You know who doesn't make enough money? The people who control more housing than they can live in, and who, instead of selling that extra housing, exploit the basic human need for shelter, and we as a society just seriously undervalue how important this role is.

Edit: Storytime, kids. I'll spoiler it so it doesn't take up a ton of room.

Fuck landlords

In 2017, my wife and I rented a house from a nice lady. She was pretty cool. Her husband was on deployment or something. Anyway, we signed a second year with her because we liked her and the location. She sold the house to her mother-in-law about 4 months into that second lease. And that's where it went downhill.

The first summer, the 20+ year old air conditioner went out. The first landlord immediately had someone at the house to check it out. The next summer, when it happened again, the temperature soared to 110°F for the following four days...and at no point after being notified did the second landlord have a repairman out. And we texted her each morning asking for an update. We drove 3 hours to my parents' house to use their pool. We bought a window AC for the bedroom so we could sleep. It was a nightmare. It turned out to be a fix that took an hour and cost her $125. She made up some bullshit excuse but I know she didn't want to pay the weekend rate for the repairman and that's why she was willing to let us suffer, despite the fact we were paying $1,100 a month to live there. When she came over with the repairman, it was 93° in the house and the bitch had the audacity to say, "Wow, it's hot in here." YA FUCKING THINK?

That August, we got a ton of rain. It made a ton of bugs come out. Some of which dropped in on us and killed the yard. She was FURIOUS about this. Then bitched at us about not trimming the trees either (we weren't obliged in the lease agreement to trim trees). She had a lawn care expert come by and tried to get him to lay into us. His response was actually, "We've had a lot of rain. They had no way to see this coming. Lots of people in town have been dealing with this." It shut her up. The next spring, I overseeded the shit out of the yard and it bounced right back.

So we informed her three months early we would not be staying for a third year. We bought a condo that summer. Then we sold it in 2022 and bought a house. And stg she is two houses down from us. It took us four months of putting in offers to get one accepted and now we have to live next to the bitch. I'm sure she doesn't recognize us, but hey, axes and trees and remembering and all that. Anyway, she's like 75 so I'm sure in the next 10 years she'll croak and then we'll have yet another rent house in the neighborhood because greedy heirs don't want to sell.

[–] Yondoza@sh.itjust.works 33 points 8 months ago

I hate tipping in general, but I understand some people like to show their appreciation for a service done well. If that's the case, tip the repair person doing the labor, not the landlord!

Just in general, let's stop tipping like the people doing a job need my generosity to survive. Pay the people what the job is worth and stop asking me to make up the difference.