It boggles my mind that every convo is exclusively like rents are up by an astronomical amount we have to build more. And sure we gotta keep up with population growth, buuuut maybe there’s another factor we should be considering if housing costs are dramatically out pacing population growth?
A new property management company bought my building and instantly raised rents from $1500 to $2000. They justified it by pointing to the rental pricing software they use.
Landlords are parasites and they should be abolished.
I’m sitting here listening to workers dismantle, I mean upgrade, my apartment complex. I’ve lived here for 20+ years. A property management company bought the place, gave us 60 day notices (I have until the end of this month to find a place) so they could refurbish the apartments and then rent them back out. Being the kind, sympathetic fuckheads they are, they offered us original tenants a great deal in having first dibs on the refurbished places. Rent went from $1700 to $3200. So nice of them.
The interesting thing for me was, the week after the sale went through I called up the company to find out where I was supposed to send my rent. The lady had a little trouble finding my info, and then excused herself by saying,“Sorry, we bought 5 apartment complexes this week and the system hasn’t caught up yet.”
This isn’t Washington, but I’ve had similar stories from friends living in different states. It’s a fucked up situation in this country. Yet another issue that politicians just can’t seem to do anything about.
Yep. I lost my apartment because of this. Went from $1400 to $2300. The day I moved out, other neighbors were packing their cars/uhauls, too.
They went through this whole rebranding where they were trying to be "luxury apartments" which is hilarious because they never did anything to actually make the place nicer. They just changed the name, put up fancier signs, and raised the rent. The pool and workout room remained inaccessible after 3+ years, there were still piles of garbage in the parking lot, neighbors still complained about mold and roaches, the kitchen cabinets still looked like they were painted by a drunk 12 year old, they still hadn't fixed my mailbox that was allegedly blown up by a kid with a firework after many months, and the maintenance crew still ignored maintenance requests and just marked them as complete in the system.
Fuck that place, and fuck heartless, profit-obsessed landlords.
Community Land Trusts are the fix. Affordable long term housing, and if we could expand the program we could expand eligibility. Everyone should be able to get a house or condo at set rates.
Oh yeah, of course. I just think it’s good for people who walk in the pitch black with a black leash, all black clothes, and a black dog, and step out right in front of cars in areas with no streetlamps…it’s happened multiple times… :P
If I’m wearing all dark stuff, I make damn sure people see me. Or I wait until it’s safe to cross.
Carry around an anti-tank mine. They're designed to only trigger under sufficient weight, like a vehicle. It won't prevent being run over, but cops might think twice once some of their brother officers blow up while running down civilians.
Seattle Super Market is great and has fantastic prices on produce. The options will, naturally, be somewhat different than they are in one of the big chain grocery stores.
Not too far away from them, there's Ba Mien, which similarly has good produce but different options than you are probably used to seeing.
There’s already enough ads inside our publicly funded ferries and terminals… this is just overdoing it.
The fares get raised every season and we pass laws to increase ferry funding for worse service, yet there’s still a need to shove these ads down our throats? The service is objectively worse than it was a decade ago, but it’s more expensive beyond inflation. Maybe I’d be okay with these ads if the ferries were dependable and I didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg to use them.
Also the fact that Seattle has both a soda tax and advertisements for soda. Seems a bit contradictory.
Seattle
Active