Even the best monarchs do not justify monarchy; it is a position inherently created for abuse. You may have a good king, or two, or ten - even kings who WILL put your wellbeing before their own interests - but invariably they will always be outnumbered by those who seek the position for the sake of abuse, or who succumb to the structure of the position which encourages abuse. Likewise with landlording. The problem isn’t with individuals, the problem is with the system.
Yeah. Benevolent dictatorship is the most efficient government type. The only problem is the odds of getting benevolence plus the impossibility of keeping it.
It’s way worse than that. Any dictator (monarchs included) has to balance interests to keep their head. They literally can’t distribute wealth more freely without their top general taking over.
No king rules alone. So yes, a dictator has to keep his key positions happy. Money spent on useless citizens is money not spent for your ruling infrastructur. And uneducated hungry citizens make bad revolutuonarys.
I like this answer - succinct and to the point, but the last sentence is vague because “bad revolutionary” could mean “incompetent revolutionary” or “evil revolutionary” (am I missing a third meaning?). I’m assuming you didn’t mean evil, but even so, an “incompetent” revolutionary could have issues with the execution of the revolution (eg. lack of courage) or with the desired outcome (eg. rallying behind a populist cause blindly). Would you care to clarify?
I believe they were paraphrasing part of a CGP Grey video, and if so, then “bad revolutionary” would mean a revolutionary not fit to revolt. Either by hunger, general weakness, or incompetence.
Reminds me of the rules for rulers video by cgp grey
Yup. That video explains the problem very well.
Every landlord I’ve had has been “nice” and “friendly.” Unless you need something or they’re not happy with something you did.
Because they don’t see you as a person … they see you as either a benefit or detriment to their wealth. You are an extension of their wealth and their only interest is in watching to see if that wealth increases or decreases.
I mean yeah if they’re assholes sure. And many (most?) are no doubt. Yet I have friends who are landlords and they’re not fucking monsters or I wouldn’t be friends with them.
I think this reductive take of yours feels good to type but if we want to address the problems of housing, I think a more nuanced understanding is needed.
If you’re like a friend of mine, it’s just a family that owns a couple extra houses (withholding judgment on that) and let’s say the husband is out of work the wife makes like $50k/yr, and you’re on the hook for two mortgages (say $5000) and now the sewer pipe to the sewer main needs replacing at a cost of $15,000, your car breaks and needs $1000 of repairs.
If it comes to it and you don’t have the cash or credit to deal with it, nobody is going to prioritize the tenant’s sewer over their kids having a house to live in and food to eat. When times are so desperate you have to choose, you’re choosing your own family. (The assholes always choose themselves under all circumstances of course)
Idk wtf the answer is but housing is a human right and the idea that anyone should be unsheltered is fucked.
Both friends bought another house and rented their original. Some inherit a house. Because putting your money in savings like we used to in the 70s and 80s when you got rock solid perfectly safe 2-5% return hasn’t been a thing for 20+ years.
Then you have corporations with the capital to be able to snap up houses after the 2008 predatory lending fiasco (thanks to unregulated capitalism). With low interest rates that ended up being the best play and then that ended up pricing out regular people.
Yeah we need more supply but the equation there doesn’t really favor building affordable housing because reasons I don’t understand well enough to try to talk to. Some claim too much regulation but that claim is usually the kind of bullshit that corpos/rich and their shills spout to be able to deregulate and better screw us peons. So I’m skeptical.
Idk what the solution is because I don’t understand the very complex problem well enough. But I know that “landlords eat babies” isn’t that helpful because the whole housing thing (rental, ownership) is a train wreck systemically.
If you can’t afford to maintain a house you are renting out then you shouldn’t be a landlord. Your friends could just as easily sell the house to a family and invest in a way that doesn’t require them to maintain an asset they cannot afford, but instead they choose to keep it and profit as much as they can. Landlords are assholes.
This view kinda confuses me, I’m not a landlord don’t worry! If people can’t afford a house then what are they expected to do? It’s all well and good saying if you can’t afford the repairs then you shouldn’t be a landlord but if you can’t afford a house, what then, does the same sentiment apply?
It seems to me it’s very much a problem with the ‘system’ . Aiming your hate at landlords in general makes no sense when they aren’t the reason you don’t own a house in the first place. Obviously some people do take advantage of others, that’s not what I mean.
What is the solution here?
If I could wave a magic wand, I’d limit the number of houses people could own and how much wealth any 1 person could have…
But the problem still stands, people need enough money to get a house in the first place… So how does that work?
Aiming your hate at landlords in general makes no sense when they aren’t the reason you don’t own a house in the first place.
They are, in some cases, the reason people don’t own houses. Not in every case of course, but certainly in some. I think there have even been “rent-to-own” scams by some landlords.
I honestly don’t know what the landscape would look like without landlords, but that’s not a prerequisite to hating on and moaning about greedy landlords and their greedy ways.
Landlords were not a problem 30 years ago and suddenly, they are. The problem is not landlord. Removing landlords won’t magically fix everything for you. This view is radical and unproductive. This will lead the community no where near a real solution to this crisis.
Removing landlords won’t magically fix everything for you.
Funny that, because I bought a condo and removed landlords from my life and it did actually fix everything for me.
The problem isn’t just the landlords, it’s a regulatory and policy environment that has shifted since Reagan toward the well off at the expense of everyone else in just about every facet of life including housing. People are pissed at this point because it’s completely unaffordable to live while some of you (I’m going to assume you’re a landlord because of your tone) are hording tons of houses to profit off of.
I think my landlord sees us as people, he’s just fundamentally incapable of understanding what it means to live in a lower income bracket. He’s selling the house we live in and seemed genuinely confused why we, as a single earner household paying significantly below market rent, would be worried because “there’s only a few situations where they can kick you out”. Yes and if they invoke one, which they will because we’re a bad investment, we’re SCREWED.
Meanwhile he thinks he’s being generous by listing for below appraisal when it’s still at least double what he paid a couple years ago. Just living on a totally different planet.
All of this is starting to remind of Charles Dickens from 150 years ago.
He probably thought we’d be way past his generation by now … we are in many ways but in some ways we are no different than our ancestors 10,000 years ago … this may be the 21st century but human greed and the ignorance of man never changes
If that’s what you think, your life must suck ass. Landlord wants to pay their expense and that’s it. If a tenants destroys the place or ask stupid shit all the time, that sucks. That’s just being normal human being. Stop dehumanizing people.
You needing something is fair as it “should” be part of the agreement you have with the landlord. Even if unspecified, the landlord agreed to provide a place that is fully functioning and comfortable livable. So they can’t removed if you need something.
On the other hand, you are renting their property and you agreed, even if unspecified, to care for their property during your stay and return it in the same state as you received it. You fucking up their shit in any way gives them the right to removed. Both scenarios are a breach of agreement, written or not.
PS: Landlords require tenants to get credit checks etc. in order to ensure that the tenant can pay. Tenants should have the right to require landlords to hold adequate insurance that would protect and accommodate the tenant.
That sounds good in theory, but in practice, I’ve had to ask multiple times and then just begrudgingly get the plumber called in or whatever. Landlords hold all the power.
Took the best part of a year to convince our landlord to replace the ancient, breaking fridge. Still also in a pitched battle with him to get the boiler fixed properly or replaced rather the sending his mate around. Landlords are bastards.
Landlords should be required to hold certain types of insurance before they can rent. This includes home warranties. If your fridge and boiler were dying, the landlord might be less of a shit if all it took was a call to a toll-free number.
I agree and fear that I didn’t make my point well. The reasons tenants get screwed all the time is because all of the requirements and restrictions are on the tenant side. If people were required to hold insurance that protects the tenant, and certain regulations existed and were enforced, before said people could be allowed to rent a property, then maybe the power dynamic could be brought closer to equilibrium.
I get it now. And yes, I agree.
My landlord lives in the same house as me. Things get fixed very quickly, especially when it comes to anything leaky. Might also be especially connected to their mother living one flat below mine.
landlord is just living within the system he was put in.
if you wanna hate someone stop hating the individual and hate the system that forces this behavior.
except THIS IS AMERICA we cant have beneficial economic decisions
That’s not landlord/tenant that’s just people/people.
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Different is not necessarily oppositional.
My doctor does not benefit from me being sick. My tutor does not benefit from me flanking.
My landlord does benefit from me living paycheck to paycheck because they have extracted the maximum possible cash from me.
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Look at Kaiser; they run a vertically integrated shop. They’re fanatical about
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not paying for any elective treatments even if it would improve quality of
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preventive care to cover all the diseases they’re legally required to cover
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minimizing org-to-org friction
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using the cheapest means of communication whenever possible (text > video >> in-person)
I never had my blood pressure and lab work more scrutinized, never had more help offered to lose weight, etc, than when I was a KP patient.
Turns out I have special medical needs and there is a specialist clinic near me, so I switched insurance. But I always felt that my doctor wanted to keep my ass out of the hospital because that is where his bonus came from.
Now SURGEONS, that’s a different story.
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If you can afford to buy 2 houses you’re no longer “getting by”, you’re a 1%'er.
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Wait, what? How does it benefit your landlord if you live paycheck to paycheck?
They want the most they can get, of course. I just don’t quite understand what you mean?
You living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t affect your landlord unless you miss a payment. And in those instances landlords don’t have any kind of human empathy for the situation their tenant is in.
It does affect your landlord. Lower income means higher risk of non-payment.
That’s why some places require credit checks. The ideal tenant is rich and willing to pay whatever.
The ideal tenant is rich and willing to pay whatever.
The ideal tenant is rich enough to pay increasing rent in perpetuity, undemanding enough to not demand costly repairs, and too poor to buy their own housing unit.
Okay I’m not sure if you just have zero reading comprehension, or if you’re just being intentionally obtuse, so let me restate.
Again, you living paycheck to paycheck DOES NOT affect your landlord, UNLESS you miss a payment. I’m not sure how you could possibly say otherwise when you presented zero actual argument for why this statement is untrue.
MANY MANY people are excellent renters, never miss a payment, and live paycheck to paycheck.
If you live paycheck to paycheck and pay rent every month, it makes no difference to your landlord. $2k/mo in their pocket is $2k/mo in their pocket, no matter how much u have in the bank after paying it.
The ideal tenant is rich and willing to pay whatever.
Yes, that is true. That is an ideal tenant. That has nothing to do with whether someone living paycheck to paycheck affects their landlord.
That’s why some places require credit checks.
Yeah no shit landlords use credit checks to see if ur a high risk of non-payment. That’s called credit history. Has nothing to do with whether ur living paycheck to paycheck. I know ppl who live paycheck to paycheck with ~800 credit scores.
What ur describing is credit scores, not whether or not someone lives paycheck to paycheck. Try again.
“Not saying your tutor is a bad person, but they have interests that oppose your own”
Not really.
“Not saying your doctor is a bad person, but they have interests that oppose your own”
Not really.
You could say that if they were ruthlessly in pursuit of money above all other interests, maybe, and then only if they were short-sighted enough to think that keeping you stupid or sick was the best way to make the most money.
Doctors have other goals and are paid salary. Tutors are often working temporarily and part time. I don’t think either of these groups actually oppose your interests.
A landlord, on the other hand, directly opposes tenant interests in multiple ways. Every dollar they spend on repairs is a dollar less profit. Every dollar of rent increase they can get you to pay is a dollar more in their pocket. Every competing housing development being built threatens the value of their asset as well as the future profitability of their current housing stock due to the competition.
Of course there are “good” landlords that don’t maximize their own interests just like there are shitty doctors (mostly holistic, to be fair) out there that want to milk you dry and never cure anything. But that doesn’t change the calculus much. They’re just the exceptions that prove the rule.
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You can do the same justifications for landlords that you did for tutors and doctors though.
Kind of, maybe, if a high percentage of landlords was in it to “provide housing”…which I didn’t see any evidence of in my decade and a half of renting.
I’m also a bit of a weirdo too. So, I had a lot more opportunity to see any of that. I probably moved over 10 times in my ~15 years renting because I couldn’t stand the yearly rent increases they were trying to force on me and was stupid/stubborn enough (and well off enough) to vote with my feet.
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People/people made worse by the system. The system that created the landlord/tenant roles.
I realize that I may be in the minority here, but I used to be a landlord. I never charged full market rate, and I always took care of my tenants. I never kept any security deposit money. One tenant had a breakup, and I showed up that evening with a locksmith to change her locks so he wouldn’t be a problem. That cost me some money but it didn’t cost her anything. I mean, they’re paying for service you need to provide service.
I remember people like you. It’s always appreciated but eventually a corporation gets every building.
And because of that, you made less money. A bastard landlord would make more money and be able to invest that money into buying more properties. Those properties would bring even more money, allowing them to buy even more property and so forth. This dynamic is why the vast majority of landlords (and capitalists in general) are bastards.
Capitalism is a system where the selfish and greedy will always triumph over the selfless and charitable. It is designed from the ground up to incentivize selfish behavior.
I was OK making less money. The place was paid for, no mortgage. The only reason I sold was because of our horrible medical system.
Sincerely thank you for being a good person in a harmfully flawed system. You probably won’t get rewarded for it. Most likely you’ll be punished for it. But someone out there probably thinks you’re pretty cool for doing it.
Who wouldn’t put their income before your wellbeing when push came to shove?
Socialists
Funny thing is when socialists make some money they stop being socialists.
It’s almost like their class interests changed and class interests influence behavior.
Almost like it’s proving their point. Capitalist critique is not about individual “bad” people but about a system with perverse and harmful incentives.
(granting your claim for sake of argument - feel free to support it with data)
Context matters. Would you choose to go make a little bit of money or help someone who was about to be killed?
You just invented a scenario where the landlord stands to lose very little and the tenant stands to lose their life.
In every scenario the stakes vary between involved individuals.
That’s the point I was making.
In any of the systems we’ve tried since the species got agrarian—especially Capitalism whenever it’s Fascism Hammer Time—not the average person that’s for a certainty.
They’re too busy surviving.
In a proper society where we (the collective We, but really ~2k dragons) used the same tools we used to separate us to instead expand the sense of the tribal umbrella so that the species innate selfish altruism could shine?
A whole lot more folks whose part would be exactly like in the fabric of society, comfortable and without a thought of want for they know We got their backs too.
But also many of them will make someone homeless just because they couldn’t provide an extra ten percent of profit this year.
So yeah.
Almost all people will put their own well-being above yours. This isn’t a trait exclusive to the upper-class.
Yeah if we’re both in the same situation maybe but my income Vs your well-being is a different thing isn’t it?
I can accept to be a bit less comfortable to help you live in less horrible conditions.
In an ideal world we’d all treat each other how we wish to be treated. I try to do that in every interaction, not always successfully. But we saw during covid that there are hundreds of millions of selfish-ass people. People that wouldn’t even temporarily give up haircuts or Starbucks to potentially save someone’s life. Hell man, they wouldn’t even wear a thin piece of cloth across their mouth and nose to potentially save people’s lives.
I guess I’m saying that I agree with you, but many people don’t… at least not in practice.
That’s true. However.
The owning class has interests directly opposed to the working class, which makes that “natural” trait toxic to the working class. In addition, the owning class has a lot more power.
Your landlord wants to make as much money as possible for as long as possible. (fair enough right?) The problem is that for that to happen
- demand needs to stay high or go higher which means that
- supply needs to stay low which means that (at the level of class interests, not personal belief)
Your landlord doesn’t want new affordable housing to be built in your area. They want you to never own a house, never have any cheaper rent options. They don’t want to have to keep renting to you at the price you are paying now.
They don’t want to have to invest money in making your apartment/house safe or comfortable.
The problem is not that people will put their own wellbeing above yours, it’s that their wellbeing is in conflict with yours. A conflict of interests between classes… class conflict… class warfare. And they have all the guns.
It doesn’t have to be this way.You make some good points, but I’m confused by your statement that they have all the guns. Do you mean they control the police? I’m not sure where you live, but in the USA there are literally hundreds of millions of guns owned by the lower and middle class. In 2017, there was estimated to be near 400 million guns in the United States between police, the military, and American civilians. Over 393 Million (Over 98%) of those guns are in civilian hands, the equivalent of 120 firearms per 100 citizens.
“They have all the guns” is a metaphor in the context of class warfare.
I mean that they have the means to employ force (usually through police, but not exclusively) in their interest as well as having the entire power of the state behind them (disproportionate wealth means they have disproportionate political influence which means they can lobby for laws to be adjusted in their favor. Even when the law seems just, it is rarely applied in the same way to wealthy people in practice).
Not to mention that they can and do buy influence over the media apparatus, controlling narratives and tricking the working class into acting against their own interests.
Within the framework of class conflict, those are the “guns”.
Lol appreciate the sentiment but that was a huge woosh
More descriptive title next time please :)
I love lemmy, but these titles make it feel like everything is posted by bots
Yup
Didn’t see anything in the about section requiring a descriptive title, mighy want to put something there if a descriptive title is required for posting on this instance…
Firstly, even without rules ‘yup’ is a terrible post title.
Also if you look at every other post in this community, just try and do something similar. Even a single relevant word is fine.
It helps to know youre human and worth my time reading… but ehhh… whatever
My landlords wife yelled at the plumber for sealing our bathroom wall back up when the shower spigot was still leaking, and then her husband comes in and says “honey stop we don’t need to pay to fix the valve if we don’t have to”. So my shower still leaks and they really fixed nothing because they didn’t want to spend $1000 (less than half our rent) to redo the shower.
Wouldn’t the leak cause more damage to their property over time?
Yes, but here you are expecting a landlord to actually think about the future.
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Right. The entire reason they purchased an investment property is because they’re thinking about the future. But there are slum lords that’ll invest the least possible money and milk it for everything they can, then just condemn the place and move on.
Hey, that is my landlord. He spun a story to my wife when we rented about having caught illegal subletting in the house we rent and that is why he padlocked the finished basement and attic, but the longer we have been here the more we are pretty sure there is a serious mold infestation in both that should make the house unlivable and he just wants to charge us a grand a month until we die.
The house needs serious work, the floors are deforming, there is cracks along door frames and buckles in the plaster from where the structure is slowly collapsing. Unfortunately, the rent is so high that we cannot afford to escape. I am wholeheartedly planning on leaving him with code enforcement coming in and dropping a bunch of fines on him when we go to leave.
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Thanks for the advice. I am working on it from the other, stronger, angle. Getting a better job so I can afford to get out of here and into something better while I find a house for myself. I am well aware of the ease a padlock can be defeated. I will likely pick them when I find new employment as right now I don’t want to risk retribution. It’s illegal, but I cannot afford to fight him. He also put some shady (illegal) clauses in the lease trying to circumvent the eviction laws, which again, I cannot fight if he decided to exercise them. We moved here in an emergency, we don’t want to move out in one as well.
Yeah shims are great for cheap locks. I learned how to pick a 5 pin lock in a few hours, so you can always do that too if the shim won’t fit.
My old landlord ignored a water mark hole in the ceiling below the bathroom until the leak got to the point they had to tear out all the drywall in the bathroom, and probably should have replaced all the framing too.
(It was there when we moved in, and we mentioned when we noticed it getting bigger)
So no. Unless they are a “professional” landlord they tend to not act on issues until it costs them more than early action would have. All while making life a pain in the ass for the tenant.
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They are also a bad person
Of all the anti-landlord arguments this has to be one of the dumbest. Of course a person is going to try to protect their income. I’m not a landlord but I’m not going to let anyone jeopardize my job.
How is it a dumb argument? The fact that protecting your income means potentially pushing people out of their home and onto the street is not good, that’s a problem with the system.
And? Do you donate all the excess money you have at the end of the month to the homeless?
I don’t have excess money at the end of the month, but i still give it whenever I can. How is that relevant to landlords evicting people to save money? There shouldn’t be homeless people in the first place, let alone homeless families. But when a tenant misses rent, the landlord wont bat an eye and kicking the tenants onto the streets - that is a bad thing that shouldn’t have to happen. This has nothing to do with the landlords personal choices, or how “good” of a landlord they are, our system puts them in a position where making someone homeless is the rational decision.
Now, can you tell me what was so dumb about the original argument? Do you want to explain to me how this isn’t a systemic problem?
It’s dumb as fuck. The original argument is if a landlord doesn’t take on the financial burden and give their property to someone for free then they are somehow evil. It’s so stupid. And I don’t know what the law is where you are but in the UK a landlord can’t evict without a court order and that takes time.
No, you are misunderstanding. The point isnt that they are evil for not providing free housing, but that them pushing people onto the streets in order to protect their income is indicative a fundamental failure of our economic system. No one should be homeless.
You make a good point. The system does incentivise ruthlessness
The landlords don’t deserve that property anyways but what financial burden? Upkeep of the property that is anyways put upon the tenant? Taxes for the property that is anyways paid by the tenants rent? Repairs that are anyways paid by the tenants (even if you pay for repairs you would be using the rent money one way or another)
Or the financial burden of paying a mortgage for the property that well the tenants themselves could have gotten themselves (obviously if you are renting you probably don’t have enough up front money to get a mortgage but they sure as hell could pay the monthly sum)
The fact that you can even evict someone is awful enough doesn’t matter that there are barriers to it
You can’t really judge what a person does or doesn’t deserve without at least knowing the individual.
what financial burden?
The one I clearly described in the comment you just replied to.
Collecting rent as an income is different than having a job.
So?
True story.
For those interested I recommend Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. An amazing breakdown of the history and why. Eye opener at the very least.
Edit: Curious: Why the down votes?
history of what
Class and caste systems.
And so will you.
That’s just a good thing to remember in general: no matter how good of a relationship you have with someone, whether it be a coworker or a friend, at the end of the day, most of them will put their own interest over yours.
Some of them won’t, but they are rare.
There sure are a lot of landlords on Lemmy.
