Welcome to Indentured Servitude

[catelin]

Just got a letter from my landlords letting me know that my rent is going up $150 a month. Motherfuckers. I've been in this house for four years, settled in, been a kickass tenant...but I suppose that greed gets the better of people eventually. I kept hoping that I might be able to hang in here until I could possibly qualify for a home loan--which is probably a virtual impossibility. See, I bought my education instead of a house...seemed like the best decision at the time. Now that I write out loan checks for the equivalent of a hefty mortgage payment to Sallie Mae (the evil empire to end all evil empires), along with my already incredibly high rent--I wonder sometimes if it wouldn't have been better to have been a hairdresser or a waitress, any fucking occupation that I wouldn't have to pay more than I earn to practice. So...time to start packing...again.

Comments

[strike-anywhere.livejournal.com]

poor little feller

if it's any consolation, you have my admiration.

Cross Your Fingers For Me

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Well, I went in with a bunch of my office mates for the big lottery tonight...maybe we'll win and then it'll be houses all around for everyone! : )

Re: Cross Your Fingers For Me

[strike-anywhere.livejournal.com]

Finger are crossed.

[ex-nascent722.livejournal.com]

heh.i know how you feel

[catelin.livejournal.com]

One of these days I'm gonna figure out to create some sort of cooperative lending group where all us drones co-sign for each other's home loans. ; )

[strike-anywhere.livejournal.com]

ehhh, old man potter'd just get it in the end.

Hehe!

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that...or I'd just spend the rest of my days involved in lengthy renovation and home improvement projects, eh? ; )

Re: Hehe!

[strike-anywhere.livejournal.com]

*shudder* heaven forbid...

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. I'm looking to move out of my current place at the end of the lease because I can't afford it, my student loans (which are right around what I used to pay for rent... how ironic), and the numerious other expenses needed for my profession.

$150 a month more. That's such crap. I'd sabatoge the water pipes before you leave. Something extremely expensive for the landlord but hopefully not destructive for the new tenant.

Landlord Karma

[raindog.livejournal.com]

I think that the translations of the Inferno all are flawed. There is no circle occupied specifically by landlords, a circle where the roof leaks and is patched with tarp; where the heating bill runs $300 a month for a 700 sq. foot house; where no amount of scrubbing cleaning ever gets you a dime of your deposit back; where gas leaks go unrepaired; where your bathtub can back up for three days without draining and satan hands you a bottle of draino to fix it...oops, there's the flaw in my correction of the flawed translation -- the landlords ARE satan...

Seriously, that sucks, Cath. I would like to express surprise, but my experience with landlords includes no standard of deviation from unethical greed-mongering. If you can summon it from the throes of justifiable and disgust, your ever accurate sense of universal karmic ass-biting may provide you some comfort. I wish I was closer and could provide physical comfort, i.e. an extra set of hands for packing, child herding, Salvation Army dump trips, and the general comfort of shared, rather than solitary, moving misery...

Re: Landlord Karma

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Hey, that reminds me...weren't we just talking about you coming out for a visit? Hehehe!! ; ) I'm sure everything will work out just fine. It always does. I always look back and think to myself that it was for the best. And yes...the ass-biting karma is definitely a comfort to me. You know me too well! : )

[catelin.livejournal.com]

I once had a landlord who used to come into my house when I wasn't there and go through my underwear drawer...ick! I seriously considered the suggestion of a friend to leave a few dead fish inside the walls when I left there. I still sometimes wish I had! I figure that they'll lose the "increase" just in the time it takes to find new tenants once I leave (after giving the bare minimum notice to ensure that the house lays vacant for a month). ; )

[tully-monster.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathy...how damn frustrating.

Last October we had to leave our building because the new ownership decided to turn it into condos. Sure, we were offered a discount--$140,000 for a small two-bedroom in a building that wasn't in very good condition to begin with. It's part of a pattern that's repeating itself all over Chicago, actually, and has a much worse effect for people less well off than we are (one neighbor couple who are both in motorized wheelchairs and on disabiity had a lot of trouble finding a place that was easily accessible for them).

It's the owner's right to do such things, of course. But it uproots communities where renters aren't fly-by-night crack-smoking slime but decent, law-abiding, nice people in a whole range of shapes, sizes, classes, and colors. If you charge only what the market will bear for housing that isn't worth the price, you guarantee that no one from the neighborhood will be able to live there.