Monthly Archives: February 2016

Moving Out

Posted on by
Reply
If you have a lease that expires on May 31 and you plan to leave, you have to give me your move-out notice by April 1. I would prefer to get your notice sooner than that. The sooner I get your move-out notice, the sooner I can get your house rented. For a number of legal reasons. I cannot rent your house or even advertise it for rent without a valid move-out notice from you. Remember:

  • You have to deliver your move-out notice to me at least 60 days before your lease expires. That is in your lease.
  • Your move-out notice must be in writing. That is also in your lease. You have not given me a move-out notice by telling me verbally that you are leaving. A voice mail message is also not a move-out notice. An e-mail is also not a move-out notice. A written move-out notice means exactly that – it must be in writing. Your move-out notice must be dated, it must state the address being rented, it must include a specific date by which everyone in your group will move out, and your notice must be signed by everyone named in the lease. You can deliver your move-out notice to me personally or you can mail it to me.
  • Your move-out notice must be definite. I sometimes get a move-out notice like this: “I will be moving out by June 1 unless I can’t find another place to rent by then.” This is not a valid move-out notice because it is not clear that the tenant is actually leaving. I cannot rent an apartment to a new tenant if I do not know for certain that the current tenant is leaving.
  • Your move-out notice should state how you would like your security deposit refunded. Do you want one check made payable to everyone named in the lease or do you want separate checks? If you want separate checks, you have to say so, and everyone has to agree to that. If you want separate checks, you need to tell me what percent of the deposit should go to each person. If you do not instruct me in writing to issue separate refund checks, then I will issue just one check made payable to everyone named in the lease. If you want me to mail your refund check to you, include the address you want your check mailed to. You can pick up your refund check from me personally if you prefer.
  • Moving out means moving out. Regardless of what it says in your move-out notice, you have not moved out until physical possession of your apartment or house has been returned to me. As long as people or personal property belonging to your group are still on the premises, you have not moved out. If your group is still in possession after the date on your move-out notice, you could have legal problems, especially if I have already rented your house to a new group, and they can’t move in because you didn’t move out.

Ants! Part 2

Posted on by
Reply
I had an article in last month’s tenant newsletter about ants. A couple of people emailed me afterward asking if there was some way of getting rid of ants without pesticides. I have been asked that before, but sorry, I really don’t know of any effective way to do that. Ants lay down a chemical trail when they find food. Other ants can follow that trail – and for a considerable time and distance from their nest. One method of controlling ants that I know doesn’t work is yelling at them. A few years ago, I had a tenant who tried that. She lived in the house next door to me. I could sometimes hear her yelling at the ants in her kitchen: “Get out! Get out!” A neighbor living in the apartment house on the other side of her once called the police because of this. He thought my tenant was being physically attacked, but when the police arrived, my tenant explained to them that she was OK and that she was just yelling at the ants in her kitchen. I am sorry that I wasn’t there. I would have liked to have seen the expressions on the faces of those policemen when my tenant told them that she was yelling at the ants in her kitchen. However, this is Berkeley, so it is quite possible that those policemen were not surprised by this explanation.

LED Lighting

Posted on by
Reply
I am in the process of replacing all the CFLs (Compact Florescent Lights) and incandescent light bulbs in my rentals with LED light bulbs. LED light bulbs have several advantages over CFLs.
  • LED light bulbs use 30% to 40% less electricity than CFLs. That is mainly because they produce less heat, which is wasted energy in light bulbs.
  • LED light bulbs last much longer than CFLs. The life expectancy of LED light bulbs is over 20 years, so you should never have to replace them.
  • LED light bulbs contain no mercury. The thing that always made me uncomfortable about CFLs is that they all contain mercury and break easily.
I will be contacting you soon to set up a time to replace your light bulbs. I have 40 watt and 60 watt replacement size LED bulbs. LED light bulbs tend to be brighter than CFLs, so if you want me to put the lower watt LED bulbs in your rooms, let me know. I will bring both size LED bulbs with me. I would like to do this job while you are home and in the evening, so you can see what your rooms will look like with the LED light bulbs turned on.

The Birther Issue

Posted on by
Reply
Donald Trump. When Barrack Obama first ran for president in 2008, Donald Trump claimed that Obama did not meet the Constitutional requirements to be President of the United States. Because that became a major issue in the election, I gave my history students a class on the Constitutional requirements for the job of president. I plan to give that class again later this month because the birther issue is back in the news. Ted Cruz was born in Canada, and because of that, a number of people (including some famous experts on Constitutional law) have questioned whether Ted Cruz is qualified to be president. Here is what I told my students in 2008.

There are 3 requirements for the job of President of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.

  1. The president must be 35 years of age.
  2. The president must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. (The people who wrote the Constitution put in this provision because they wanted to be sure that the president was someone who understood the American people and was familiar with the country. They didn’t want someone who had spent his life in foreign countries.)
  3. The president must be a natural born citizen.

Birth Certificates. You will notice that there is no Constitutional requirement that the president has to have a birth certificate. You sometimes hear people say that the president has to have a birth certificate to prove that he was born in the United States, but that isn’t true. Although it is now standard procedure for someone to issue a birth certificate when a baby is born in a hospital in the United States, very few people prior to the 20th Century had birth certificates. Most of America’s 18th and 19th Century presidents were born at home, and on farms or on the frontier. There was nobody present when they were born to issue a birth certificate. The first U.S. president to be born in a city was Teddy Roosevelt, and he was a 20th Century president. We know that George Washington did not have a birth certificate. Neither did Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, or Abraham Lincoln. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution about birth certificates.

Natural Born Citizen. The Constitution says that in order to be a senator or congressman, you merely need to be a citizen, but in order to be president, you have to be a natural born citizen. What’s the difference? Nobody knows for sure. The Constitution does not define the term ‘natural born citizen’. Congress has never passed a law defining this term, and the Supreme Court has never made a ruling on this issue. A number of people have run for president who were born in foreign countries, but none of them won, so the Supreme Court never heard a test case about this question. Below are the names of some of the men who ran for President of the United States, but who were not born in a state. 

  • George Romney, the Governor of Michigan and father of Mitt Romney. He ran for president in 1968. George Romney was born in Mexico. His parents lived in Mexico most of their lives and were married in Chihuahua. Was George Romney a natural born citizen? (I once met George Romney. It was at the Oakland Airport Hilton while he was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.)
  • John McCain was the Republican candidate for president in 2008. He born in the Panama Canal Zone, which never part of a state. McCain came very close to getting elected. He got 48% of the popular vote.
  • Al Gore was born in Washington, D.C., which is also not a state.
  • Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona, but when Arizona was a territory, not a state.
  • Lowell Weicker, the Governor of Connecticut, ran for president in 1980. He was born in Paris, France.

Is Ted Cruz A Natural Born Citizen? If Ted Cruz is elected president, the Supreme Court will undoubtedly be immediately petitioned to decide whether he is or isn’t a natural born citizen. Ted Cruz could have a problem. The Panama Canal Zone was under the jurisdiction of U.S. law when John McCain was born there, and Washington, D.C. has always been under the jurisdiction of U.S. law. However, Canada is a foreign country and has never been under the jurisdiction of U.S. law. Also, both of Ted Cruz’s parents applied to vote in Canadian elections. That could be a big problem for Cruz. There is a long established legal principal that says that if you are a U.S. citizen and move to a foreign country and vote in their elections, that is evidence that you no longer consider yourself a U.S. citizen. Is Ted Cruz qualified to be president? A number of famous legal scholars have written articles on this subject. Some say that Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen. Others say he isn’t. If Ted Cruz is elected president, the Supreme Court will have to decide the question.

Snob Appeal Chocolate and Hamantashen

Posted on by
Reply

SNOB APPEAL CHOCOLATE.

 

Would you pay $14,000 for a box of 6 chocolate truffles? Believe it or not, that is what Ross Ltd. is charging. Ross is located in Kazakhstan, an oil-rich country with petro-millionaires and billionaires, although most people living there are dirt poor. The prices that some rich people are willing to pay for snob appeal products always amazes me. Have these people nothing better to do with their money? If you want to know what could possibly justify a price of $14,000 for a box of chocolates, the answer is simple – NOTHING! To see what these truffles look like, go to: $14,000 Truffles.  

NEW IN MY CHOCOLATE ROOM.hamantashenHAMANTASHEN. I’ve got handmade raspberry and apricot filled hamantashen in the chocolate room, bottom-dipped in semisweet and milk chocolate. Because they are handmade, no 2 are exactly alike. This is a seasonal item and will only be available for a short time. The word ‘hamantashen’ means ‘Haman’s pockets’ in Yiddish and German.P.S. – I don’t often make make chocolate truffles. They are too time consuming. However, if you are willing to pay me $14,000, I will make up a very nice box of truffles – just for you!