lily's diary
Hazardous Holidays
by Lily
November 2
As we begin the holiday season, the question of gifts from tenants arises. Although you can’t refuse these tributes, remember: they are not really gifts; they are bribes. Accept graciously and make as little of it as you can with without being rude. And it works the other way around, too. After his wife died and he got up in years, my uncle began to see himself as a benefactor to his tenants and would arrive at their door on both Thanksgiving and Christmas with a turkey under his arm. If you, too, begin to move toward such benevolence, browse through the pages of the Rent Ordinance until the feeling passes.
November 5
During the 1999 Prop. N campaign, which fought the attempt to scoop TICs into the condo lottery, a bunch of us carried signs and marched in protest in front of city hall. Walking counter to us was a group holding placards reading, “Housing is a Right,” “Stop Greedy Landlords,” “No More Evictions,” and, well, you get the idea. About half of these people had jackets with ACORN written on the back. At the time, I was clueless as to what that meant but sensed I’d never
see them at an SFAA meeting. Now we find that not only does ACORN actively lobby for low-income housing (good), members have been caught falsifying voter registration and counseling decoys on how to defraud the government (bad). Why, oh why, are the righteous so often found to be hypocritical, no matter whether they’re on the left or right?
November 12
My cousin’s two boys, both on the wrong side of 25, have come back home to roost. It’s getting to be the “new normal.” Kids are out of work and Mom and Dad are, after all, Mom and Dad. It’s happening to tenants, too. My tenant Ralph, a divorced man who retired three years ago from Bank of America, told me yesterday that his daughter, a recently laid-off consultant in her thirties, is coming to stay with him “temporarily.” I am preparing my version of a 6.14 notice, which includes the exact wording of both 6.14 and 6.15 from the Rent Ordinance, followed by an explanation in the bluntest terms of what this means to her (Ms. Former Financial Consultant). Thanks to the legacy of Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, I have no say in her tenancy, nor can I charge for the extra water, gas or electricity she will use, but I sure don’t have to keep her on at the same rent that her father paid, should he take a powder, which wouldn’t be hard to imagine having met this woman several times.
November 18
My neighbor Robert has an elderly tenant, Evelyn, who suffered a stroke during the summer. They rushed her to the emergency room and, after a long hospital stay, she is now living in a nursing home. She has kept up with her rent after a fashion: her checks often have illegible handwriting, slightly off amounts and the wrong dates. Alas, this is one of the stickiest situations for those of us who live alongside our tenants. No matter what the professional managers tell us, we do become quasifriends, certainly after living in the same building for ten or fifteen years. Robert is in a state of immobility—afraid to contact Evelyn and discuss the matter in case she hasn’t accepted that she may never be able to return home. The apartment is, of course, chock full of belongings. She is a person without relatives, just a few friends, all as old as she. Should he try to contact one of them? I only wish I had advice for him.
November 21
While our supervisors have been trying to pass legislation forcing us to stuff more people into our units, other California cities are trying to remedy the results of exactly this type of legislation. My old friend Marjorie lives in Oceanside, a town between San Clemente and La Jolla. Because of aggressive pro-tenant occupancy laws in this community, there are an alarming number of jam-packed units—so many, in fact, that neighbors complained about the lack of parking and unsanitary conditions, forcing the city to ask its planning department to establish stricter occupancy controls. During a phone call this morning, Marjorie read me the Planning Department’s response over the phone. In refusing to change the occupancy rules, the spokesperson was quoted as saying, “Many disabled persons rely on the ability to rent out extra rooms in their homes to assist them with living expenses.” That statement reveals a philosophy that not only considers landlords responsible for providing below-market housing to protected tenants—in Oceanside, they are expected to provide extra income too.
November 28
It’s no secret that the holiday season brings with it the danger of fire. Every year, I send around the notice provided by the fire department reminding my tenants of the common causes of those very sad events one reads about every year in the newspaper. As sure as there will be drunks wearing Santa hats, there will be the fires started by electric heaters, holiday lights and dried out pine branches sparking out of fireplaces. The average old San Francisco building will go up in a few minutes and having good insurance is only part of the solution. Making your tenants aware of the danger posed by fire is vital.
November 30
My friend Arthur had an incident recently that is worth passing on. His tenants had given him notice of their upcoming move and, after they left, he found that the toilet had a crack in the bowl, causing water to seep under the linoleum, which was starting to buckle the ceiling of the tenant below. The repairs included buying a new toilet, replacing the floor and linoleum, and replastering the ceiling of the lower unit. He deducted the cost from the security deposit, including an itemized accounting with copies of receipts attached. The tenant took him to the Rent Board and, guess what? Because Arthur had failed to inform his tenants that they were entitled to a pre-move-out inspection, he could not get any reimbursement. It was an expensive error that all landlords need to keep in mind.
December 1
We rental property owner-managers never get credit for introducing foreigners to the American way of life. I’m not talking about the third world here. Let us consider for a minute, the French. One French family who rented from me years ago broke their lease agreement so regularly that I finally gave up trying to enforce it. Easily conned by their excessive charm, gifts from Paris and that way of speaking with puckered lips that makes the speaker look as though he is going to kiss you, I began to think of them as characters in a novel. They nailed bookcases into the plaster walls, gave door keys to three different nannies (well, babysitters), and did not permit shoes in the apartment but never, as far as I could tell, cleaned their bathtub. They were above owning a television set so would, now and again, ask very sweetly if they could watch a show in my unit. For three whole years they paid in travelers checks, and what a pain that is.
Okay, as a freshly minted landlady, I was a wimp. I only confess this to make a point about the “above and beyond” service that we are often called on to provide.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the 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 © 2009 by Black Point Press. All rights reserved.