lily's diary

by Lily

May 17
My friend Robert is an open-minded guy. With the kind of life he’s led, he better be. So when two sturdy young women, Kate and Marie, applied for tenancy in his Noe Valley flat, he wasn’t deterred by their Harleys. He had rented to people with motorcycles before and never had any trouble. Since one woman was a deputy sheriff in the East Bay and the other worked for FedEx, there was no question as to their ability to pay the rent. They had a circle of like-minded pals and, when they had the occasional weekend party, the bikes lined the street like the front of a Folsom Street leather bar.

One such day, during the NBA playoffs, Robert heard screaming. It wasn’t the sound of cheering or jeering, common during a spirited game, but rather one of horror and assault. Robert banged on their door, asking if they needed any help. “Yessss!” Kate shouted. “Use your key and come in right away.” When he entered the apartment, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Eight women in Levis and leather were standing on chairs. “What is it?” he asked. One hefty gal bellowed, “It’s a mouse, dammit!” Robert tried not to laugh. But, in the eternal battle of the sexes, he chalked one up for his side.

May 21
Rhonda and Jeffrey are dear old friends from my dog show years who built a small unit in the basement of their Sunset District home for Jeffrey’s mother. When the old dear passed on, they left it empty. After they retired from the teaching profession, they bought a large unit in Rossmoor and put their home on the rental market. It was snapped up by a nice young couple.

A year later, when the couple asked if they could sublet the basement unit to a friend, Rhonda and Jeff agreed. Time passed and the young couple, now expecting, gave their notice. Their sublet tenant, a male nurse at UCSF, asked if he could stay on in the basement unit. Since he had been exceptionally pleasant—cheerfully accepting a 6.14 Notice and apparently enjoying yard work—Rhonda and Jeff agreed and gave him a lease agreement.

It wasn’t until new tenants had moved in to the main house that they realized they had inadvertently transformed the basement unit’s subtenant (the nurse) into an original tenant and their single-family home, exempt from rent control (price control, actually, under Costa-Hawkins), into a rent-controlled building. They had lost the ability to raise the rent—the easiest tool for eviction—which is afforded to single-family homes. The lesson: don’t do anything to jeopardize the single-family status of a home you intend to rent.

May 28
Three of us were at the Philosopher’s Club in West Portal on a quiet Tuesday night when my friend Danny, tired of hearing Maggie and I bitch about rising prices and immovable rent rates, brought his fist down on the bar, nearly overturning his Jack Daniels, and said, “There’s only one thing we can do to improve the fate of small rental property owners and that is means testing tenants, even if we do it indirectly, like New York, by exempting units renting for over $2,000 a month.” Oh, yeah, I thought, and which supervisor is going to run with that one? “You mean, we can’t just wait until home ownership exceeds rentals and vote it out?” Maggie asked, tongue in cheek, knowing full well that we three would be long buried before that happened. “When will we have the leadership to mount a campaign to get owner-occupied buildings, 4-units and under, exempted from rent control, as was the case when the measure first passed in 1979?” I said to no one in particular.

Then, out of the blue, a fellow who had been sitting next to us leaned into the conversation. “If you ask me, I think we should be able to get an income tax deduction for the amount we lose from tenants paying below market rents,” he said. Of course, nobody had asked him, but Danny thought it was such a brilliant idea that he bought the eavesdropper a drink.

June 5
Maggie and I were down at the San Francisco Planning Department again this week to protest AT&T’s plans to place about 850 more metal utility boxes (“telecommunications cabinets”) on the city’s streets in order to expand its fiberoptic network. The boxes are four feet by five feet and would join the already hundreds of such boxes, which have proven to be graffiti magnets.

Apart from that, with telephone polls, signal lights, street light polls, mail boxes, multiple parking signs, advertising A-boards, stop signs and banners, I think the public right of way is slowly disintegrating. AT&T can afford to put these underground. Since property owners now have to pay dearly to have utility wires “undergrounded,” let AT&T pay for putting these below surface now, before we have to pay for it ourselves further down the line.

June 10
Everyone I talk to seems to feel that the Market Octavia project has been a success so far. The Central Freeway is gone, the widened Octavia Boulevard is moving cars across Market Street with relative ease and space is available to realize every city planner’s dream: high-density housing near mass transportation. When the “Market Octavia Plan” came up before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on May 8, it was quickly approved. That’s when the outrage began. More people started looking closely at its wording and began to question the sway of its pronouncements over the rest of the city’s Neighborhood Commercial Districts.

The city’s required parking ratio of one space to one unit, as well as long-held density and height limits, were all waived in the Market Octavia Plan. Now attorneys tell us that these waivers can be applied to all the city’s transit corridors. This may come as a surprise, but there are a good many people who like their neighborhoods just as they are and do not believe, as planners do, that a lack of garage space will dissuade people from owning cars. There are also those who look at water, fire, police and transportation services and believe the city cannot afford to stretch its infrastructure so drastically. I think it’s a quality of life issue, but not all agree.

If you don’t actually live in your building, it would be easier to view this as an opportunity to increase your investment by adding units without the burden of
providing parking. Again, I am torn between what I think is best for my neighborhood and what is best for my pocketbook.

June 15
I have never seen my young tenant Shirley without a beverage in her hand. A bottle of Glaceau, a can of Diet Coke, a “vente” from Starbucks: she has to be the thirstiest person in San Francisco. Wherever she goes, there are drops of liquid in her wake. Since others use my building’s common areas, where I see this trail, I don’t feel confident in confronting her about it directly. So I’ve taken to cleaning the hall carpet about the time she comes home from work, hoping she’ll get the hint.

By the way, I have a shelf full of carpet cleaners but keep going back to the way my mother did it: making a foam from Woolite and hot water, gently working it in to the rug with a nail brush and softly drying it with a terry cloth towel. But Shirley isn’t the only one with her fingers permanently glued around a beverage container. I see symptoms of fear of dehydration everywhere. Some say it is a weight reduction strategy. But that couldn’t be why Barack Obama grasps an ever-present water bottle. For him, though, I cut some slack.

June 18
The Board of Supervisors is trying to stop the creation of a Community Justice Court, so the mayor, whose idea it was, has taken it to the ballot. You may not think this affects property owners, but it does. My neighborhood, for example (Haight-Ashbury), is plagued with lost souls, mostly the mentally ill, alcoholics or drug addicts who, by their actions, are crying out for help.

In past years, the mayor, to his credit, has instigated Care Not Cash and, through it, managed to find homes for over 2,000 people. He has also created Project Homeless Connect, a one-stop shop for indigent people seeking to get hooked up with a variety of services.

But there’s a hole in the city’s social safety network: coercive help for chronically homeless people who live on the streets. They need to be brought in from the cold. Through existing laws, these people can be made accountable and coerced into services.

But this proposed pilot program for the Tenderloin won’t happen because most members of the Board of Supervisors are unduly influenced by homeless activists who, predictably, hate the idea. To require indigent people to be responsible for their actions, appear in court for infraction offenses and be forced to accept help sounds too much like something that might actually work.

July 3
Maggie and I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the SFMOMA and afterward went to Tres Agaves to stay with the Latin feeling. After the first margarita, Maggie asked me what I thought of accepting pets in my units. I told her I had a strict no-pets policy.

She said that she had, too, until her tenant Millicent told her that she had purchased a weimaraner pup, which she needed for emotional reasons. Maggie knew better than to press her, but did ask to see a letter from a physician. She produced a note on creamy velum with a doctor’s letterhead, which said that Millicent felt the need for a dog for company and protection. Maggie pointed out that this was not a recommendation that she have a dog, only affirmation of a feeling. Millicent was determined and the case went to the San Francisco Rent Board.

Guess who now has a dog in her building?

 

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or SF Apartment Magazine. “Lily’s Diary” is written by a longtime rental property owner who reserves the right to remain anonymous on the grounds that her tenants might gang up on her. Comments, corrections or ideas are welcome at lilysdiary@aol.com. Copyright © 2008 SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.