elizabeth3's Profile
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November 23, 2007
In response to "How the Hell"
In response to "How the Hell," here's a little lesson in history. Back in the twentieth century, when America was not divided between the obscenely wealthy (read: you) and the desperately poor (read: someone like me, who lives on disability and food stamps) most people considered each other to be equals, equally deserving of respect and rights. As a result of this to you incomprehensible attitude, LAWS were enacted to PROTECT ordinary people from unscrupulous landlords. So people who rented, and might not earn as much as their overseers, still had the right to remain in their homes and pay a reasonable rent that was increased each year by an amount determined by the city government. There are still a few of these apartments left. Apparently, my city, where I have lived for 25 years, has become so overrun by greed that even the thought that someone like me should have the right not to become homeless is baffling. I wish I could comfort myself with the thought that you are capable of feeling shame, but I can see this is highly unlikely.
rental prices for retail/commercial space in Greenpoint
Does anyone have a ballpark idea of how much a retail/commercial space on Franklin Street in Greenpoint would currently rent for (per square foot)? I live in a rent-stabilized first-floor apartment there and my landlord is very eager to move me out so he can convert my apartment to a commercial space, possibly for an as-yet-unnamed buyout fee. In the unlikely event I accept, I'm wondering what a realistic fee would be, given what my landlord stands to gain.
Author's Comments
I bought the computer back when I had a job, before I got too sick to work. I pay $14.95 a month for an internet connection out of my alloted $300 in living expenses. This is the first time I have read Brownstoner and I am never reading it again as it is confirming all my worst fears about the inner lives of the hordes of wealthy zombies who are currently invading my neighbourhood and driving me out.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 23, 2007 11:31 PM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
I want to stay here because I have nowhere else to go, as I stated. The only way I could move out of the city is if my landlord gives me a settlement which I could use to do so. According to the posters on this blog, even considering accepting such a settlement makes me an extortionist. But leaving me aside for a second, I would like to point out that my situation is not unusual. On behalf of the 50 percent of New Yorkers who qualify for food stamps, what IS it that you guys want to do with us? You rail against tenants' rights and the legal obligations of landlords, but where do you expect your maids, nannies, gardeners, doormen, cashiers, etc. to LIVE? Should everyone who isn't wealthy just, um, please go away somewhere so we don't have to think about you? That's 400 million people. Why is it so hard to even consider the possibility that paying a reasonable rent on a modest apartment with the right not to be evicted is not an outrage, but a normal human response to living in a city that you share with other people of varying degrees of wealth.
The truth is, I DON'T want to live here anymore. But it's not the rats that are making me want to leave. It's the moral corruption that money and power seem to bestow on those who have too much of it. Don't worry, I will be forced out. This is just my own tiny Custer's Last Stand.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 24, 2007 2:35 PM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
I'd just like to point out that the vast majority of people who rent in NYC (way more than 60%) are not wealthy. This is a classic straw man. There is a HUGE population of poor and working class people who need minimal legal rights (and rent stabilisation is hardly an onerous burden on a landlord; it's basically just trying to keep landlords from acting like lunatics when given the chance of getting even more money). Rent control, I agree, no longer makes sense, but that is totally different from rent stabilisation and the two should not be confused. Meanwhile, my own landlord is not neglecting the building because he cannot afford to keep it up. He is rich as Croesus. He is neglecting the building so that his tenants will move out and he can raise the rents. And it works. The question I have for all the landlords out there is, How much money is enough for you? Would all the money in the world satisfy you? As I always understood it, it would appear naively, rent is paid to a landlord to cover the costs of maintaining the renter's apartment, helping with taxes/mortgage, and reimbursing the landlord for the time he/she spends keeping the building working. I don't believe it was ever meant to be a ticket to vast riches. Have mercy.
Anyway, I forgot to point out that the whole point is moot since rent stabilisation barely exists anymore anyway, and will soon disappear entirely. Soon the landlords and coop/condo owners will have the whole five boroughs all to themselves. So goodbye and good luck.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 24, 2007 3:07 PM in response to How the hell do/did apartments become rent-controlled or rent-stabilized in the first place?
Um, actually I can only take 4 million (OK maybe 3) as the 400 was a typo. I am happy to see though that the "exterminate the brutes" contingent I've gotten all riled up are balanced by a few voices crying in the wilderness for some kind of justice. I'm more scared now of the landowners in NYC than I ever was of the violent crime this city saw in the eighties. You've convinced me. I'm outta here.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 25, 2007 12:13 AM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
Can't get a job. Too sick to work. Disability pays my $1200 a month rent. That money comes from the taxes I paid when I was working. Not exactly taking what I want from a store because I can't pay for it. Where did you get the idea that private citizens are supporting me? If I depended on them I'd be long gone from this earth. But I do love the statement that the "poor, unfortunate, and widowed" should "get a job like the rest of us." And what job would that be? Landlord? It seems to me that your tenants support you, and not the other way around. Actually, all I want is to be able to continue living in my apartment. Unfortunately, with several notable exceptions (namely Isabelle and Putnamdenizen) on this heartbreaking and hilarious thread, I can tell you with total certainty that all you landlords live in buildings made of glass.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 25, 2007 12:35 AM in response to How the hell do/did apartments become rent-controlled or rent-stabilized in the first place?
Responses to Author's Forum Comments
To 11:49
I am glad we are not dating.
I come from the heart.
You come from the dicktionary.
Posted by: Ysabelle at November 25, 2007 12:01 AM in response to How the hell do/did apartments become rent-controlled or rent-stabilized in the first place?
And your heart is judgmental, but you tell yourself you are not while accusing others of being so. Guess we'll all know your house by the glass facade.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 12:12 AM in response to How the hell do/did apartments become rent-controlled or rent-stabilized in the first place?
Um, actually I can only take 4 million (OK maybe 3) as the 400 was a typo. I am happy to see though that the "exterminate the brutes" contingent I've gotten all riled up are balanced by a few voices crying in the wilderness for some kind of justice. I'm more scared now of the landowners in NYC than I ever was of the violent crime this city saw in the eighties. You've convinced me. I'm outta here.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 25, 2007 12:13 AM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
Can't get a job. Too sick to work. Disability pays my $1200 a month rent. That money comes from the taxes I paid when I was working. Not exactly taking what I want from a store because I can't pay for it. Where did you get the idea that private citizens are supporting me? If I depended on them I'd be long gone from this earth. But I do love the statement that the "poor, unfortunate, and widowed" should "get a job like the rest of us." And what job would that be? Landlord? It seems to me that your tenants support you, and not the other way around. Actually, all I want is to be able to continue living in my apartment. Unfortunately, with several notable exceptions (namely Isabelle and Putnamdenizen) on this heartbreaking and hilarious thread, I can tell you with total certainty that all you landlords live in buildings made of glass.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 25, 2007 12:35 AM in response to How the hell do/did apartments become rent-controlled or rent-stabilized in the first place?
10:21 "guest" - serious reply. I find it annoying to read a thread with "guest" "guest" etc. I know what to expect when "Rehab" posts or others who actually identify themselves in some way. That way I can tell if there are three people posting, ten or one. My "real" name is Jake. Happy Sunday to you!
Less serious reply: The dogs I am referring to are the hounds of hell masquerading as landlords posting here. And my comment about "hunting" them down, was, of course, a joke. We all know that in this post-modern world there is no need for a hunt. When the revolution comes we will simply be able to press a button and the implants in the their heads will put them to sleep. It will be very non-violent really. Their tenants will just take their bodies out on the appropriate recycling day (do stony hearts go with plastic or glass? hmm).
Am I psychotic? Not really. Just easily bored.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at November 25, 2007 7:53 AM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
haha very funny joke about hunting down people. you should write a sitcom. moron.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 9:42 AM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
Proper landlords need gainfully employed tenants, unless they're renting in a not-for-profit capacity. Poor and disabled people in need of subsidized rent levels and legal protection require government housing.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 10:04 AM in response to How the hell do/did apartments become rent-controlled or rent-stabilized in the first place?
Proper landlords need gainfully employed tenants, unless they're renting in a not-for-profit capacity. Poor and disabled people in need of subsidized rent levels and legal protection require government housing.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 10:05 AM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
Exactly. And so you "guest" 10:05 are willing to accept taxation at a level which fully and permanently funds such housing? One part of taxation could be say 50% taxation on the difference between market rent and the former rs rate on the destabilized apartments to recover, for the public good the unexpected windfall for owners of those buildings. Otherwise don't buy buildings with rent stabilized apartments unless you can uphold your side of the social contract.
But in the unlikely event that the landed classes actually agree to provide such housing to the poor, it still doesn't address another important component of NYC RS, the transfer of power from landlords to tenants vis a vis automatic renewal leases. This, at this time, has become a political issue, where the voters (majority renters) want to keep their power to force landlords to provide adequate heat, etc, without getting their asses kicked to the curb when the lease comes up. It is a politically determined and purposeful rewarding of one group of society over another.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at November 25, 2007 11:19 AM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
Good landlords get their arses kicked around by the elitist poor and disabled folks who believe they are entitled to rights over privately owned property. That's why slumlords don't give a rats arse. There's simply too much risk in having tenants.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 2:09 PM in response to In response to "How the Hell"
Buildings with eight or more apartments in NYC are rent-stabilised. This simply means that the rent is raised by the government a certain percentage each year, and the tenants cannot be evicted unless they do something wrong. In my case, for my rent-stabilised apartment I get: an apartment in which the back door to my small yard has fallen off, I have to bail out the bathtub everytime I take a shower, the toilet doesn't work, there are no locks on the front doors to the building, there is virtually no heat, rats wake me up at night when they leap onto my bed (this is true), and my landlord is putting a bar into the apartment across the hall. AND I WANT TO STAY. Why? Because I have nowhere else to go. He wants me out, which means he'll probably get me out. But back to your original question: as far as RC apartments are concerned, there aren't any anymore because all a landlord has to do is spend a certain amount on renovation, which allows him or her to then up the rent beyond the RC limit, at which point the apartment is freed from all rent-control. And now back to me. My landlord offered me an unspecified amount of money to get out, and I am trying to figure out if this amount could possibly be enough to allow me to get the heck out of Dodge and hole up on a mountain somewhere (NOT the Catskills) where no one will try to evict me. But I doubt it. I'm glad you're not rich.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 23, 2007 11:22 PM in response to How the hell do/did apartments become rent-controlled or rent-stabilized in the first place?