws? LOL. Who has the best lawyers, for the longest appeal chain?

the ultrarich LL, or the poor tennant? The LL has a staff of ten lawyers on permanent assignment to handle his cases. The LL has also donated three million to the reelection fund of the appeal judge, and sees him weekly at the country club for tennis.

appeals take years, during which the tennant suffers horribly, but the LL merely writes his lawyer a check while recling in his LAZEBOY recliner watching wall tv, and eating a large, triple topping steaming hot pizza and petting his pet grizzly bear.

[YNGW]

15. Works both ways.

Renters have rights and to evict them isn't easy. In the meanwhile, they don't pay their rent, they trash the place, they take sledgehammers and bust out the tubs and sinks, if there's several units they make life miserable for the other tenants, etc...

[Kathy in Cambridge]

18. I'm a landlord. I keep my properties up because it's in my best interest.

I have provided my tenants a pleasant place to live which they can take pride in, and they in turn have treated me and my property with respect. I agree that there are nightmare tenants, but there are more nightmare landlords (at least in big cities) who because of low vacancy rates charge exhorbitant rents and don't provide decent living conditions. I have seen this over and over again.

[BiggJawn]

10. I like my landlord.

The rent has stayed the same for 5 years, and they replaced my water heater the same day I complained about it.

But then, I don't rent from Connie Basham, either.

She *IS* "The Lord of the Slums"

[cally]

14. Is this a rant or are you serious?

I don't like slum lords but sometimes that's the only housing available. The rents are low and the landlord doesn't make much. The housing stock is bad and no one has the money to make improvements. I despise slum lords who exploit this but I have sympathy for many who are really trying but can't afford all the improvements necessary. If they abandon the property, then it will likely be demolished. Then folks lose their homes. I just don't know the answer.

[JanMichael]

17. Serious.

If you can't maintain it then why should someone be paying you for it?

And specifically I'm talkiing the big SL's, not sure what the cut off would be, 10 units? who are not hurting in the least.

Grandmas in the nursing home can be practicing slumlords too with one unit.

Maybe then it's just time to call it quits?

[cally]

30. I'm more worried about having housing available

We need to find ways to provide housing that is less costly. Before you flame me, remember I live in the SF Bay Area. Housing is extremely expensive and unaffordable for many. We can maintain standards but that means that too many can't afford it. I don't blame most landlords. I blame the politicians for not planning decent low income housing.

We have a trailer park in my county that floods several times a year. It's filled to capacity because it's one of the few places to live for lower/middle income households. Flooding means about 3 feet of water. I've driven by during the flooding..it goes over the floor. The city proposed getting rid of the trailer park or requiring millions of dollars to correct the flooding problem. The residents rejected it. They cannot afford the flood control and would rather live with it. I guess you could call the trailer park owner a slum lord, but not in a traditional sense. I don't hate him/her.

The answer is more tax money to help.

[oscar111]

20. the answer is federal funds and take property away from inadequate LL's

if the LL cant do the finances somehow, ok, i sympathize a bit.

the gov needs to step in , take th e property, and use taxing power to fix things.

US wealth is 1O5 trillion. Enought to be sure of good housing.

72 million families... eighty K for a used house.. hmmm.

5.76 Trillion .. that is read as about six trillion.... for house value nationwide, including good houses that are not under LL's.

We can fix all houses you mentioned. Get rid of Reaganomics, return to the tax structure of '52. Prosperity, that year

[Scrooge]

16. Im thinking

when you "tour" the place, you should pretty much know what you are paying for based on the property. Slumlords suck, but i find it hard to believe most of them arent easy to pick out from the start. JMO

[JanMichael]

19. A lot of people don't have the luxury to shop around.

Surely you know what I'm talking about, yes?

[oscar111]

23. tours dont reveal how long a LL drags his feet in fixing a problem

a really inadequate idea for spotting slumlords. Not flaming you, just the idea.

Right , many cant shop around.. in a hurry for instance, or no dough to find any selection .

EVERY housing unit in america must be good. If only some, then some people will be hurt and killed.

[JanMichael]

24. You're responding to post #16 right?

I think you miss clicked:-)

[Scrooge]

28. thanks

"misclicking" is my middle name. :) I still am trying to figure all of this out, but am sooooo happy to be here. Maybe I am wrong about slumlords because I have never been in that situation. Now if I could only figure out how to retract everything I have said in this thread..

[oscar111]

29. Jan, right, re to 16, not yours

misclicked... and like your point of view. thanks!

[Scrooge]

27. Im new

so Im not sure which I was responding too. Im not streetwise or anything, but wouldnt the slumlords be the cheapest ones available? Personally, I could live with some inconveniences, and try to fix stuff myself. I could not live with roaches climbing down the walls from neighbors slobbiness. But still, I think that might be visible from the start.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

22. In high-demand markets with older housing, landlords can charge

pretty high rents. The vacancy rates in places like NYC, San Francisco, and Boston are less than 1%. I own property and could easily get much higher rents than I charge, but I prefer to have low turnover and tenants that respect my property. And I've been lucky so far.

In Boston, nearly all apartments require first month's rent, last month's and a security deposit equal to one month's rent, not to mention a brokers fee. In a market where the average two-bedroom dump with no parking is $2,000, that's a lot of money to come up with.

[yardwork]

21. Jesse Helms is a slumlord (property is in his wife's name)

They own a lot of houses in Raleigh, NC. The city has constant problems getting them to keep the houses up to code (and heaven knows that NC housing codes are not exactly stringent).

That's the problem I have with slumlords. They buy cheap housing and then they don't maintain it. They provide unsafe living conditions for people. Those are people living in those houses! Why should it matter whether or not they can afford higher rent? Take a little of your profits and bring the houses up to code. It's the only decent - dare I say Christian? - thing to do.

[maveric]

25. My landlord wrote me up for giving a bag of cans to a homeless guy.

I did this off the premises too. He told me that "those people" dont deserve handouts, they sleep in alleys and smell like urine and if he ever saw me doing that again around "his investment", he'd evict me.

BTW, he drives a Lincoln towne car and a Rolls Royce with Bu$h/Cheney stickers on them.

Compassionate conservatism lives.

[YNGW]

26. From one NCer to another

I'm in the mortgage lending biz. I meet people all the time who want to buy a home or duplex and start renting them. The way they figure, they can rent it out at a price that will cover the cost of the mortgage and upkeep, and in 15 years they have a house paid by rent. Sounds like a great business plan, right? Problem is a lot of them don't realize the time and effort it takes to correctly manage rental property. To them, it's the lure of a good investment with what they perceived as being easy money. I know that doesn't describe all landlords, but from my experience, many of them are just average people like you and me who have set aside some of their hard-earned money and want to get it working for them on top of their regular jobs. Like is said, problem is, they just didn't realize how much time and effort it would take, and often they're stuck with the property until the lease is up because not many people are going to want to buy a home that's currently being rented.

Just something to consider.

But I highly recommend that renters interview the landlord and, if there are other tenants, knock on some doors and ask. In lieu of other tenants, ask for a list of past tenants and call them. Short of that, you're rolling the dice. If it looks like crap, it probably is.