Monthly Archives: August 2017

FREE LED LIGHT BULBS.

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2 years ago, I replaced all the incandescent and CFL light bulbs in my rentals with LED bulbs. However, I may have missed a few. If you find an incandescent light bulb or a CFL light bulb in your unit, bring to me, and I will exchange it for an LED light bulb. LED light bulbs use 80% less electricity than incandescent bulbs. They use less electricity than  CFL light bulbs as well, and unlike CFL light bulbs, LED light bulbs contain no mercury. Burned out CFL bulbs are considered toxic waster; LED bulbs are not. If you have an LED light bulb that has burned out, I have replacement LED light bulbs in the chocolate room.

APPLIANCE LIGHT BULBS.

I also have appliance light bulbs in stock in the chocolate room. Never put a regular light bulb in a refrigerator, freezer, kitchen oven, or microwave oven. These appliances need appliance light bulbs, which are made to withstand both heat and cold.

SOLANO STROLL IS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.

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If you only go to one street festival this year, this is the one to go to! Solano Stroll is the largest street festival in the East Bay. Solano Stroll runs for 2 miles down Solano Avenue through Berkeley and Albany. Over 250,000 people come to Solano Stroll every year. There will be over 500 booths, including 100 individual craft makers, 50 food vendors, and entertainers at nearly every street corner. Solano Stroll opens with a parade that starts at 10AM. Admission is free. The Stroll runs from 10AM to 5PM. Finding parking near the Solano Stroll is virtually impossible unless you arrive early, but there is a free shuttle bus from the North Berkeley BART station to the Stroll.  Plus, AC Transit runs special buses down Marin Avenue, one block over from Solano Avenue to downtown Berkeley. There is also free monitored valet bicycle parking at the Stroll. For more information, go to: Solano Stroll.

THE TOUGHEST LANDLORD IN MARYLAND

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Many states have strange landlord-tenant laws. For example, in Maine it is a crime to bite your landlord. This law just criminalizes biting your landlord, not kicking, stabbing, or punching him. (I wonder what incident led to the passage of this law.) In every state in the U.S., a landlord can evict a tenant for non-payment of rent. A landlord can also sue a former tenant for unpaid rent after the tenant has moved out. However, in my home state of Maryland and a few other states, landlords and real estate investors can also have former tenants arrested and sent to prison for non-payment of rent. (Sounds medieval, doesn’t it?)

As Robert Reich recently wrote: “Jared Kushner’s real estate company uses arrest warrants to collect debts owed by low-income tenants. In recent years, the firm has sought 105 warrants for former tenants in Maryland, more than any other landlord in the state, according to the Baltimore Sun. The debts average less than $5,000, but Kushner tacks on thousands of dollars in legal fees. In some cases, people aren’t even aware they owe Kushner money because his company purchased the debt from a previous owner. When a tenant fails to pay, the company seeks an arrest warrant in a process known as ‘body attachment.’ This predatory practice can result in jail time. Kushner owns 9,000 properties in Maryland, which turn a $30 million annual profit. Since 2015, the company also received $6.1 million in rental subsidies from the federal government.”

Baltimore Sun Article on Kushner.  Donald Trump also uses this same practice in his business, having people arrested and sent to jail for non-payment of rent.

The penalties for non-payment of rent have been much harsher at various times in history. For example, in ancient Rome, a landlord could have a tenant sold into slavery to recover unpaid rent. Incredibly, there are some places in Asia where this practice is still going on. In medieval England, if a serf’s house burned down, he was still obligated to pay his landlord the same amount of rent, and if he refused to pay the rent or ran away, he could be hanged. Now just in case you were wondering….In California, you cannot be arrested, sent to jail, hanged, or sold into slavery for non-payment of rent. However, you can go to jail in California for biting your landlord. That’s assault.

 

WATERGATE.

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Most Americans are too young to remember Watergate, but I remember it well. Watergate dominated the news for 2 years. As Richard Nixon became more and more entangled in legal troubles, he fell back on 3 defense arguments, which he repeated constantly. These arguments were:

1. I am the victim of a witch hunt. (Nixon actually did use the term ‘witch hunt’ to describe the Watergate investigation.)
2. The liberal press is trying to destroy me, led by the Washington Post and the New York Times.
3. I am not a crook. The real criminals are the leakers. I have ordered my attorney general to find and prosecute the leakers.

Does this sound vaguely familiar?

MARTHA MITCHELL. About the leakers…..President Nixon ordered his attorney-general, John Mitchell to find and silence the leakers, which he was never able to do. The problem was that there were just too many leakers. It wasn’t just ‘Deep Throat’ who was leaking White House secrets. An even bigger leaker was Martha Mitchell, the wife of the attorney-general. Martha Mitchell was an alcoholic, and when she got drunk, she would call reporters in the middle of the night and tell them embarrassing White House secrets. She did this quite frequently. Reporters looked forward to getting phone calls from Martha Mitchell because she always gave them headline stories. White House reporters called Martha Mitchell ‘the mouth of the South.’ She was from Georgia. John Mitchell knew his wife was making these phone calls, but he was unable to stop her. Martha Mitchell’s midnight phone calls had a huge impact on the Watergate investigation. After he resigned as president, Richard Nixon told David Frost in a TV interview that “without Martha Mitchell, there would have been no Watergate.”

The Martha Mitchell Effect. There is now a widely-used psychiatric term based on Martha Mitchell. The Martha Mitchell Effect refers to a situation in which a psychiatrist mistakenly concludes that an alcoholic patient is delusional because the patient is making bizarre or extraordinary claims, claims that turn out to be true. John Mitchell had psychiatrists examine his wife, hoping to discredit and silence her. The psychiatrists he hired concluded that Martha Mitchell was delusional because her Watergate conspiracy stories sounded unbelievable; however, it turned out that she was telling the truth! John Mitchell was ultimately disbarred and went to prison for his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Much of the evidence against him came from his wife’s drunken midnight phone calls to reporters. (Yes, that really happened!)