Been thinking about ableist criticism of landlords, capitalists, etc., as “lazy”, “parasites”, and so on.
Thinking about how so much of vampire lore follows from their Byronic/Dracula characterization as predatory aristocrats (e.g. Marx: “Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”)
The problem being that the conception of “workers” versus “parasites” places many disabled people in the category of “parasite” for the sin of “existing without being able to produce material benefit to others”, irrespective of their ability to coercively exploit others.
If you’re interested in making time for a video essay on this, John The Duncandid
Really, what makes a typical vampire frightening and landlords and capitalists so horrid is the tremendous coercive power they have, thru supernatural means for vampires and thru state violence for the latter.
An interesting corrective of this would be (or is, if someone has an example) the disabled vampire — crippled or even just broke-toothed, kept alive by the generosity of others who merely enjoy the vampire’s company.
Not the vampire as aristocrat, preying on the weak, but vampire as valued community member, storyteller, granary of knowledge and traditions.
You can imagine the horror of someone from the outside seeing a community give up their blood to keep an undead creature alive — assuming all who did so were in its thrall.
Or someone from within the community wanting to profit off of the knowledge of something so old rather than be kind to that “creature” for no material benefit.
But if so, that person would be the villain rather than vampire who is just staying alive.
If this happens to you, remember that stealing a person’s mail in the U.S. is a federal crime, one with a penalty of up to five years of jail time and heavy fines, which compounds with every individual offense. Know your rights, especially your rights as a tenant. Fuck landlords
Our current landlady is the very image of one of those landlords who’d be spared the guillotine.
She’s an older, polite, maternal (white, middle class) woman who just happened to have enough money to buy a spare house, and is renting it to top up her pension. She reads The Guardian and asks after my family and does the occasional repair when necessary. She’s not one of those evil landlords.
She also just repeatedly lied to our faces about our contracts to try to get us to forfeit most of the rights we have as tenants. She also visits frequently, criticising how we live and reminding us that our home belongs to her. She also condescendingly and unnecessarily explains to us how boilers and washing machines and carpets work.
She explains to us how rentingworks.
She explains it with an indulgent smile, like a grandmother talking to a child, as if she’s being terribly patient about correcting our misunderstandings.
And she lies.
She lies because as much as she wants to convince us, everyone else, and even herself that she’s a good person, our entire relationship is based on the power she holds over us. She uses her wealth and position in society to extort payment from us, who have nowhere to live. We sacrifice to her the majority of the income we spend our lives earning, just so we can have a roof over our heads. But any time we don’t show proper deference to her, she could have us out on the street in weeks or months. We’d lose our home, because to her it is merely an asset which in no way belongs to us, the people who live there.
Today she repeatedly lied to us about our contract, and about the law, because she wanted us to have the minimum legal power possible. If I didn’t organise with a local tenants’ union, I wouldn’t have known my rights. And if I didn’t have the security of being a member of that union behind me, I never would have had the guts to challenge her. My housemate had no idea she was lying, and would have trusted her, signing away what few rights we had under the law.
As part of this tenants’ union, I’m always fighting with the worst landlords - the ones who keep people living in squalor, the ones with a dozen properties, the ones who are violent and abusive. But today has reminded me that even the “nice” landlords are still scum.
A genuinely good person who has enough spare money to buy a spare house (which is a lot of money! they wouldn’t need more!) would just let people who need a home live there, not bleed them of their income for the privilege of a warm place to sleep.
Never trust a landlord.
But more importantly, join a tenants’ union, and take back the power they hold over you. It was one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done.
+ there are tenants’ unions all over the world, and housing co-ops where everyone who lives there part-owns their home and there’s no landlord to answer to
Here are various links to tenants’ unions and solidarity networks involved in tenant organizing and support around the US:
Our current landlady is the very image of one of those landlords who’d be spared the guillotine.
She’s an older, polite, maternal (white, middle class) woman who just happened to have enough money to buy a spare house, and is renting it to top up her pension. She reads The Guardian and asks after my family and does the occasional repair when necessary. She’s not one of those evil landlords.
She also just repeatedly lied to our faces about our contracts to try to get us to forfeit most of the rights we have as tenants. She also visits frequently, criticising how we live and reminding us that our home belongs to her. She also condescendingly and unnecessarily explains to us how boilers and washing machines and carpets work.
She explains to us how rentingworks.
She explains it with an indulgent smile, like a grandmother talking to a child, as if she’s being terribly patient about correcting our misunderstandings.
And she lies.
She lies because as much as she wants to convince us, everyone else, and even herself that she’s a good person, our entire relationship is based on the power she holds over us. She uses her wealth and position in society to extort payment from us, who have nowhere to live. We sacrifice to her the majority of the income we spend our lives earning, just so we can have a roof over our heads. But any time we don’t show proper deference to her, she could have us out on the street in weeks or months. We’d lose our home, because to her it is merely an asset which in no way belongs to us, the people who live there.
Today she repeatedly lied to us about our contract, and about the law, because she wanted us to have the minimum legal power possible. If I didn’t organise with a local tenants’ union, I wouldn’t have known my rights. And if I didn’t have the security of being a member of that union behind me, I never would have had the guts to challenge her. My housemate had no idea she was lying, and would have trusted her, signing away what few rights we had under the law.
As part of this tenants’ union, I’m always fighting with the worst landlords - the ones who keep people living in squalor, the ones with a dozen properties, the ones who are violent and abusive. But today has reminded me that even the “nice” landlords are still scum.
A genuinely good person who has enough spare money to buy a spare house (which is a lot of money! they wouldn’t need more!) would just let people who need a home live there, not bleed them of their income for the privilege of a warm place to sleep.
Never trust a landlord.
But more importantly, join a tenants’ union, and take back the power they hold over you. It was one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done.
+ there are tenants’ unions all over the world, and housing co-ops where everyone who lives there part-owns their home and there’s no landlord to answer to
Here are various links to tenants’ unions and solidarity networks involved in tenant organizing and support around the US:
#Repost @nsrgnts with @get_repost ・・・ This goes out to our #NorCal and #SoCal families! The Original #WestCoast #LandLords! Shout out your nation! #WheatPaste #BoyleHeights #EastLos #BusBench #nsrgnts #StreerArt #indiGENIUS! #firstnations #ndn #knowthehistory #youreonindianland
The distrust of property barons and the fear of losing one’s home runs deep on the island, permeating the residents’ collective conscience. “I think people to this day in the Highlands and islands have a deeply skeptical attitude to landlordism,” says Maclean. “It has a very negative history in this part of the world."Yet today, Trump lives by the very trade that saw his family and hundreds of thousands of other Scots uprooted, thrown from their humble homes often with just the clothes on their backs, forced to start over. Trump could not have turned his back on those roots more if he had tried.
What if we started actively disincentivizing landlords letting real estate stay empty rather than renting at reasonable prices? Like, give them a maximum of three months to get a new tenant in, and then they start accumulating fines for the unused space.
And some similar system to disincentivize the ridiculous airbnb market as well. Make it unprofitable to have homes sitting empty in a city where people with jobs find themselves living in tents. Hell, make it unprofitable to have homes sitting empty anywhere that has a homelessness problem.
The fine? The full rent amount they’re asking for. You think $1700/month for a studio apartment is reasonable? Well, until you get someone into that apartment, you’re going to be fined that same sum every month.
For Airbnb, a lower cost, but still based on how many nights/month the space is unused, and the fine will be based on the asking price per night.
This is… really, really sensible.
literally email this idea to your local city council representative or similar lowest level government person. if there are meetings that are open to the public, go speak your piece there. an idea like this is very sensible, and this is an issue they are thinking about.
there will be traction. I’m not saying you can get it to happen, the owners of large complexes have a lot of control over your local government. but it’s not complete control, and good ideas are powerful.
Vancouver slaps $10,000 a year tax on empty homes. Lie about it and it’s $10,000 a day
Thanks for the link, and fuck yeah! This is exactly the stuff I’m talking about.
MilwaukeeandSan Francisco are also looking into policies like these. These ideas are out there and being explored, and I think that’s pretty neat.
If your city has council meetings open to the public (a lot do!), they’re probably listed on your city’s website. Getting a group of people together can be even more powerful, since officials can see it’s at least more than one person who thinks it’s a good idea.
Lower-level local government people are usually happy to hear from you, too. An email pointing out the other places that have tried it and their results could go a long way. Some local government people will even let constituents schedule a short meeting with them where you could present ideas.
Landlord finding any reason not to give a security deposit back
I had a landlord try to pull this shit with me over a $2600 deposit. I took over 200 pictures of the house on move out, so anything she said was broken i had a picture ready to prove her wrong. My roommates were cowards and wanted me to back down. I ended up sending her a certified letter threatening to sue her for treble damages if she didn’t return the deposit.
I ended up getting the full deposit back
Do not be a doormat for these bastards. You have rights. Fight them and you can win
Carpets usually only last 5 - 7 years in rental units, due to general wear. Usually, landlords cannot charge you if your carpet is 5+ years old. (I don’t know if this differs from state to state, so check it yourself.)
You can also ask for an itemized invoice for each individual thing they want you to pay for, especially if you moved out years ago and collections is pursuing you.
Apartment complexes often change property management companies and their standing staff is usually incompetent. So it’s probably likely they will be unable to itemize or provide an invoice.
^^ good tip here
Stay savvy my friends
Check your state rental laws, because otherwise I would not have known how very strong tenant rights are here. In some places, a landlord legally cannot withhold a security deposit without them providing itemized proof. And the penalty for failure to return the security deposit can be a few times the value of the deposit. The law can be very much on your side, and the landlords are pretty much hoping you don’t know that. How much can they be on your side? Let me tell you the tale of my Two Roommates vs. Shithead Landlord.
A few years ago, my roommates and I moved out of an apartment we had been living in for almost 7 years. The landlord was already a dick, and essentially kicking us out by massively jacking up the rent. Needless to say, we already weren’t parting on good terms.
Guy tried to hold back a $4k security deposit, citing that the floors were worn. Again, after sevenyears of at least five people living in the place. Oh, and also because he had found dust in a corner.
I shit you not. He tried to hold back the security deposit because he found dust in a corner.
This, my friends, is what we would like to call “some fresh bullshit”.
So two of my roommates looked at the state law, and discovered the wonderful section on tenants’ rights. Then one went and grabbed lunch with someone from Legal where he worked and asked a few questions. He also got them to write a “friendly” letter. The landlord then received said “friendly letter” from a lawyer at a Major Software Corporation, informing him of the relevant state law and that should he pursue this, we would take him to court and with the law very much saying he couldn’t do what he was doing, how did “triple damages” sound?
Meaning: was he prepared to owe us not only the $4k security deposit, but an additional $12k for being a dick?
