Why U.S. renters are taking corporate landlords to court

I mean I'm glad it worked out right in the end. At the time I was just pissed, though.

Also, holy shit, I went back to look up some of the saga in my old emails, and there were definitely parts that were entertaining that I'd totally forgotten about. If you liked reading the summary check this out -- this is a short excerpt from one of some very long email exchanges I had about the whole thing:

Hey, I just logged in to look at sending a check for this month and I still see a balance for last month. Did you decide not to cash my check? I'm not paying additional fees. I'm fine paying for my utilities. Charging me a late fee when I had a credit, that you didn't decide to apply until after the bill was due, is ridiculous. Charging me a fee to store my credit card, when you're refusing to un-store my credit card when I ask you to, is ridiculous. Again my bank's take on it when I talked to them about it was that it "sounds illegal." I'm sorta shocked that people put up with this + do business with you. Anyway let me know - just like last month, I'm fine sending you a check for what I actually owe you.

We have not received a check for your previous balance at this time. Once your check has been applied to the previous balance, you will receive an email notification. Until then, the full balance is still due on your account.

Okay, sure. I just sent via certified mail a check for $248.93. That represents:

• $299.96, the amount currently on my account according to you for the past 2 months.
• -$4 for the card storage fee from this bill (again, please stop storing my card; your system will not allow me to remove it)
• -$4 for the card storage fee from March's invoice
• -$8.11 for late fee from March's invoice
• -$5.08 for late fee from February's invoice
• -$4.84 for late fee from January's invoice
• -$25 for returned item fee from January's invoice (I told you not to bill me, because I didn't owe you money - I'm happy that you eventually applied my credit to this balance instead of trying to collect more without authorization, but me putting a stop on you trying to bill me without authorization for money I don't owe you is 100% legitimate)

So in total $248.93. If there's anything above you feel like is justified let me know ... if (management agency) tries to take collection action against me for any of the nonsense above I plan to defend myself. I'm happy paying utilities and will not be paying random additional amounts of money. Hopefully that seems reasonable but whether or not it's acceptable to you, it's what I'll be doing. IDK why you guys do business this way, but best of luck with it I guess. So the check, I sent to this address:

(photo)

Like this:

(photo)

The post office said they couldn't find your address. The best they could find was this (and I swear this is what they showed me, I'm not being funny):

(photo - their address is on Ritchie Road, but the post office I swear to God corrected it to "removedie Road")

So, that's where I sent it, certified mail. They said expected delivery is May 25th. Again, best of luck.

There's more, including me threatening to charge them a late fee for the time when they owed me money and weren't willing to credit it back to me, but that's as much as I had time to dig back up right now.

No it wasn’t. He shoulda taken them to court sued and gotten on record this company acts this way so we hav precedent for this situation. In this story. No one wins. Company didn’t keep their security deposit and the renters time was wasted completely. No one won lol

"We misunderstood that you would actually lawyer up. Our bad."

Not a landlord, but I had a similar excuse thrown at me by a dealership. Towed my car an hour for a recall to a college town because everywhere else was booked for a while. They did close to $1000 of unauthorized work and then threw a fit when I told them I would not be paying for it unless they could show me a signed document where I agreed. When they realized I wasn't a broke college kid after I threatened legal action and to report my car stolen if they were not willing to give it back, I got the "this was a misunderstanding, it never should have went this far" from the owner who had just called me a liar 10minutes prior. Such obvious BS

They always say this after they try to get away with bullshit.

They, in this case, could refer to banks, other corporations, your boss, politicians, police officers, etc. Anyone in a position of authority will inevitably be tempted to abuse that authority, or at the very least assume that their understanding of the situation is superior to the understanding of those over whom They wield that power. When conflict arises, if you're correct regarding your rights, finances, etc., it's "just a big misunderstanding, and can't we all just get along?" But when They have the legal upper hand in a disagreement, They will fuck you with an iron bar and convince anyone watching that you are a deadbeat trying to pull one over on the rest of your fellow proletariats.

And meanwhile, guess who is constantly buying political influence to ensure they never lose the legal upper hand again?

It isn't consistent in the US. Some landlords or properties include utilities in the price of rent, some don't. Some only include things like trash/water/sewer and it's up to you to source an electric/gas/internet provider.

USA landlords own the building so they get to say who your provider is and they will sometimes partner with a specific ISP and that is the only one you are allowed to use.

That's usually the US system, but occasionally not. Like a lot of things, there's no consistency; it's just kind of a big freedom free-for-all for better or for worse.

Yea it varies. I pay the electric and internet bills, the landlord pays the water/sewer/trash/tax bills. FL USA.

This is pretty similar to how it is in the US at over 90% of the places I've ever rented. But since we're the world leader in enshittification, this kind of scumbag bullshit has been on the rise over the last few years.

I don’t understand how people can work for sleezebag companies.

This is part one.

To this day I refuse to carry debt or even own credit cards tho.

I think this is part two.

It's awesome that you do this, but if you can afford to avoid debt entirely you are probably somewhat priviledged compared to some. A lot of people in the US are working off student debts for degrees that didn't quite deliver the jobs they were expecting. Or just were dealt a bad hand to begin with.

Yeah it was like my own little holy war. It went on for quite a while. Honestly it's partly that I just like being a pain in the ass and being hostile to people, and this was a golden opportunity where it was warranted.

Think about if all the vitriol that goes into internet political arguments could instead be turned outwards at the people who run the fucked up system. It was a brief moment where that energy was channeled in a productive direction and towards the source of the problem.

having to be responsible for the actual property seems to be a good idea.

idk how it's handled in germany, but i'm not aware of stuff this bad. i have someone in my family who has renters, and they either go fix stuff themselves or pay a professional if the heating's acting up again.

and being a renter of someonecs privately owned apartment in a corporate owned house, i feel like being taken care of adequately.

i hope it gets better for you guys.

I dunno if I want my employer to also be my landlord. It might have worked well for that specific case, but it's easy to see how it could fall apart.

What I'm saying is renting shouldn't exist to begin with. People should not own more than one living place and that place should be the place that they live in.

Your uncle is a scum lord

Sounds like a cunt 👍

Justice comes for everyone eventually 😘

Congrats? The fuck you want a cookie?

The answer is probably a combination of things. We need to be able to build more houses / duplexes / apartment buildings / etc. That's a fact. There could be ways to help people build their own house (up to code) and cut out the middleman.

If people could easily build their own, do you know how fast property values would drop? Homes in the middle of nowhere should cost nothing.

My answer, cap the number of single-family rental homes in a given jurisdiction. Give 5-year chits that authorize a property owner to rent the property, then every 5 years have some sort of event that allows someone else to take the chit. That way you don't have 80% of the single-family homes being bought up for rentals and it doesn't bar the market from having new people enter.

As for the event, my preference is for a landleech Thunderdome. Two blood suckers enter, one leaves, and they are allowed to profit off someone else's hard work. Corporations are allowed to participate by champion proxy, but the champion must be a C-level executive and they must participate in every match for every property they rent.

Apartments and multi-family homes (duplex, triplex, etc.) can be rentals as far as I am concerned because there is room for it in society, but housing needs to be put in the constitution as a right (as does food) and rent has to be more regulated.

It is honestly not. Property ownership is currently the primary method for being able to collateralize small business loans. Without the general populace having access to that, that initial step for starting a new business or pursuing a venture before it is viable for investment becomes VERY difficult to achieve. Especially if it is something that requires a lot of involvement or time to get moving. Once you take out the ability to make a startup or small business, you are left with an ever-dwindling pool of options and end up in a persistent state of monopoly it oligopoly for most goods and services, which in turn leads to an utter stagnation of economic conveyance and growth.

Another way it stagnates economic growth is in the increased expense associated with housing. The actual economy, not the BS we are told is the economy, grows when money moves. Individuals and companies buying goods and services from each other. That only happens with disposable income. If everyone is paying 2x what they would in rent that they would in ownership, that comes out of their disposable income. This leads to less luxury (in an economic sense) purchasing and, in many cases, restricted necessity purchasing. So less money is available to move, which causes the economy to shrink.

Can we engage on this? I feel for the people who are truly on the edge. I would also suggest that organizing those who are still housed to share information for mutual advantage is a cool idea.

Multiple people living together. I recently went to Washington about an hour north of Seattle at a place I lived at a long time ago. Place was a shithole with plazas boarded up. This was like a decade ago. Went back there this last fall and shitty homes there are like half a million dollars. It took a few days before it clicked at how many fucking cars there were lining up and down all the streets. Even where I visited had like 4 adults; there's just so many damn people bunking together now even with full time jobs.

Probably not many people long term. When you buy a place to rent it out you need a steady stream of people who want it over the years. Single family homes with 3-4 bedrooms are good for young families.

The problem with lots of these expensive apartment complexes in small towns that can't support them is: people are not going to be perpetually locked out of houses. Either we will build more houses, build more apartments in better cities, or kids will live with their parents longer.

One of my top priorities for kids I have is housing. College degree? Maybe a state school. But they will definitely need a place to live.

I've worked within multiple sfr companies over the past 8 years. Including with their product teams building out in house acquisitions and asset management platforms to quickly aggregate comps for rental and sale values. While what you're saying may be true, there is a lot more beneath the surface. To be clear, institutional single family landlords should be legislated out of existence, but to you and everyone downvoting, you don't get the big picture here.