
Freebie Of The Month

I get asked this question quite frequently, usually by tenants of mine who have friends looking for housing and having a hard time finding anything. Well, the answer is simple. It has been a very long time since I had a vacancy. When one of my tenants moves out, a new tenant usually takes possession the next day.
I have wondered why do so few apartments have washing machines and dryers inside them. Nobody wants to go to a laundromat or a coin-op laundry room in the basement of the building, and landlords know that tenants are willing to pay extra rent for an apartment with a washing machine and a dryer inside the unit. So why don’t more landlords put washers and dryers in their rentals?
I think the reason is that most landlords are old (like me) and old landlords tend to think about what was normal when they got into the business 30 or 40 years ago. Back in those days, major appliances were a lot more expensive than they are today. I don’t think most college students realize just how expensive household appliances used to be because they are too young to remember. For example, in 1970, a microwave oven cost $500. That’s over $3,000 in today’s money. Today, you can buy a brand-name microwave oven for $50. Admittedly that is an extreme example, but adjusted for inflation, all household appliances are much cheaper today than they were when I got into the landlording business in 1971. However, there is one that hasn’t changed. Back in 1970, everybody wanted a washing machine and a dryer inside their apartment – and everyone still does.
Unfortunately, most of the clothes dryers sold in the U.S. today run on electricity, and as a result, it becoming increasingly difficult to find gas clothes dryers in stores. Most new apartment houses and condos have electric clothes dryers. Why? Well, as I said, electric clothes dryers are cheaper to buy than gas clothes dryers. And they are also easier to install. With an electric clothes dryer, all you have to do is plug it in. With a gas clothes dryer, you have to plug it in, but you also need to run a gas line to the dryer, and plumbing is expensive. Several of my units have stacking washer/dryers, and stacking washer/dryers that run on natural gas can be very hard to find. When I need one, I usually have to special order it. Most appliance stores do not keep them in stock.
It seems to me that if our federal government had a rational energy policy, Congress would create some kind of economic incentive for real estate developers to put gas clothes dryers in new housing or at least gas connections in laundry rooms. Right now, real estate developers and landlords have absolutely no incentive from the government to install gas clothes dryers or to replace existing electric dryers with dryers that run on natural gas.
University of California at Berkeley. 16 elements. Technetium #43, Astatine #85, Neptunium #93, Plutonium #94, Americium #95, Curium #96, Berkelium #97, Californium #98, Einsteinium #99, Fermium #100, Mendelevium #101, Nobelium $102, Lawrencium #103, Rutherfordium #104, Hahnium #105, Seaborgium #106.
Note: Americium and Curium were first identified at the Argonne National Lab at the University of Chicago during World War 2 by a team of scientists from U.C. Berkeley led by Glenn Seaborg.
Red Bull is the biggest selling brand of energy drink in the world. It is sold in nearly every country on Earth. The company’s slogan is ‘Red Bull gives you wings’, and they have been using that slogan for over 20 years.
In a class action lawsuit, Red Bull was sued by a group of U.S. consumers on the grounds that they thought that by consuming Red Bull, they would grow actual wings or be able to fly as seen in Red Bull’s animated television commercials and print ads. They won their lawsuit.
In October, 2014; Red Bull announced that they will send refund checks to anyone who bought Red Bull in the belief that by consuming their energy drink, they would grow wings or be able to fly. Red Bull agreed to pay out $13 million. That does not include the millions that the company spent in legal fees.
The company also agreed to stop using the slogan ‘Red Bull gives you wings’ and will stop showing people with wings in their ads. See: http://www.businessinsider.com/red-bull-settles-false-advertising-lawsuit-for-13-million-2014-10
I think this story illustrates very well what is wrong with this country’s litigation system. We used to have a legal concept in America called the ‘reasonable man’. It asked the question ‘What would a reasonable man think or do in this situation?’ Today, plaintiffs in lawsuits can win their cases no matter how unreasonable or irrational they are acting, and what kind of society can operate on a basis like that?
It is easy to laugh at stories about absurd lawsuits like this one, but there is a very unfunny side to this story. We are all paying for this kind of nonsense, and we are paying a lot. The cost of frivolous, silly lawsuits and liability insurance is built into the price of everything you buy, including rent.
All landlords buy liability insurance, including me. Landlords are sometimes sued for the most ridiculous reasons, and even though few people win these lawsuits, we still have to defend ourselves, and landlord lawyers are very expensive. I know mine is.
My Opinion. Take a look at the Red Bull ad below. It shows a man with wings. He is flying among the skyscrapers of some big city. It seems to me that the wings on the back of this man are far too short to support his weight. I would guess this guy’s weight at around 170 pounds, plus of course the weight of his clothes. I don’t believe that this man could really fly with wings that small. I also think it would probably very uncomfortable for him to sleep on his back. What do you think?
That’s Discrimination! I once received an application for an apartment from a college student named Andre. He told me that he was living at his mother’s house in Richmond, CA. Andre desperately wanted to move out of his mother’s house and get his own place. I understood exactly how he felt. When I was Andre’s age, I was living in my step-mother’s house, and I was very, very anxious to get out. Andre was a full-time college student with a part-time job. After reviewing Andre’s application, I said: “Andre, as you know, the rent on this apartment is $900 a month, but according to your application form, your income is only $600 a month. If I rented this apartment to you, how would you pay the rent?” Andre looked at the floor, thought about it for a while, and said: “I don’t know.” I said: “Do you have any other financial resources that you could use to pay the rent?” Andre said: “No, I don’t.” I said: “Well, I don’t rent apartments to people who can’t pay the rent.” Andre looked shocked with his mouth open. Then he said: “That’s discrimination! You’re refusing to rent this apartment to me just because I’m poor. You can’t do that!” I said: “Well, actually I can.” Andre was angry. He threatened to sue me on the grounds of discrimination, but that didn’t happen. I knew that Andre didn’t have any money to hire a lawyer, and I thought it was unlikely that he would be able to find a lawyer who would take a case like this on a contingency basis. Even with a good lawyer, Andre would have lost. A landlord has a legal right, even in Berkeley, to refuse to rent an apartment to someone who lacks the ability to pay the rent. – and says so.
You might be surprised at how many spiffy, expensive restaurants use Wondra to make their fancy sauces. And No – I am not going to name names. My lawyer would yell at me if I did that, and he reads my tenant newsletter. But I know its true. I have seen containers of Wondra flour in the kitchens of some very famous restaurants.
When calling me on the telephone, please remember that before I answer my phone, I always check the Caller I.D. screen first. If my Caller I.D. screen does not identify the caller, or if it tells me that the call is from ‘Private Caller’, ‘Out of Area’, ‘Unknown Name’, ‘Toll Free Caller’, ‘Name Not Found,’ ‘Blocked’, ‘Unavailable’, etc.; I will not answer the call. If you are calling me from a telephone that does not identify you as the caller or you have caller I.D. blocking, just leave a message on my voice mail. Do not hang up without leaving a message or call back later. That won’t do you any good. I check my messages frequently, and I will reply to legitimate voice mail messages. I am sorry if this seems rude, but I get a lot of robocalls and calls from crooks and scammers, and this is the only way I can control this problem.
You should do the same thing I do about this. When you answer a telephone call from a robocaller, you are informing the computer that called you that your phone number is live and active and that you answer your phone when calls come in from robocallers. Doing that gets your name put on the robocaller’s sucker list, and they sell their sucker lists to other robocallers.