Landlords

[Overlander]

so I'm at work today. Beav's at home taking a dump when he hears a commotion out in the living room.

He pokes his head out, and sees a...pit bull?

It's the landlord's. He just went ahead and let himself in, again, with his dog too this time.

oh, go figure. Beav offers a "hey heads up, the landlord doesn't allow pets in here."

"Very funny. Ha ha. I came by to talk about the lease."

"Dangit...well, can I at least wipe first?"

"well, I'm in a hurry. Just wanted to let you know I'm raising rent. Again."

Again? For the 3rd time in 3 years?

"yea, but this time I'm raising it more than I've ever raised it before."

dangit. Do you have to?

"no. But the thing is, I could raise it way more if I felt like it."

dangit. how much?

"Another $800."

dangit!

"you should just thank me I'm not raising it two grand!"

you realize we're gonna be at twice what we were paying 3 years ago.

"you guys have lived here 3 years!?"

yea. And in that time, not one other expense has gone up this quickly.

"yea, well my taxes have gone up too."

have they gone up $800 a month since last year?

"just be glad I'm not raising it two grand. So are you gonna renew?"

I dunno! lemme talk to my roomie, and look around at our other options...

"well there's hardly any other options right now. Ski season's about to start!"

yea, we know...btw, thanks for not mentioning this to us until the month the lease is up. Kinda putting us in a pickle here.

"well just let me know ASAP. Can you get back to me by tomorrow?"

I dunno! We have to discuss this, and weigh our options, and might just end up moving.

"wait, you guys are gonna move?!?!?!!"

maybe? this is a big unexpected expense, you know.

"well if you do then can you help me find some new tenants? BTW if it's new tenants, I'm definitely raising it two grand."

well it's gonna be real hard to find tenants for that price!

"well finding new tenants sounds hard! Can you guys just stay? Tell you what, I'll just raise it another $200."

Jesus Christ dude. Well now we're gonna take some time to think about this either way. We also wanted to ask about going month-to-month, like it mentions in the lease, and it sure would be nice to not have to plan our whole lives around an apartment lease after being good tenants for seven years.

"You guys have lived here for seven years?!"

yea, in case you never noticed. BTW, your dog is scratching at the door, you better not take that shit outta our deposit.

"well no-go on month-to-month, that would just be too inconvenient for me. OK I gotta go, but let me know ASAP, ideally by tomorrow."







...without commenting on landlords at large, ours is...among thee most ridiculous, right?

Fits right along with your narrative of buying a few rental properties, then doing absolutely nothing but rake in the cash, right?

[ousdahl]

yea.

have I mentioned he also brags about how he doesn't work?

[japhy]

Your should move to the Bay Area.

[ousdahl]

Yea, I prob should.

I just dunno if I like being around that many people.

Also been thinking Durango. Maybe even grand junction. Or the front range, even tho that’s basically Cali now too

[japhy]

I have a couple of cousins out in Grand Junction, they love it. I wouldn't want to be that reliant on I-70 myself. It has been closed through the canyon too many times the last couple of years.

We really liked Pagosa Springs except when the flocks of visiting Texans got so thick we had to plan carefully plan trips to the grocery around their feeding times. The divide between haves and have nots; and locals and tourists is as stark as WP. My take on Durango is that it is just bigger version of Pagosa, they have a Walmart AND a Lowes! I know, ironic coming from a carpetbagger from Missouri.

I still think Pueblo is a place of opportunity on the Front Range. It has the infrastructure and building/housing stock similar to the Rust Belt cities of the Great Lakes. It was a wealthy steel town in its heyday. It isn't "cool", yet. But once a place is cool it's affordability takes a hit. I keep saying this I know, Pueblo is what the Springs was 15 years ago. The only thing more fun than living in the cool place is being there before it is cool, and being part of defining what it will be next. If you want to be part of defining how a place will be equitable, it is easier to do when the place is poor. You can build equitability into the growth. The hard way to go is to try and retrofit equitability into a place that has already become flush with money.

[pdub]

I found you a deal ousdahl.

https://anchorage.craigslist.org/roo/d/ ... 37298.html

You may want to consider yourself non-binary in order to have a shot.
Massage only.

[Shirley]

I have a couple of cousins out in Grand Junction, they love it. I wouldn't want to be that reliant on I-70 myself. It has been closed through the canyon too many times the last couple of years.

We really liked Pagosa Springs except when the flocks of visiting Texans got so thick we had to plan carefully plan trips to the grocery around their feeding times. The divide between haves and have nots; and locals and tourists is as stark as WP. My take on Durango is that it is just bigger version of Pagosa, they have a Walmart AND a Lowes! I know, ironic coming from a carpetbagger from Missouri.

I still think Pueblo is a place of opportunity on the Front Range. It has the infrastructure and building/housing stock similar to the Rust Belt cities of the Great Lakes. It was a wealthy steel town in its heyday. It isn't "cool", yet. But once a place is cool it's affordability takes a hit. I keep saying this I know, Pueblo is what the Springs was 15 years ago. The only thing more fun than living in the cool place is being there before it is cool, and being part of defining what it will be next. If you want to be part of defining how a place will be equitable, it is easier to do when the place is poor. You can build equitability into the growth. The hard way to go is to try and retrofit equitability into a place that has already become flush with money.

I remember being in Telluride in 1985 when they were predicting it would be "the next Aspen". You could still buy a shack for $110,000, on a lot just off the main street near the center of town. No matter how good a deal I thought it would be, $110K to a 2nd-year medical student living on peanut butter and jelly was still a bridge much too far.

[Shirley]

I found you a deal ousdahl.

https://anchorage.craigslist.org/roo/d/ ... 37298.html

You may want to consider yourself non-binary in order to have a shot.
Massage only.

"...women or non-binary people preferred..."

Sounds perfect!

And while that would seem to exclude our ousey, why couldn't those of us who have met him write character references emphasizing his feminine tendencies?

[pdub]

They can just consider themselves they until they let they stay at their place then they'll do whatever they feel works for them from there.

[TDub]

who's on first?

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

I found you a deal ousdahl.

https://anchorage.craigslist.org/roo/d/ ... 37298.html

You may want to consider yourself non-binary in order to have a shot.
Massage only.

Odds it's Sarah Palin's house are what? 1-2500?

[ousdahl]

Well, considering there’s only like 2500 households in Alaska, that prob checks out

[Shirley]

Well, considering there’s only like 2500 households in Alaska, that prob checks out

Even if the odds that it's a room in the house where Palin lives are long, isn't it worth a shot?

I mean, who can forget this quote from when McCain introduced her to the nation:

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

Oct 3, 2008 Rich Lowry

(Wow, after reading that, I wonder if I should cross-post it in the "These Aren't Serious People", thread?)


Richard Lowry is an American writer who is the former editor and now editor-in-chief of National Review, an American conservative news and opinion magazine. Lowry became editor of National Review in 1997 when selected by its founder, William F. Buckley, Jr., to lead the magazine. Lowry is also a syndicated columnist, author, and political analyst who is a frequent guest on NBC News and Meet the Press.

[Shirley]

"Move to Colorado", he said:

35 miles sw of Co. Springs.

Investigation ongoing after more than 115 bodies found improperly stored in Penrose funeral home

[japhy]

"Move to Colorado", he said:

35 miles sw of Co. Springs.

Investigation ongoing after more than 115 bodies found improperly stored in Penrose funeral home

They did a shit job of it. All they had to do was drive the bodies over the Pass into the valley. There are 5000 empty acres to disperse them iin. But no. The dumbasses put them in a vacant building.

[Shirley]

"Buy when there's blood in the streets."
Warren Buffett

Person in southern Colorado dies from plague

[japhy]

Black plague, hantavirus, leprosy; there is always blood in the sand. Eat right, exercise regularly, vape weed and you will be fine. Southern Colorado is not a place for the weak, sober and frail.

[Shirley]

Black plague, hantavirus, leprosy; there is always blood in the sand. Eat right, exercise regularly, vape weed and you will be fine. Southern Colorado is not a place for the weak, sober and frail.

Lol.

Full Disclosure: Fear of contracting the Plague isn't taking taking up much of my bandwidth. The story popped up in my feed, it seemed topical, and I couldn't resist.



Speaking of which...

As a senior in high school my life was changed when I took a "Humanities" class, that was in its first year of being offered, and was especially novel because it was also the first class with "team teaching", by 3 different faculty members, at my high school. I had begun to question the existence of God in the 4th grade, although at my father's behest I attended church into my early teens. One of the subjects we were exposed to was Existentialism, and "The Plague" was one of the books we read. It sent me off on a multi-year obsession to read and learn about Existentialism, which has never lost its grip. In addition to "The Plague" by Camus, other books that seemed to leave a mark were Kafka's "The Trial", (mentioned below), and Kafka's "The Metamorphosis".

The Plague (French: La Peste) is a 1947 absurdist novel by Albert Camus. It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator in the midst of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

Camus used as source material the cholera epidemic that killed a large proportion of Oran's population in 1849, but situated the novel in the 1940s.[2] Oran and its surroundings were struck by disease several times before Camus published his novel.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label.[4][5] The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.


The Plague is a novel about a plague epidemic in the large Algerian city of Oran. In April, thousands of rats stagger into the open and die. When a mild hysteria grips the population, the newspapers begin clamoring for action. The authorities finally arrange for the daily collection and cremation of the rats. Soon thereafter, M. Michel, the concierge for the building where Dr. Rieux works, dies after falling ill with a strange fever. When a cluster of similar cases appears, Dr. Rieux's colleague, Castel, becomes certain that the illness is the bubonic plague. He and Dr. Rieux are forced to confront the indifference and denial of the authorities and other doctors in their attempts to urge quick, decisive action. Only after it becomes impossible to deny that a serious epidemic is ravaging Oran, do the authorities enact strict sanitation measures, placing the whole city under quarantine.

The public reacts to their sudden imprisonment with intense longing for absent loved ones. They indulge in selfish personal distress, convinced that their pain is unique in comparison to common suffering. Father Paneloux delivers a stern sermon, declaring that the plague is God's punishment for Oran's sins. Raymond Rambert endeavors to escape Oran to rejoin his wife in Paris, but the city's bureaucrats refuse to let him leave. He tries to escape by illegal means with the help of Cottard's criminal associates. Meanwhile, Rieux, Tarrou, and Grand doggedly battle the death and suffering wrought by the plague. Rambert finalizes his escape plan, but, after Tarrou tells him that Rieux is likewise separated from his wife, Rambert is ashamed to flee. He chooses to stay behind and help fight the epidemic. Cottard committed a crime (which he does not name) in the past, so he has lived in constant fear of arrest and punishment. He greets the plague epidemic with open arms because he no longer feels alone in his fearful suffering. He accumulates a great deal of wealth as a smuggler during the epidemic.

After the term of exile lasts several months, many of Oran's citizens lose their selfish obsession with personal suffering. They come to recognize the plague as a collective disaster that is everyone's concern. They confront their social responsibility and join the anti-plague efforts. When M. Othon's small son suffers a prolonged, excruciating death from the plague, Dr. Rieux shouts at Paneloux that he was an innocent victim. Paneloux, deeply shaken by the boy's death, delivers a second sermon that modifies the first. He declares that the inexplicable deaths of innocents force the Christian to choose between believing everything and believing nothing about God. When he falls ill, he refuses to consult a doctor, leaving his fate entirely in the hands of divine Providence. He dies clutching his crucifix, but the symptoms of his illness do not match those of the plague. Dr. Rieux records him as a "doubtful case."

[...]

[japhy]

Of Kafka's stories I think "In The Penal Colony" was my favorite.

There is a nice reference to "The Metamorphosis" in an old Gang of Four "love song" with an anthrax metaphor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsEympD_h8E

[Shirley]

Of Kafka's stories I think "In The Penal Colony" was my favorite.

There is a nice reference to "The Metamorphosis" in an old Gang of Four "love song" with an anthrax metaphor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsEympD_h8E

When he puts it that way, I don't want anthrax, either.