I am trying to understand today’s society. I was born into a lower middle class family, after my parents’ divorce we slide closer to poverty. As a young man I worked without a purpose. I paid my bills, I sought no credit. My goal was to survive and maybe have a little fun. It was an empty existence. I finally found purpose when my daughter was born. I worked long and hard. I put myself through college full time while holding a full time job. After college I worked two full time jobs. One for my family one for my country. This time was directly after September 11. The point is, I expected no one to provide for me or my family. We invested our extra money into real estate instead of a 401 k. It was looking good in the mid 2000’s. We had a positive net worth. The hard work was paying off. The housing bubble crashed. Now instead of having a positive net worth we are servants to the bank. Okay, as long as we can hang on the buildings we have a chance of making back the losses. Back to my question about society. It seems it is more the norm then the exception for people to feel the world owes them. Shelter, food, a phone, a car, TV and internet. I was a lazy kid, like most. However, I never felt someone should work instead of me. I know there are cases where people are down and out. They feel hopeless, and need help. The problem is they turn to the government. This seems like a wonderful thing! At first blush I think they keep their sense of pride and are help through the tough times. If that were the case I would be all for it. Instead what happens is we give them just enough to keep them dependent on the government. If they try and get a job, try to get ahead, they jeopardize their benefits, their security. In this moment when they decide it not worth it to try and get ahead that is where there American dream begins to die. Slowly they are enslaved by their own self-doubt, their master is the government. If they are good they may get a free phone. Or some other freebie. They just need to vote the right way. That is all it takes to survive. The question they should ponder is; “Do I want to survive? Or do I want to live?” My life may be a struggle every day, to make the mortgage, to pay all my bills. The funny thing is the struggle make my life better. I get a sense of fulfilment providing for my family. Back to my questioning my today society: In the last two months we have had two sets of tenants decide they were not going to pay their rent, and we should just let them stay. One apartment was rented to what I thought was two nice couples trying to make it in this world. This was me being a romantic, I wanted to be the one to give them a chance. My reasoning side told me it was not the best idea. I should have listened! They decided they hated each other. My poor wife was inundated with text demanding that she mediate and resolve the conflict. It got ugly, there were restraining orders. There were claims of violence and intimidation. Long story short, one couple moved out. The interesting thing was the other couples expectation. After a discussion with the young man, who paid his half of rent, I explained he stilled owed the other half of the rent. He assured with a shake of my hand and a look into my eye he would have the rent the next week. What he meant was we as landlords should forgive half the rent. He had no intensions of paying his obligation. We supplied them a Notice to Quit, an eviction notice, as it commonly known. They sent us a notarize letter(?) stating they were staying for another month and because we evicted them they did not owes anything. Oh did I mention the second floor tenant got involved in all the commotion. It is said that the husband on the second floor, to defend his wife’s honor, proceeded to beat one of husbands on the first floor. Now the wife on the second floor told me it was my fault her husband was arrested. In his anger toward me, he threw out an $800 lawn furniture set. And proceeded to threaten me and my wife. Don’t worry, the police told my wife it was not criminal threat. I guess that makes it ok. Anyway they are now not paying the rent as well. They received their notice to quit today. Here is my question. I am having trouble understanding why it is okay not to pay their rent. How is not paying the rent any different than stealing? If they were to go into a store and steal something equivalent in value to the rent, they would be charged with grand larceny and spend time in jail. If they steal from us it is a civil matter, and our chances to recover our losses are slim! We must pay our mortgage regardless. I am certain the bank is not going to say never mind, don’t pay us, we understand. Instead there is a real possibility that the bank takes possession of the property and we will owe them the amount we lost in the burst of the bubble. Well that was lots of fun. I know the way the court systems work, laws be dammed we will most likely not see penny. We are the evil landlords after all!
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 02:10:56 +0000
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