this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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I agree with you by principle but there are those who have no interest in ever having a house of their own, either by personal or professional reasons.
Maintaining a house entails expenses, from current maintenance, to taxes and the eventual full overhaul because someone decided to trash the place.
I don't want to see people exploited to have a roof over their head and I'm a hairs width away from starting to actively trolling stupid people that think their busted places are gold plated to ask fortunes. But I don't want to see people be deprived of what is theirs and/or see it trashed by others that consider because they are there just for a limited time frame any concern for consequences is out the window.
Where are you writing from? Tenants have pretty strong protections where I live and an eviction is not a trivial matter here. And if people actually knew how to read, the law is pretty explicit on what is licit, both for tenants and owners (the word "landlord" sounds too much like feudalism to me to use it). Rent prices are high here but a poorly kept place can backfire so badly to the owners that they can see the rent not being paid in place of having work done on the house by the tenants.
A landlord-tenant relationship isn't the only way to solve this, though. A more humane way would be housing coops.
The primary purpose of rent isn't maintenance, though; it's profit. The concept of making profit by mere ownership is even called "rent-seeking".
Well, I'm deprived of 30% of my wages. Why does my landlord need two houses, anyway?
Wow, what a classist statement. Not everyone has the time/ability/resources to take advantage of laws protecting the tenants (guess who usually has more resources for lawyers; it's the one with more capital).
Also, you ignore the inherent power dynamics. My current landlord demands more rent than what is actually legal where I live. I didn't bring it up, because if I did, I would have risked having to look for a different appartment.
It fits the congept of a feudal society quite nicely, though.
I wonder how much of the concept of tenants "trashing" the place is actually occuring. It seems to me like the occurence is highly exaggerated.
the fact that most of the rent goes to pure landlord profit becomes obvious with municipal housing here in sweden, where we basically only pay for maintenance.
suddenly the rent is so cheap that the americans i've told it to just wanted to cry, 400€/month for a small apartment that's plenty big enough for a single person, and full on family apartments can be had for as low as 600€/month if you look around for a while.
I have municipal housing in my town. Rent is, at most, 15€. That is affordable even for the poorest of the poor.
You're awfully lucky then. That's a form of socialism, assuming that your government is intervening and ensuring affordable rent even for homeless and those on assistance. And what are the quality of those rentals? Have you lived in one personally?
Lived, no. Went there a few times and have coworkers that grew up there and their parents still live there.
The housing was purpose built to house a wave of immigrants that returned to the country in the 70's. It was built with money from a state-funded development initiative to foment building of new houses in the very early 80's, by the municipality, and was overhauled to add external insulation and improved windows somewhere between two or three years ago.
The rents are reviewed yearly by the city hall. On average, rents are around €10. Central government does not interfere.
But homeless people can't be forced to live there. We have had cases in our country where homeless people were housed and simply left some time after. Where I live, to my knowledge, there has been no such cases.
We also have a program - nation wide in this case - where extremely vulnerable people can resort to our Social Security to get aid in finding housing. I know a few cases of single mothers, elderly and even entire families being housed, with the rent being assured by social services, either by directly sourcing a house and paying the rent or providing the monetary support for the people to find one by themselves.
Lately, these programs have even started to relocate these cases inside the country to move population from high density urbam areas, more problematic usually, to low density areas. This creates a flow of people and money to less populated areas.
The reason we don't have federally funded municipal housing in the US is that the Clinton Administration capped the number of units the federal government is allowed to fund
Co-ops? How do those work? I've known co-ops for building purposes, not for renting.
Wasn't aware such concept existed.
I'm deprived of my income through various means as well and don't like it but I have to trade my money for other things I require to live. Hopefully, we can shed this system but I risk with a good amount of certainty I won't be alive to see it.
Why can't you own more than one house? Let's state, for the purpose of the argument, you inherit a house. You already have one. Do you sell the other? For what reason? And for what price?
This is a self appointed criticism. I had to read the law to explain it to others and it is not hard to understand.
Again, I speak based on my reality; this applies to my country. A quick search on the internet gave me pointers to which articles to read and then it was just a question of time (think of two bathroom breaks for a relaxing #2) to read and relate law with specific questions.
There are no legal limits in my country; if one part asks and the other accepts, it's legitimate. What exists is the notion of fair rental values, which are established by the government.
Does not imply I have to like and abide the use of the word.
It's a hard thing to gauge. I've seen my share of houses completely destroyed by occupants: destroyed kitchens, bathrooms, walls covered in filth, tobbacco smoke and whatever it may have been, besides other damage.
On one, I helped the person move out and I was horrified. On others, I helped cleaning.
https://www.wohnungsbaugenossenschaften.de/genossenschaften/how-cooperatives-work
I'm against wage slavery in any form.
Just because you're pessimistic, doesn't mean we should stop criticising currently occurring injustice.
Because I don't need more than one house for shelter. The other house could enter a usufruct property relation with the community. The accumulation of generational capital is one of the main drivers of economic injustice in the world.
Let's ignore the fact that you can't make that statement for every juristiction and that not every country has as good tenant protections as yours. Doubling down on the classism, are we? The whole power imbalance is unjust (the whole "justice" system is).
You also didn't understand what I meant with power imbalance.
Then you have a problem with accurate descriptions. That's your problem, though.
Yeah, sure. I'm guessing: selection bias.
Edit: you weren't aware that landlords seek profits? O.o
I work for a salary, like anyone else. The same way I like to earn my money, others do as well. Do I earn enough to live? Yes. Could I earn more? Yes. Are salaries too low for a decent living? Most. But that sentence as been reduced to a non sequitur and I won't engage it beyond this.
Allow me my pragmatism; a deep systemic change to completely upturn the current operating societal norms would only be achieveable through a massive uprising, which would probably lead to serious conflict. I prefer to never see it but make my best efforts to foment change for others to enjoy it.
I'm starting to get a sinking feeling. You have two houses. You decide to start a family. You have a child, maybe two. Each child gets one. Where is the generational wealth? At best, you give the next generation an easier entry into adulthood. Is that wrong?
I am pretty confident I was speaking from my own experience, which implies it may or may not be transferable.
Which you seem to be giving more value than it is worth.
What do you need to know? That I worked with a moving company and was inside dozens of houses, in order to make my statement more "valid"? Or that family of mine worked as house cleaners and the things they saw should never be writen?
Try reading Wealth of Nations, and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, both written by the "Father of Capitalism," Adam Smith. Those are where the concept of rent-seeking comes from.
Once you are thoroughly enraged by the fact that we were never supposed to get this far into crony capitalism, then you'll be prepared to read Karl Marx and Trotsky.
I'm already left leaning. You don't need to preach to the choir.
Knowing more of the theory is good so that you have the arguments you need to convince the centerists in your life
Oh, regardless the latest onslaught of right-wing screwballs let loose, my country is very much left leaning. I'm safe on that front.
And the last time we had to deal with right wingers, we used force and settled the problem in a day.
We're famed for spending our time sleeping but when we do wake up, things get messy. Fast.
I'm guessing somewhere in Scandinavia, leaning towards Finnish?
Portugal