Laminated Wood Flooring From China

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There have been a lot of stories in the news this year about laminated wood flooring imported from China containing dangerously high levels of formaldehyde. An investigation by ’60 Minutes’ earlier this year of products sold by Lumber Liquidators has led to both criminal investigations and civil lawsuits against the company. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen. Laminated wood flooring with very high levels of formaldehyde sold by Lumber Liquidators was installed in tens of thousands of houses across the United States before the scandal broke. I always try to be careful in selecting that materials that I use in my rentals. There is no laminated wood flooring in any of my rentals.

Are Dolphins Spying For Israel?

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In August, newspapers in Gaza announced that their navy captured a dolphin spying for Israel. They said that the dolphin had been ‘brainwashed’, ‘stripped of its will’ and ‘turned into a murderer’ by the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. Spying for Israel is a death penalty offense in Gaza, but there is no word as to whether the dolphin will be put on trial. Several other governments in the region have also claimed to have caught animal spies. In 2007, the government of Iran said they ‘arrested 14 squirrels trying to enter the country illegally’ to spy on their nation’s nuclear facilities but ‘thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services, they failed to complete their mission.’ The Iranian government determined that the squirrels were spying for England based on their ‘cunning methods.’ Hmmm. Do you think it’s true? You know, the English are very good at espionage, and I hear that there are a lot of squirrels in England.

ARE YOU REALLY EATING DOLPHIN WHEN YOU ORDER MAHI MAHI?


Yes and No. There are 2 very different animals in the sea called ‘dolphins’, one is a mammal and one is a fish. The sea mammal called dolphin, also called a porpoise, has lungs and needs to come to the surface periodically for air. The dolphin fish, also known as mahi mahi, is a fish. It has scales and gills and does not need to come to the surface for air. The sea mammal called dolphin is completely unrelated biologically to the dolphin fish. The two do not look alike. Sea mammal dolphins are cute, intelligent, and playful. You see them quite often in movies and TV shows. The dolphin fish is homely and stupid. Nobody makes movies about them. Mahi mahi appears on the menus of lots of restaurants. It is understandable that many people are confused about this. I have corrected confused waiters at Spenger’s (Berkeley’s largest and oldest seafood restaurant) about this. In conclusion, you are not eating ‘Flipper’ when you order mahi mahi.

 

 

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Free Bicycle Tire Repair.

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The recently opened Sports Basement store at 2727 Milvia Street is, by far, the largest sporting goods store in Berkeley.  At the bottom of the rate poster on the wall in the bicycle department, it says that  flat tire repairs are free. I asked someone working in the department if there were any strings attached to this offer. He said No. Sports Basement will repair a flat tire on any bicycle at no charge, regardless of where you bought your bicycle. You can’t beat that price! You don’t have to remove the wheel first. Just roll your bicycle into the store and take it to the bike department. Their prices for other bicycle repairs seem very reasonable to me. Replacing a broken spoke is $15. I recently paid $30 to have a broken spoke replaced on my bicycle.

Sports Basement is worth a visit, even if you don’t own a bicycle. It is located in the old Berkeley Iceland building. Back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s; Berkeley Iceland was a nationally famous ice skating rink. Important competitions were held there. The Ice Capades used to perform there. Many Olympic gold medal ice skaters performed there, including Brian Boitano and Kristie Yamaguchi. On Iceland’s opening night in 1940, 3-time Olympic gold medalist and movie star Sonja Henie skated at Iceland. The place started losing money in the 1980s. The building needed major repairs and a new refrigeration system, so it closed in 2007. Sports Basement put millions into restoring the building, and it shows. This place is a great addition to the neighborhood. The city of Berkeley apparently thinks so too. They installed parking meters in front of the store just before it opened. That part of Milvia Street never had meters before. I doubt the city will make any money off the new meters. Sports Basement has a large free parking lot.

Worst Application Ever.

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“I’m Lucky.” I once got an application for an apartment in Berkeley from a young single woman. On her application form, she said that she was a self-employed ‘holistic therapist.’ That’s one of those job titles can mean anything. She claimed to have a good income, but her income was completely verifiable. She said that most of her customers paid her in cash and that she didn’t file tax returns. I told her that unverifiable income doesn’t carry a lot of weight with landlords when reviewing rental applications. She said that she knew that; however, she kept saying: “You really should to rent this apartment to me” and she said it in a sly way as though there was some special reason that I should know about, but didn’t. After a while, my curiosity got the better of me and I asked her: “Why do you keep saying that?” She said: “Because I’m lucky, and if you rent this apartment to me, you will be lucky too. I bring good luck to landlords.” I asked her what she meant by that. She said: “Just a few days after I moved into my last apartment, my landlord’s mother was run over by a delivery truck and killed. He inherited a fortune. His mother had a lot more money than he thought she did.” I concluded that the point of this woman’s story was that she is lucky for landlords – – but not their mothers. I decided to take my chances of getting an unlucky tenant and rented my apartment to somebody else. As it turned out, the tenant I rented my apartment to actually was unlucky! He was a graduate student at U.C. Berkeley. A short while after he moved in, he broke a leg on a ski trip. He had a lot of difficulty getting to campus for several months while his leg was in a cast, and it was during the rainy season too.

Do Disabled People Really Need Kangaroos?

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In February, 2015; a woman walked into a McDonald’s restaurant in the town of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin with her kangaroo and ordered a meal. Other customers in the restaurant were shocked and called the police. When the police arrived, the woman told them that the kangaroo was a ‘service animal’, and therefore, she had a legal right to bring the kangaroo into the restaurant with her. She said that she needed the kangaroo to provide her with emotional support while she was fighting cancer. Fortunately, the woman was cooperative and promised the police that she would not bring the kangaroo back with her the next time she went to McDonald’s. However, the woman has 4 other kangaroos at home, and it is not clear whether her promise applies to them as well. The city of Beaver Dam quickly passed a law limiting service animals to dogs and small horses, which complies with the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act.) However, the city could not limit what animals can be used as therapy or emotional support animals, so if the kangaroo is reclassified as a therapy animal, the woman could still bring it into the restaurant.

Something similar to this happened in 2012 in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; where a woman had a kangaroo in her apartment. The landlord didn’t want a kangaroo in his building, but since it was a ‘therapy kangaroo’, there was nothing he could do about it. The woman eventually moved out voluntarily. She gave her kangaroo to an animal rescue ranch, which resolved the issue.

kangaroo2About Kangaroos. Let me make one thing clear about kangaroos: kangaroos are not domesticated animals. I mention this because in cartoons and children’s books, kangaroos are often depicted working as butlers, waiters, or prizefighters. In reality, kangaroos can do none of these things. Kangaroos cannot be trained to do useful work for human beings, like seeing eye dogs for the blind. Despite what you may have seen in cartoons, people in Australia do not employ kangaroos as household servants. Also, kangaroos cannot box, nor do they wear boxing gloves like they do in Warner Brothers cartoons. It is surprising how many people believe that kangaroos actually can box just because they have seen it in cartoons.
 
Burmese Pythons. I know a landlord who rented an apartment to a man with a ‘therapy Burmese python.’ The snake weighed over 100 pounds and could kill a grown man. The landlord was aware of how dangerous the snake was. The landlord didn’t want the rent his apartment to this man, but he did so anyway because he didn’t want to risk getting sued. Now in case you are wondering: ‘How dangerous are Burmese pythons?’, consider the case of Grant Williams. Grant Williams, age 19, bought a Burmese python at a pet store in New York City and took it home to his apartment in the Bronx. Five months later, another tenant in the building found Mr. Williams in the hallway dead, lying in a pool of his own blood, and with the snake still coiled around him.

Kitty Cat. Many years ago, a man applied to rent a house that I owned in Oakland. He told me that he had a cat named Kitty Cat. I had advertised that I would allow a cat. I asked the man some questions about his cat. I don’t recall exactly what he said, but whatever it was, it made me suspicious. I asked him if he had a photo of Kitty Cat with him. He said Yes. He opened his wallet, took out a photograph, and handed it to me, and that is how I found out that Kitty Cat was, in fact, a western mountain lion, also known as a cougar or a puma. I don’t know how big Kitty Cat was, but I recall that the guy told me that Kitty Cat ate 10 pounds of horsemeat a day, every day, so it must have been a pretty big cat. Technically, the man hadn’t lied to me. A mountain lion is a cat, and I did advertise that I would allow a cat in the house; nevertheless, I turned down his application anyway. Because the man said that the mountain lion was a ‘pet’, I could do that. If he had told me that he was disabled and that Kitty Cat was a ‘therapy mountain lion’, I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t know if could have legally refused to rent to him. The man had excellent credit and lots of money. He was an heir to a famous San Francisco coffee fortune. Many years later, in 2010, Berkeley police shot and killed a mountain lion in a parking lot near Chez Panisse. Since it is now illegal to own a mountain lion in California, the police think that someone was secretly keeping the mountain lion as a pet and that it escaped. The lion appeared to be well fed and in good health. I have wondered if that mountain lion might have been Kitty Cat, but I will never know.

What Is Reasonable? Under Federal law, landlords have to make ‘reasonable accommodations’ for the needs of disabled tenants. That includes the right to keep therapy and emotional support animals. The problem is that there is no list of what animals qualify. ANY animal can be a therapy or emotional support animal. An emotional support animal can be a kangaroo, a pig, a chimpanzee, an alpaca, a horse, a falcon, or even an alligator. It can be anything. You know, ‘reasonable’ is a tricky word. Every rational businessman wants to be perceived as reasonable by his customers, but who gets to decide whether or not he is being reasonable? Suppose an applicant for an apartment shows a landlord a note from his psychiatrist that says that he needs a kangaroo for emotional support. Who gets to decide whether allowing that tenant to keep a kangaroo in his apartment is a reasonable accommodation, the landlord or the man with the kangaroo?

I have long believed that HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) should publish a list of what animals can be kept as therapy and emotional support animals. The list should be short and specific and take public health and safety into consideration. HUD has the power to do this. I believe that someday a landlord somewhere in the U.S. is going to rent an apartment to somebody with a therapy, companion, or emotional support animal that has no business being in an apartment, and that as a result, another tenant in the building or a neighbor will be killed. I think that is inevitable. When somebody is killed as a result of this irresponsible policy, HUD or Congress may finally change the rules. It’s too bad that someone may have to die first. This is a subject that I really feel very strongly about.

Paying Rent With RadPad.

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If you would like to pay your rent without writing out a check every month, check out Rad Pad. Rad Pad can issue and mail an physical rent check to me or any other landlord in the U.S. If you set up an account with them and pay with a debit card, the fee for their service is zero. (I can’t see how they can afford to do that.) If you use a credit card, they charge 2.99%. That seems like a lot, but If you have a rebate credit card, the net cost to you could be relatively little, depending on how generous your rebate card is.

Woulr You Pay $260 For A Chocolate Bar?

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toakA 50 gram (1.8 ounce) To’ak chocolate bar sells for $260. Each To’ak chocolate bar is packed in a wood box and comes with a 115 page guidebook. By contrast, my chocolate bars do not come with a guidebook. You have to figure out how to eat my chocolate bars all by yourself and without written instructions. To’ak chocolate bars are made from a very rare and genetically pure variety of cocao bean called Nacional. Nacional cocao trees were thought to be extinct. The variety was nearly wiped out in 1917 by an outbreak of witch’s broom disease; however, a few of these trees were recently discovered growing in a remote area of Ecuador. There aren’t many of these trees. Despite the high price, To’ak chocolate bars are selling well. Nearly all the To’ak chocolate bars that will be available this year have already been sold. To order To’ak chocolate bars, click here: $260 Chocolate Bars.

 
nokaNoka. To’ak chocolate bars sounds like the kind of thing that dot-comers buy when they sell their companies or have IPOs; however, To’ak chocolate bars are far from being the most expensive chocolate bars ever sold. Noka chocolate bars sold for $850 a pound, but Noka went out of business after the financial crisis of 2008. A lot of companies that sold ridiculously expensive luxuries went out of business at that time. They used to sell Noka chocolate at the Neiman Marcus store at Union Square in San Francisco. Back when Neiman Marcus was selling Noka chocolate, I went over there to see the Noka display for myself. While I was there, a young man bought 2 boxes of Noka chocolates. Each box weighed 3 ounces and sold for $130. He paid cash. The guy didn’t look rich. There were holes in his Levis. He looked like he might be a busboy at a coffee shop. I remembered staring at him as he made his purchase. As he left. I wondered what he was going to do with the small bag of chocolates that he put in his backpack and paid $260 for. I wondered if he was going to eat the stuff on a bus going home. Above is a picture of my hand with a $10 Noka chocolate bar in it. (Really! That actually is a picture of a $10 Noka chocolate bar.)

If you prefer boxed chocolates and money is no object, may I recommend Debauve & Gallais’ Le Livre. Le Livre (‘book’ in French) is a collection of 35 individual chocolate pralines and ganaches packed in a box designed to look like an elegant book. It costs $550. If that is too expensive for you, you can order the Petit Livre (small book) for only $330. To order, go to: Debauve & Gallais.

 

BART Transbay Tunnel Closures.

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The BART transbay tunnel will be closed for repairs August 1-2 and September 5-7, Labor Day weekend. BART will operate buses between the West Oakland and Embarcadero BART stations, but you should expect very slow traffic on the Bay Bridge while BART is shut down. There will be additional ferries between Jack London Square in Oakland and the Ferry Building in San Francisco while BART’s transbay tunnel is out of service, but if I were you, I wouldn’t go to San Francisco while BART is shut down unless you absolutely have to.

 

Overloading Washing Machines And Dryers.

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washerWhen washing machines or dryers need repair, 90% of the time it is due to overloading. Overloading a washing machine or dryer can break the drive coupler or the drive belt. Broken drive belts are what keep appliance repairmen in business. It is the most common washer and dryer repair. Overloading can also cause small items, like socks, to float over the washing basket and then get sucked into the water pump and destroy it. Overloading can also burn out the machine’s motor and bearings. When washing machines and dryers break down due to overloading, it almost always leaves behind tell-tale evidence that overloading was the problem. If your washing machine or dryer breaks due to overloading, YOU will have to pay for the repair. A lot of people who use washing machines in dorms and apartment houses that have coin-operated machines get accustomed to stuffing as many clothes in the machine as possible in order to save money; however, all my units have free-operation washing machines and dryers, so overloading my washing machines and dryers won’t save you any quarters. Split large loads in half. Also, when you overload a machine, the clothes and detergent can’t  circulate properly, so your clothes will come out with dirt still in them. When you overload the dryer, your clothes will come out with more wrinkles than if you dried a normal size load. Overloading washing machines and dryers is false economy, and you could wind up owing a repairman a lot of money!