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From the Front Lines of Chicago
(As I mentioned in my Anatomy of a Hate Mail post a few days ago, the vast majority of emails I get from Slopers are really nice. Below is a fine example, which I got last night. I received the author's permission to publish it, with the provision that I remove the person's name. It is an eye-opening first person account of what's going on out there.......Tim)
Hi Tim,
I know you're busy, so I'll try to keep this short. I just wanted to say:
1.) You are awesome. I look forward to reading your posts every single day.
2.) Everything you say about the U.S. economy jibes with my experience as a real estate investor in Chicago. The vast majority of my tenants are low-income (their rents are mostly subsidized by our fine government), but a couple make a decent living and reside in luxury condos downtown. Based on what I've seen during the past 5 years that I have been doing this, I completely agree that our financial system is totally, utterly screwed.
No matter what their personal situations or how great their intentions are, all my tenants fall short in some way; they either pay late, not enough, or not at all. And/or they don't honor their obligations as tenants. ALL of them. You would be amazed by how many sob stories I hear on a daily basis.
Please keep in mind that my low-income tenants are not living in ramshackle buildings where they need to huddle in the corner for warmth; no, many live in homes with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and whirlpools (this is how investors attract renters in this area these days, after paying close to nothing for the properties themselves). Mind you, some of these are people pay NOTHING in rent every month.
They also pay almost nothing for food, utilities, and medical care. Yet despite having pets, flat screen TVs, cable, and gas-guzzling cars, they somehow can't afford the $395 move-in fee (I don't require a security deposit in order to avoid a potential lawsuit, which would result from not following the Chicago Landlord/Tenant Ordinance precisely and which many shark lawyers would happily take on) or light bulbs or mousetraps or batteries for the smoke detectors.
If they agree to maintain the yard, they expect you to provide a mower. Signed leases mean nothing to them. Nothing. They don't seem to care who provides the resources which allow them to stay home all day waiting for their government checks to arrive in the mail. They don't seem to think about the many, many, many people out there just like them, creating this unbelievably huge, unsustainable economic imbalance. They have mastered the art of throwing tantrums and threats until they get what they want, and they seem perfectly content contributing nothing more than carbon dioxide and votes for their favorite democratic Presidential candidate on Election Day. And of course, their favorite democratic Presidential candidate is happy to indulge them.
What I find so alarming is that these folks are multiplying like rabbits. (This is another way to pass their time while waiting for their government checks, which will now be bigger thanks to the imminent arrival of another CO2 producer.) And that they are so incredibly...big. They consume way beyond their means, like almost every other red-blooded American. I personally don't understand why anyone needs to debate the existence of "bubbles" when he needs to look no further than a rear end nearby (or in a 3-way mirror, as the case may be). We literally have "ass(et) bubbles" e v e r y w h e r e. If the U.S. is indeed headed toward another Depression, all I can say is: the country could sure use a diet.
Oops. I hadn't planned on writing for so long or sounding this mean. I guess I needed to vent. The stock market is way too high, and I'm grumpy.
Anyway, hats off to you! I felt compelled to write this after reading one of your posts yesterday ("Anatomy of a Hate Mail"), so I wanted to tell you that your more intelligent customers clearly adore you. I also thought sharing my perspective may be at least marginally informative, since it's somewhat unique. {personal information redacted}
{Name Redacted}
P.S. I do realize I enable the system by participating in this entitlement program. This is one of the reasons why I am tormented.
P.P.S. To be fair, my tenants are generally good-hearted people. (That is, when they don't act like Chucky-like 2 year olds.). If you do post my message, I would like to add that people don't just spend beyond their means, but they also spend beyond the government's means. How the government can possibly justify this kind of spending is beyond me. Totally bogus.
- advertisements -
I was in the grocery when the EBT shutdown was announced. There were tons of these obese blobs. Women huffing and puffing "I've got 3, 4, 5, and I even heard 7 kids to feed". I got the fight or flight sensation, stopped picking out new things, quickly paid for what I had already picked and got out of there.
When the EBT cards stop working, the cities will be burnt to the ground. These people do not know how, nor will they even try to fend for themselves.
Who the fuck would be a section 8 landlord, and then, how can you complain your tentants are scum?
I would think that would be self-evident for any half way awake person.
Leave that slumlord shit to Valerie Jarrett and Tony Rezco, Iranian and Syrian in that order.
Once a neighborhood turns mostly section 8 you almost have no choice. There rats, drugs trash everywhere. Property values plummet. So almost impossible to sell.
Decent Tenants leave or are chased out by the Drug Dealers.
Many are forced into it by state law. If you own over a certain amount of units, you are obligated.
Looks like the masses are learning from Wall Street & Washington.
Debt? Bankruptcy? Bills? Rule-of-law? I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
This is moral hazard, this is the death of the social contract, this is the destruction of society.
"If banks, corporations, and insurers don't have to pay their bills or go bankrupt why should I?"
"If the government can run up trillions of dollars of debt, why shouldn't I run up unpayable debt?"
"If banks, corporations, and insurers get bailed out by the government, why shouldn't I?"
"If corporations are individuals, why should an individual not get the same treatment?"
Right?
you have to understand Tim to understand this post,
he thinks he is appealing to the Libertarian outrage embedded in the ZH collective psyche in order to get some cred for his real message, which i:
+55
Praise the Lord and pass me a Whopper!
New MaoBama mantra: "If it's free, it's for me".
I don't know how he does it. All of the people I know sold their rentals years ago. In NJ, the laws too heavily favor the tenant, and it can take over 6 months to evict someone. Meanwhile, they call constantly complaining about stupid shit like a squeaky door, and expect you to drop everything and come over and fix it immediately.
When I was young and renting, if I got into a bind I would always offer to do work for the landlord. I painted empty apartments, fixed broken screen doors, whatever. If the landlord was happy, I was happy. People just don't seem to understand that, anymore. They think that they can just take and take, and not have to give anything. But it's not just their fault. They've been led into this "Entitlement Mentality", so that certain politicians can get votes. Perhaps, many of these politicians are well intentioned, I don't know, but they certainly do not realize the damage they are doing to the fabric of society.
I agree with they call and want you to come over immediatly. The Landlord that I was talking about above said she had a Tenant that would call every time her Daughter would have a bowel movement becauce it would not flush down the toilet. She would go over and try to break it up with a stick. She finnaly suggested to the Mother that she give her stool softeners. I really laughed at that one because she was trying so hard to be diplomatic.
I have a property that I rent in a mostly Sec 8 neghborhood. My Tenants are not Sec 8 and yes I get less rent. But, I also get less damage.
One of the neighboring Landlords rents mostly to sec 8. I was talking with her this week and she was telling me that Sec 8 wanted her to replace the carpet for her Tenant because the Tenant, who smokes burnt holes all over the carpet. But, the most disgusting thing she told me is that this woman who is bi polar poops in her underpants and then takes them off and leaves them on the floor everywhere. She has had someone go over and clean up after her. She is getting pretty disgusted with the Sec 8 Tenants.
One of her classics was when her Tenant said that she could not pay her portion of the rent because a mouse ate her Money order.
Also, the neighborhood has become over run by rats, they will not put the lids on the trash cans and in many cases just throw it on the ground.
If he has such big issues with his tenents, just get outta da biz! Sell the properties to Da Fed!
His complaint really is he can't make MONEY off his renters anymore! Find another Bizness dude! This one is a loser for the forseeable future.
RE
Doomstead Diner
This is an item of concern for those who still live in Hawaii.
2 days after a Typhoon hit Japan, and TEPCO admitted large radiation releases due to the storm, radiation levels spike in Hawaii.
Keep in mind, this will travel to mainland USA and cross over in a day to 4 days.
Another storm is headed to Fukushima for a 1 -2 punch. This will extend the danger time frame.
Basic good radiation practice here:
1) Stay out of the rain
2) Dose up with anti-oxidants
3) Run your multiple HEPA filters all the time
4) Get a Geiger and learn how to use it
Charts and Maps are Here at the NUKEPRO
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2013/10/hawaii-radiation-spiking-2-...
Hawaii gets bad karma for covering up for Obama for 5+ years with his fake birth certificate. Karma is a bitch.
More on what really happened at Fuki
http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/fukushima.html
It could sound like another another 'slum' landlord' making a living as a rentier---- collecting money for nothin' from the Housing Authority while making faces at his tenants. But it is not! This is one of those 'phony' chain letters, mass produced by some right-wing think tank. Oh yeah, they come in different varieties and at different times. We're sure to see some of them during the next election cycle. They'll probably state that if the government raises their taxes, they're going to fire all their employees and move to Bahamas or some other made-up nonsense as such.
The truth is that it's the employees who pay all the bills, the employer just pockets profits. If a business is not profitable, the employer will gladly fire all his employees and likely stiff them too and then complain what a bunch of lazy sods they were.
In todays buy-to rent scam, it's no surprise that property owners will seek all sorts of get rich schemes like taxpayer subsidized housing. Who exactly is providing for whom? Tenants should expect to get something in return from the property owner!
BTW, is that your wife and daughter pictured above? Nice of you to share you family pictures.
I am compelled to respond......
These fucking slum lords feed on the public tit as fast and moar as the poor people who have no choice, but to try and survive in this stinking over dollared hovels that they rent. They are all sucking government subsidies down as fast as they can, and I would submit that their waistlines are worse than their tenants.
These are the pigs that need to be butchered in public. It's one thing to provide reasonable service as a real estate manager and another to rob, cheat and steal from poor people who have no defence or rights.
Bunch of holier than thou shitbirds, especially here on this turd stained website. You "knowing" pieces of shit are going to be the targets of an already enraged citizenry. So just for the record......Fuck you, you worthless pieces of shit!
OK, so now all of you "intellectual" and I use the word lightly, because I don't see any intellect here, can attack me for blowing off you pseudo intelligence.....fucking pigs all at the trough!
They consume way beyond their means, like almost every other red-blooded American.
This is a BS generalization in the article or letter.
I agree with SmartStrike. If you are a landlord that takes Section 8 tenants then you are part of the problem.
I disagree with SmartStrike about generalizing about employers. A lot of employers or business owners bust their asses to keep the business open to help keep the employees - employed.
I talked to a guy I know who was looking for an apartment. He said the realtor called and had to show a house or apartment. The prospective renter asked the rental price ($1700 a month) and if they take Section 8. The answer was yes.
The prospective tenant and welfare recepient turned up in a newish BMW 5 series.
Bullshit.
One of the best articles on here in a long time. Deserves front page coverage, rather than "above the headline", which, juding by the number and quality of comments, is only viewed by low-grade morons like yours truly. GW must be pissed.
You lost me when you said 'Democratic Presidential candidate'
Open your eyes you fucking moron - do you honestly thinks it matters who is the president?
READ MY LIPS - you are being playing like a child - good cop bad cop.
The president is a stooge - he is OWNED by corporations and special interests like the Israeli lobby.
Tired crap.
It only matters who is president if you want to retain the right to self-defense and if you want to avoid paying taxes for breathing (and using the internet). If you don't care about those issues, you're right, there's no difference between the parties whatsoever.
Yes, they both suck donkeys. But one wants to have the donkey fuck you while they scream at you about how racist you are. GET IT?
If you depend on who the President is or what party is in power to retain your right to self defense or your right to anything else, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG and are not any brighter than the takers that the author is railing about.
Both statist parties are going to ultimately try to take away any rights that don't suit their purposes. If you let them, you get what you deserve. If you give them away, like you did with Obama's lighter twin Bush, you're a freakin moron and should probably be sterilized.
You're either doing a crappy job of being sarcastic, or doing a crappy job of trying to mask a hardcore leftist progressive delusion in ideological indifference...
If I actually cared about ideologies I might take the time to determine which case was true...
These idiots who say "there is no difference between the parties" are a Fifth Column of the Statists. The Democrats are 100% the party of the Total State. The Republicans are probably 40% to 50% Statist. If America is to survive (and that is very much in doubt), we need to purge the Republican party of the Statists.
But no serious person can think that Ted Cruz, Jeff Sessions and Mike Lee are in any way comparable to John McCain, Harry Reid, Lindsay Graham, Al Franken and BO. The former are Americans, the latter are Statists. And people who tell you there is no difference are working to help the Statists.
Well I just have to say, Well Said!
For several years I have been dealing with deteriorating tenant mental health - almost 40% are mentally or emotionally incapacitated and taking prescription drugs, then supplementing those with self-medication. They didn't start out as disabled tenants, they've just been through a real ringer.
Rlouis - Psychiatry is the only medical field that is allowed to practice on correlation instead of causation. If your anxious or depressed see an MD and ask if you may have absorption, distribution or metabolism problems which means your body isnt processing minerals you take in or distributing the processed chemicals to the brain.
I met a retired German psychiatrist who admitted they dont suggest examining cause because treating at $200 a month for 20+ years is most profitable.
FU, wheres my no doc spec loan 5% down investor NOO, liar loan to flip; the realtor told me its my right, just sign here,
its real estate, it only goes up in Chi Congo.....LOL, thats why everyone is fleeing Illinois.
Nice cup holder.
Peak ass(et) inflation is obvious in the Chicago area, especially amongst the glazed Wal-Martians.
After 22 years living downtown Chicago - I just bought a place is the 'sticks' (praise Jebus). This poster is correct on all counts. I looked at buying a condo in the city but realized that many building are FORCED to accept section 8 tenants. What does this mean? It means condo #1 pays $450K for a 1200 sq ft condo. Apt #2 pays $350/month. Apt #1 pays $500/month assessments. Apt #2 pays nothing. Apt #1 pays $4500/yr taxes. Apt #2 doesn't pay taxes, gets free phone, subsidised cable, SNAP/EBT, doesn't pay for utilities (but still receives utilities) etc...
Mayor Tiny Dancer just stated that due to the massive underfunding of pensions taxes (for those who pay) are likely set to double in the next 2 years.
High crime, poor schools, higher(est) taxes and a free shit army the size of Greece.
Glad I got out.