When a landlord can pay the rent and upkeep for a 63 tenant building off the backs of only 18 tenants there is something horribly wrong.

I'm 100% convinced that landlords are hoarding property for the sole purpose of creating artificial scarcity.

My sister's friend was threatened by her landlord with a knife. When reported, she was sued for defamation and eventually evicted. The part that stuck out to me is that a lawyer friend of hers defended her and the prosecution and judge were so smug the whole time. Focusing more on telling that young lawyer that he's "doing good" and "should be careful as he's just starting his career".

I cannot appreciate enough the irony of a law firm being used to issue an eviction for citing legal code.

Automatic eviction if you cite legal code is absolutely insane and should be illegal as hell.

It all boils down to three words: private equity firms. They buy up real estate, drive up rents to increase their portfolio profits, and run folks out who can't afford the new rents. The land will be considered more valuable due to their price fixing, so if they have to, they sell it off to a developer for a profit. Developer "renovates" the property and starts the whole thing up again. Lather rinse, repeat.

The anonymity is really the problem. They can blacklist you personally. For life. But you don't even get a name.

Our old landlord changed the time frame to inform them that you aren't going to renew from 60 days to 30 days without informing us then told us they were gonna increase our rent by 30 percent. When we obviously informed them that we weren't gonna renew, and they not only told us that due to us being "late" that we'd not only forfeit our security deposit they were gonna charge US for the renovations to the apartment. I pulled out all the emails and the copy of the lease we signed basically said " try me bitch". We never got the deposit back but they backed out of the additional charges. Fucking crooks.

Good example of how multiple "competing" companies within an industry can still act as a monopoly. Price fixing, black listing, lobbying for policy outcomes.

The Health Department is an important ally in fighting slumlords. I had two vacant mouse-infested garbage filled apartments on each side of me, and manager refused to clean it up. The mice ate the electricals in the oven/stove. I kept my place clean, but the smell was nauseating and unhealthy. The day after i called the health dept. management sent workers to pull apart the cabinets, give me a new oven/stove, and clean up the vacant apartments. This was after months of refusing to act. I wish i had called sooner.

I love how the generation that’s always talking about “bootstraps” is the same generation that got housing, education and lifesaving medical technologies for dirt cheap and then turned those things into the most broken for-profit systems imaginable.

Corporate landlords are the worst. I wish we could cap the amount of single family homes and apartments/condos that a single person or corporation could own. Keeping it small makes for better accountability and more robust home ownership.

"Why don't tenants have negotiation leverage ...?" Well, in Sweden we do. We have an actual forceful tenant's union. The landlords are currently trying to raise the rent again this year, breaching this year's agreement with the union. They won't legally be able to, in the end, because they've signed a contract with the union about it.

THIS type of thing where these unscrupulous people are called out BY NAME also serves an important purpose. Sunlight is the great sanitizer. Keep exposing them!

I’ve been dealing with this since I was 18 and moved out for the first time, I’m 27 now and still dealing with this bullshit and nobody wants to hear it. Everybody says I’m crazy and people get their deposits back and know who their landlord is and their maintenance requests always get handled……like am I living in another reality or something??? Thank you for validating my experiences and bringing me comfort in knowing I’m not crazy and I’m not one of the only few out here dealing with totally corrupt corporate rental situations.

Doxxing landlords to let tenets know who owns them is not only moral, but is the correct thing to do.

I'm a reporter covering mass evictions in Burbank California. Most of the landlords engaging in a recent wave of just cause evictions are under LLCs, and its been a tough search for me and the tenants to try and confront them.

The apartment we used to live in was owned by some company. They did not respond to any of our concerns or requests. We had to buy tokens from their office to use the laundry, but their hours were very inconvenient, and often the tokens would break in the machines without the machine counting them, so we would have to use more. When it would rain, water would come in from around the window frame and from the ceiling above the windows. We were not allowed to take a bath because the water would leak into the unit below us. We literally had water come into our bathroom from the unit above us through the light fixture in the ceiling, but nothing was ever fixed. Now we rent from people we actually personally know. Its not totally perfect, but its much much better. Its good to actually know the person you are renting from, instead of having to deal with some faceless corporation.

The fact that this video takes place in NYC, a city with some of the best landlord-tenant laws in the US, makes me really worry about what's going down in the rest of the country

There needs to be a law that if landlords refuse to rent AV apartment or commercial space then they cannot write it off on taxes. And I used to be a landlord

What a difference a few decades make. Growing up in an Apartment house(24 apartments on 4 floors ) from 1965-1995 in Bay Ridge Brooklyn NY and all those years my Landlord/owner of the building lived on the floor below mine. So, of course the building was always kept very nice and utilities always worked because this guy lived right there with me. When i had a problem i just went down 1 flight of stairs and knocked on his door to get it solved. As soon as he sold the building it all went to crap. I recall him coming up to my apartment and talking to me about it and saying he couldn't say No to the offer the firm made, it was just too good. Firstly, the rents went up by 35% and then it was impossible to get them to fix anything, the utilities would go out and we would call and nobody would do anything. But if you were 1 day late with your rent Oh Boy did they respond quickly!!

Landlords should certainly not be allowed to operate anonymously - that is total BS.

I'm a disabled veteran living in a retirement apartment complex. When we got a rate increase from SSA last year, they immediately raised our rent 2X of our income increase. I hope things work out for you.

This made me cry MORE. My slumlord in another state refuses to fix broken underground water pipe. For years I paid $30mo. Last bill was$108!! Now he demands rent increase and for me to sign new month to month lease and is threatening "serious consequences" if I don't. I'm on social security, old and crippled without family or friends to help move me. I live in old trailer. He's been selling condemned trailers to meth addicts. Maybe if i learned how to make it I'd have a good business here to pay him and fix everything he won't fix.

Australian here, living in a 80 year old house with mostly 80's features and no temp control, was hit with a $100 rent increase, second increase in a year. Emailed back the real estate place requesting maybe $60 increase and was immediately refused. We'd asked them to relay our message to the landlord as we were told by the shop owners next door they they were a nice old couple who would listen, I feel like there's no way the real estate guys passed on our message as they replied so quickly. Feeling so angry and defeated, if theres a rally or protest point me in the direction and i'll wheelchair my way tf over

I'm surprised there isn't a bill to disincentivize empty apartments, especially rent stabilized ones. It should be ridiculously expensive to keep so many units of housing empty for more than a few months

Down with greed. Down with corruption. Hold everyone accountable

Nobody should have the right to do business anonymously. Ever.

We should not allow corporate entities to own housing, period.

If you left the place spotless, how could they justify the cleaning fee by law?? Absolute pigs, these landlords. I'm lucky to live in Vienna, where we have strong tenant protections and more than half of all available flats have severe price ceilings which keeps down the prices of the non-price cealing flats too. Every city should have laws like these.

I once worked for a family of landlords in Rockland County that were so shady I could only answer the phone "4800, how can I help you?" My first call of the first day was THE PEOPLES COURT! The girl training me said "hang up!" So I did. I should've ran. They were the most horrendous family I ever met. So afraid of being caught my entire office was full of banker boxes they would burn before the high holy days!

I'm a handyman that can fix and build anything. I have wrestled for years with whether or not I should own rental properties for income. And I just can't seem to do it. I just have a problem with squeezing money out of people while adding no value to the world. Everyone should own their home, but landlords are making that harder.

The landlord kicks you out, raises the rent to the stratosphere, then doesn't rent the place. So, theoretically, he's losing money...right? Not necessarily. Every month the place isn't rented at the exorbitant price, he writes it off as a tax loss against his other business interests. Also, don't forget that commercial real estate in places like New York City are classic vehicles for money laundering.

Being able to sue another doesn't fix anything when they can just tie it up in courts for decades.

I have lived in 4 different rooms and flats in London. Never once met my landlord- and it didn’t cross my mind how shady and unusual that is until I saw this video

The saddest part is that none of this surprises me. There's so much discontent and division in America that most of the population is completely blind to what the wealthy do. There are a plethora of systems like this in America that have quietly been built up in the past decades. They also affect all facets of life; the rental market is just one example. The main goal in all of them is to keep as much money at the top while making it as difficult as possible for average people to create change. Everything is so obscured and redundant now that even if legislation is passed in favor of tenants, landlords will just metaphorically shift the pieces to keep the overall game in their favor.

There seems to be a record number of homeless people at the same time there's a record number of vacancies. Also, there seems to be little incentive for landlords to actually compete with each other, particularly with the housing market being what it is today. The real estate corporations seem think and act as one body. Perhaps it's time to amend the anti-trust laws.

The fact he was able to not get angry throughout this whole video or call the landlord names...class...just pure class. Slow clap. Takes a lot of courage and self-control to stick with the facts and just tell the story.

I was a renter in St Paul MN when the rent increase limit was on the ballot, I literally had to block my landlord on FB bc he started harassing me for being publicly in favor of the limit! Thankfully our property manager who we actually interfaced with for rent and maintenance was kinder, but it really soured us on what had otherwise been a fairly pleasant renting experience (flat fee laundry, free parking, updated kitchen/bath). We did not renew our lease there.

I didn’t know how good I had it when my landlord lived in the same apartment building that I did. The 2 or 3 times I ever had a problem, I’d just text her and she’d send someone up in less than 10 minutes. I moved for work so my rent’s 20% more expensive now, and waiting multiple days for him to respond to an email to get something taken care of or have a question answered is really frustrating. And I’ve had more problems in the first 4 months than the whole last 2 years at my old spot 😢

The fact that renting a house is so prevalent in the urban areas in the US, only serves to see that your system is made to be sure that you are always in debt with someone and technically own nothing. Wew, that is a lot and scary.

I wouldn't mind organizing a landlord blacklist, credit scores should always work both ways. A city wide tenants union could twist a very silly knife into the side of equity holders failing to consider what their investments are based on.

It is insane what is legal in the USA

This is so horrible. I was able to live in NYC for 23 right out of college. I couldn’t do that today. But I love people standing up to greed and abuse of power.

Here in Vancouver, Canada, our government has implemented a "Vacancy tax" in order to encourage landlords not to unfairly drive up prices with an artificial supply problem. A "Vacancy Tax" essentially significantly increases the owners yearly property tax if the owner does not rent out the property.

Last year, when my landlords raised my rent, the leasing agent looked across the desk at me and actually said, “We have to do this to remain competitive”. My jaw practically hit the floor. Since when does raising prices make you more competitive?!? Has capitalism been inverted? I didn’t say anything to the woman-it’s not her fault n she has no control. Still I found it absolutely shameless. They’re raising it again $250/month(im in Portland, Or) so I’m moving n downgrading to a one bedroom.

In Sweden all rental properties that I have lived in have had a union of a sort. It’s made up of tenants and they always sit in on negotiations about rent increases.

Damn, landlords that leave their buildings empty due to charging overpriced rent should be penalized where it hurts them, hit their piggybank, tax them to heaven or just plainly expropiate the building and auction it so that an actual person that cares buys it, develops it and rents it at a reasonable price.

This is an issue of political will. We don't have representatives that are going to help us. This is why there is activism. The apathy of the exploiting party cannot be corrected without actual, physical, action. They are too removed, intellectually, and have to be confronted in reality.

Ive had landlords deny security deposts when i lived with my relatives. Unfortunately for the landlord we took pictures of move in day and move out day and it was cleaner when we moved out. Threatened a lawsuit and shared the pictures and suddenly they had a change of heart. A lot of these companies fold at the slightest pushback, but 90% of people dont push back at all.

When I moved out of my last college apartment we left it literally spotless except for a full, sealed draino bottle below the sink (I viewed it as a gift to the next tenant, pipes sucked donkey dick) they viewed it as trash and an excuse to attempt to keep my deposit. My mom and I heard staff blatantly say ("... but theres literally nothing in it, looks spotless I can't find anything") while they walked down the hallway, the theft that they must have been perpetuating was disgusting.

I worked with some of the people who worked on the good cause eviction bill. It's been passed in several towns and cities in upstate New York and there are still loopholes that were kept in the bill to get enough votes for it to be passed. For instance, if the landlord sells the building to another landlord, good cause is nullified. There's a lot of work to be done on the bill and more widespread support in the state senate is needed

This reminded me of the time I tried to get my security deposit back after leaving the place spotless. We shampooed the carpets, cleaned the walls, went all out. It looked better than when we moved in. Our request for the deposit back was denied. When we asked why, the landlord claimed he found "rust" on the refrigerator shelves. The shelves were plastic.

Security deposits are a joke. You will NEVER see that money back, because the landlords collude on that too. They have entire pages on how to review units in a way that let's them claim as much damages as possible.

Same case here, I simply don't trust my "landlord", who is really just a middle man that works for a LLC. This is exactly why, when the time comes to move out, I am not paying my last month, which equals my security deposit. This move is actually extremely common in my country and thankfully everyone can get away with it as long as there are proofs you left the place in good conditions.

people in the 80s " it's a dog eat dog world" people in 2023: " landlords no longer look out for the best interest of the tenants"

You know who gets hit the most with rent increases? the elderly. Twenty-five years ago when they were 80 years old my great aunt sold her big house and started renting a smaller, easier to keep clean place all on one floor. Landlord doubled her rent three times, Landlord knowing that she was rich thought she would keep paying far higher prices then go though the hassle of moving. When my aunt found out about this she was pissed so invited her to live with us. She died at the age of 102 rather than move her to a retirement home though thank goodness for Canadian home care.

I moved into my current residence around 2003. It's a single bedroom in a very bad neighborhood. Recently there was a police stand off with an armed individual living on the block just south of me where the cops were stationed with an armored vehicle in a parking lot I can see from my living room window. Shots were fired so I could have actually been hit with a stray bullet. And a few weeks before that a dead body was retrieved from an empty lot on my own block less than 100 feet from my back door. For almost 20 years I lived here paying the same rent. $250 for the apartment and another $20 on top for sewage, trash, and water shared with the rest of the building. I didn't mind the dangerous neighborhood because I keep to myself and the cheap rent allowed me to pay a month in advance which helped in case there was some kind of emergency. That rent didn't change for those 20 years and it was easy to see why, most of my neighbors in all that time were very temporary residents and many of them were living lives that were dangerous or involved criminal activity to some degree. The building was always a bit of a revolving door of people either hoping to move somewhere nicer as soon as possible or people just looking for a place to hole-up in for a while. Then, this year, the property was sold to new owners. The woman they put in charge then immediately threatened to kick me out because, and I'm dead serious, she didn't like my attitude. She demanded I move out because she didn't like me after interacting with me twice for a total of less than thirty minutes. When I asked her nicely to be reasonable she rose my rent by $150 and basically told me I was lucky she's such a nice and forgiving person. She's not a nice and forgiving person. She has convinced herself this property which is across the street from a food mission and down the street from a soup kitchen and a homeless shelter would be a good home for middle class families with kids and a stable income. She's been left in charge of low rent housing and is trying to delude herself into thinking otherwise. Naturally she's just the property manager, and a piss poor one at that, the new owners are doing everything they can to remain anonymous and now want to get rid of the property having discovered how much of a money pit it is just to keep it habitable. As you can guess reading all of this I'm extremely poor so my only recourse has been trying to fix up my parents' attic so I can move back in with them. At 39. Not exactly a proud moment in my adult life. Still I'd prefer dealing with the shame of living with my parents again since at least then I'll be paying rent to people I love and respect. ....If we can get that attic fixed up... Everything is so damn expensive any more.

Housing 👏is 👏a 👏human 👏right, not an investment. Sheer greed is one of the factors driving this. We've got a housing and rental crisis in British Columbia. A Landlord can not legally raise rent more than a maximum % per year but as this video shows, Landlords and REITs find loopholes and do what they can to extract as much rent as they can from tenants.

That's messed up. We have laws to protect tenants in Canada and limits on annual rent increases. In fact, many Canadian landlords complain about how tenants have more rights than they do (which is obviously a good sign, as you know!!!) However, the Canadian "workaround" or loophole is that landlords will either move-in a family member or perform a renovation so they can evict the current tenant legally. Then, they jack the rent way up after that.

We need to keep bullying and exposing landlords.

America overall has an accountability problem. Modern technology has made it easier to put distance between owners and customers, in nearly all situations, and these changes have always led to greed winning out which is always bad for consumers. This is what capitalism looks like when played out alongside depersonalizing technology. It will only get worse until either major laws are passed or violent protests make it no longer safe to be a greedy fatcat.

New Jersey absolutely has no rent control, wtf is that dude talking about. The entire coast of the Hudson is getting gentrified as fuck.

Buy property in America, you lose. Rent a property in America, you lose. Seems like LEAVING America is the best thing to do. Let the greedy people live alone with their money.

I have heard the part about landlords in NY not caring if a significant percentage of their units are empty from several people over the years. If this was simply about extracting as much money from working people as possible, that would not be something that they do, they would lower the prices to keep the units full, cause a unit pulling in less rent is better than one pulling in no rent. My best guess is that these companies don't actually care about the income from charging rent as much as they do about capital gains from buying and selling the buildings themselves, and that raising rents at the cost of letting units go empty, is just a method of inflating the theoretical value of the building since value of real estate is largely determined by how much people think they can charge for the rent now.

This is what happens when the rich aren't heavily taxed and allowed to grow so rich, that they can buy up everything in sight and then rent it to you so you can make them even richer. They even bought our government, in case you haven't noticed.

Nice one! Need more stuff like this to educate the renters and fight back

If a unit or property is empty for a year, it should be seized by the state and turned into social housing.

Being a landlord and choosing to stay anonymous is both an admission of guilt and one of the most cowardly moves a human being can make on this planet. That's so pathetic, Jesus christ.

Great video, It's absolutely a kick in the face when they withhold or refuse to return your security deposit. Especially if there's no damage and a clean apartment. Our last landlord (which is also an LLC) said they would give us ours back, but has failed to do so since February. I know it's slow and intimidating, but don't forget to take advantage of the legal system. We saved all of our emails, text messages, documents, and recorded out apartment on move in and move out and are currently in the small claims process. Some people may say there's no point or think of it as to much work, but its absolutely necessary seeing as we worked for that money, they have a legal obligation, and not doing anything just confirms to them they can get away with it.

They're all colluding together to raise rents together. It's illegal.

There are bad guys, but there are reverse situations too. I lost my house thanks to three consecutive tenants who moved in paid the deposit and month in advance then not a penny more. It took months and money to get each one out leaving me without enough to pay the mortgage. I was working overseas at the time but not on a huge salary, just looking after my family.

I rented a house a couple years back that was owned by a company who had recently bought hundreds of houses in the area. I never met a landlord or any agent of any kind. It was all over email. When I first moved in, the company who had painted and "cleaned" the house for turnover had sprayed paint all over the floors, windows, counters. There were full tread shoe prints in white paint inside and outside the house. Thick globs of paint on the kitchen floor tiles and marble counters. I was never able to reach a human being to do anything about it. The "rental company" office was 3 states away. After a bit of digging I found out that the actual property owner was an AI company based in China. They just use bots to scour for homes for sale and purchase properties to turn into rentals. They use a "property management" company who's sole purpose is to handle evictions and find lowest bidder contractors for legally obligated repairs.

8:24 Our previous landlord withheld our security deposit even though we haven't put a nail on the wall. They said they are charging us for "patch painting". I checked the laws and that's considered a wear and tear item and can't be a reason to withhold security deposit. We went to small claims court. They came with a bunch of legal presentatives, my wife got scared of legal fees if we lose the case so we ended up dropping the case. Since then all the rental applications we have done have been negative, even though we have perfect rental history. Really messed up stuff. Yeah there are laws against this but how are you going to prove that the landlord rejected you because they saw your name on court documents? One potential landlord told us that their phones stopped working so they renting the place to someone else. We are pretty much being punished for seeking our rights in the court.

It's wild to me your landlord can hide behind anonymity. I know my current landlady, she comes see us every few months and I have met her while doing groceries, when she was hanging out at her boyfriend's place (he lives just a crossing away). I have lived in the same house as another landlady of mine. I have lived in a college dorm and I knew who was in charge of them.

During the pandemic, a terminally ill "friend" (that's a whole crazy story on it's own) moved back to Texas and wanted us to live together as I am disabled as well. We found a place outside of Austin that met most of what we were looking for and at a fairly reasonable price. It turned out to be public housing units for that town and the new landlord wanted to flip it. We were the first white and Asian residents of his to get that ball rolling. We got to know our neighbors, who were black and brown folks, whose leases weren't up yet and learned that some had been there for many years. When their leases were up, they were denied renewals and more white people were moving in after remodeling their apartments. One day, one of the ladies from the rental company the landlord was using was talking with us (we're both smokers that smoked outside a lot) and she said "like I said, we just had to change the dermographic of the tenants as the first step" to her husband and they were both black, it broke my heart to hear her say that. After two years there and our apartment being the last one that needed to be remodeled, we were denied renewal. Now, my son and I are living out of our car since my SSDI isn't anywhere near enough to reach the bare minimum for rentals in Austin and I REALLY don't want to have a roommate anymore. How can I trust strangers as a roomie after being fucked over by a supposed nearly lifelong friend? I may just have to bite the bullet though as affordable housing waiting list is a gazillion miles long. Ugh.

660,000 airbnbs in the US 500,000 homeless

Tenants - including those who live in manufactured home parks - need to have protection from greedy corporate landlords and from slumlords period. Rent needs to be affordable - not just lining the pockets of the owners. Yes, property rights are important, but landlords need to remember their tenants are human and as such have a human right to a decent place to live.

Anonymity is completely inappropriate in this business. Don't do business with them if you cannot talk to them.

People who profit from schemes like this schould be held legally responsible. To the point, where they can be thrown into prison for ruining other peoples lives. Politicians who defend such practices should be thoroughly been investigated for corruption.

For New York, specifically - The building owners all over NYC are refusing to rent out their spaces for less than the "Market Value" for years on end because lower rent means their building has a lower value. The government is also not being helpful with this problem because a LARGE portion of the budget is driven by property taxes. If the value of the buildings goes down, the budget goes down. So the owners are letting both businesses and rentals sit empty to maintain their value. It is a vicious cycle that will only be broken when NYC goes bankrupt or enough owners default on their property loans to force a change.

"How is this legal?" - all of Europe.

Proposition M, passed in SF with 54% of voters approval. It required landlords of large properties to pay tax on units vacant for more than 182 days. The landlords have filed a counter lawsuit claiming this: "The government cannot compel a property owner to rent his or her property to third parties without violating the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution."

For a 1st world country, America really does try hard to make themselves appear like a 3rd world country. Ah, the land of the free.

In Australia, the Government, and local councils put a tax on "vacant possession", mostly to do with foreign buyers from buying then sitting on the property without tenants. This law took thousands of places back into the tenancy market. Just like Canada, most foreign investors were Chinese or Corporate owners.

As a german I always wondered why americans hated their landlords but after seeing the laws or rather the not existing laws for tenant protection i understand them. Here in germany these laws are already established as far as i know and i have never heard anyone talking about a lease for their home. I feel like they don't exist so you never have the fear to be kicken out. Hope your family now has a nicer landlord

Good video, but a couple things to note. I live in the greater Los Angeles area. When we put rent control laws into place here it caused many people I knew to be forced out of their homes. Most landlords made huge increases to rent knowing that they wouldn’t be able to make such large adjustments moving forward. This could be legislation specific, but the point should be that there’s a lot of potential for well intended laws to backfire. Be sure to pay attention to the finer details of those bills before voting.

The landlords should remember history. Many a revolution has happened because people have been treated like this until they feel they have no choice. It isn’t hard to see the growing anger of more and more people pushed to the brink.

A majority of people age 30 ish or under are having a hard time with housing. We narrowly missed the affordable timeframe where we could consider buying a home before it inflated ridiculously. I’m 31 and I’ve been living with 2-4 other roommates around age 25 for the past 8 years. Property managers in Phoenix Arizona are hit or miss. They either communicate, repair things and act like they care, OR they ghost your emails, fix things cheaply, random 100$ fees each month and keep deposits whenever possible. They literally don’t care about how tough things are, they try to milk renters for every penny. 2 years ago in Scottsdale, 2021 my “landlord” tried to double our rent when we went to renew the lease. They said “If you’re not okay with the price, you can leave” Then they sold the house and kept our deposit even though we spent 5 days cleaning it.

Please ensure that the law to control rent rises is carefully written . A law was written here in Australia to not allow rent to be increased every year for those who were living in the property. Now it is almost impossible to stay more than a year in one place. Landlords do not offer leases more than a year and don't renew.

I found out the landlord of my childhood apartment is the ex-CEO of a construction power tool monopoly/conglomerate. My family and baby brother still lives with mold and living paycheck to paycheck.

I'm going to start praying for these slumlords to either face prison time and/or that they loose everything they have and end up on the streets homeless. May they be treated with the same respect they gave the tenants. Disgusting.

Even Adam Smith new landlords were parasites that extracted as much as they could by doing as little as possible. "The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give." - Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI "Of the Rent of Land" We need community land trusts, or some sort of land value taxation. Apartments need to be cooperatively owned by their tenants rather than by absentee landlords. The rent is, simply, too damn high!

It's insane to me how unfree the people of the freest country on earth are.

I own my own home, so I have a bit of a different take on this. I bought a small farm to get the quality of life that I desired and there are two rental houses on the farm. My rentals are fairly priced, and the rent includes everything. In 1990 when I bought the place, I netted $1800 on my rentals, not a whole lot but it helped to pay the mortgage. By the time I paid off the mortgage the annual net rental income had fallen to just under $900. In just the last two years my expenses (property tax, insurance, water, sewer, electricity, natural gas, garbage, etc.) have increased by about thirty two percent, the rentals are losing money. I talked to my renters in April, they cannot afford to pay more, they really can't afford the current rent according to the budget one of them showed me. They are moving to apartments in town, they are sad to leave their homes, but the apartments are much cheaper. I will disconnect all utilities and convert the houses into "unoccupied storage facilities". Pretty sad all the way around really, but hopefully it gives a bit of a different perspective.

Finally somebody who's beginning to uncover the absurd greed, corruption and extortion that's been destroying the lives of millions. Thank you, please do not stop, we need more of such content!

In Ontario the Landlord can not legally raise rent more than 2.5% a year. I really feel for the people who get blindsided by a 50-100% increase in the States. The greed is absolutely nothing short of astonishing.

"we told the lawyers they had to give us 90 days notice. They then gave us 90 days notice. This is clear retaliation."

Deregulation. Always deregulation gets mentioned. In NJ, it's a law that when you rent an apartment you get a 'NJ Tenants rights' booklets. When I bought my home, I advised the 'landlord' that I would not be renewing my lease (60 days before it expired) and would be on a month-to-month basis for two months. So they first tried to charge me $100 more than the increased amount because I was 'month-to-month'. Told them I wasn't paying it. And they couldn't rob me of it because I didn't take them up on their have your rent automatically deducted from your checking account as a CONVIENENCE and you avoid late fees. Nope. Not giving you access to my bank account ever. So I pretty much told them take me to court if you want your $200 so badly. Then they tried to tell me I HAD to let them know where I'm moving to. Nope. Not happening. Not legally required so bite me. Then they tried to get me to come 'pick up my mail' after I moved. Nope. Not happening. I had my essential bills (what I didn't pay online) changed to my new address 45 days before I closed, so all they were talking about was junk mail. Then they told me they'd take it out of my security deposit. I paid $99 in security, it was an incentive to get me to sign a lease. You can have it. Bye!

Basic human necessities like housing should NOT be a commodity to be traded and hoarded for profit.