That title is a bit of sarcasm.
Before I get into this article, I want to share with you a story of arealscumbag landlord.
I had a landlord in Columbus, Ohio at the house I was living in when COVID hit.
His name was Dave, and he did nothing by the book.
We signed the least official looking lease in the world.
There’s no way that thing was legally binding.
He had been giving us a pretty fair deal.
We weren’t thrilled about getting kicked out mid-pandemic.
It was kind of a fucked up thing for him to do.
But whatever, we figured it out.
Fast forward a couple months.
My roommates and I had all moved elsewhere.
We get a text from our landlord saying we owe something like $1500 in damages.
It was just a shitty money grab.
We told him we weren’t paying, and he threatened to take legal action.
Then somehow my roommate was able to find the property listed on some sort of public records website.
On the site we could see that our landlord never disclosed that he was renting out the house.
Pretty sure that’s tax fraud.
We screen shotted the document, sent it his way, and never heard from him again.
To this day it’s one of the bigger dubs I’ve ever taken.
That’s a scumbag landlord.
But these landlords in Berkeley, California who are celebrating the fact that they can start making money again…
I’m not sure if those are scumbag landlords.
Was throwing a “time to evict our tenants” extravaganza a little uncalled for?
But on the other hand, imagine a landlord who owns one single property.
That could be crippling.
More than likely he was relying on that rent money to pay his own bills.
No shit he’s going to celebrate.
To be fair, landlords did receive some money from government programs that supported them during the pandemic.
The tenants who took advantage of the situation had to have known this was coming right?
What did they think would happen when the eviction ban was lifted?
Not all landlords sleep on a pile of money.
Part of me thinks these landlords were looking for a fight.
It’s a real shame there’s not a better video of the fight either.
The BPOA which has around 750 members said one elderly attendee was punched in the face.
But you have to have eviction.
It’s an extremely necessary part of the housing market.
I think it’s fair for the landlords to be excited that their industry is returning to normal.
But again, maybe don’t blast your party invitation out to the whole town.
