Skip to main content

  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 07/24/23
    First Name: Alyssum
    Last Name: Pohl
    Email: alyssum.pohl@gmail.com
    Organization Type: other
    Organization: Individual

  • Comment

    Financial literacy teaches me that my rent should be only 30% of my total income, but even living in slum-lord conditions where roaches came out of the faucet, or the windows didn't shut letting in freezing or swealtering air, I have not been able to bring that percentage below 40% in my adult life, despite having a master's degree. There are so many issues at stake and it baffles me that government who are supposed to protect their people tend to protect landlords (who already are 'ahead' in life) rather than tenants (who need more support to simply survive). I would love if there were better tenants rights supported at the federal level. I would love if a landlord registry were created so that tenants could know ahead of time what sort of landlord they were about to pay rent to. For instance, I have had generous kind wonderful landlords, but I have also had landlords who I later learned had had multiple court cases against them from other properties including one in which the tenants were experiencing poor water quality and instead of dealing with the problem, the landlord poured bleach into the well where the property got it's water. He literally poisoned his tenants in a half-assed attempt to "fix" the problem. Not only would I have loved to have known ahead of time about his lost law-suits in something like a landlord registry.
    On a related note, access to safe, healthy and good quality housing is very important and in short supply. Response time to maintenance requests tend to be bad (over a month) to non existent (in 3 years, the issues we saw upon moving in were never dealt with). In speaking with the pest management guy who would spray for insects 3x/year, he said the building was infested with roaches and mice, but the landlord wouldn't let them treat the building properly to stem this problem--instead the mice were entirely ignored and the roaches were chased from one unit to another, to keep tenants from all complaining at the same time. This is disgusting and abhorrent. Why isn't this legislated?