Styrofoam Pellets

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styrofoam3NEVER PUT LOOSE STYROFOAM PELLETS IN YOUR GARBAGE CAN!! When garbage collectors empty garbage cans into their truck, they turn the cans upside down. When they do that, loose styrofoam pellets can get blown all over the neighborhood in even the slightest breeze. Styrofoam pellets are made out of petroleum. They do not biodegrade; they do not fall apart in the rain; and they do not get eaten by squirrels. They hang around in the environment for a long time. Styrofoam pellets should always be put into plastic bags and sealed before placing the bags into your garbage can. If you have a lot of styrofoam pellets, you can drop off bags of them at most packaging stores at no charge, where they will get reused. The UPS store in downtown Berkeley will accept bags of styrofoam pellets if they are clean and there is nothing else in the bag. Loose styrofoam pellets in your garbage can are a disaster waiting to happen!

What Happened To Logic?

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I had a tenant who told me, and more than once, that: “Landlords in Berkeley don’t take care of their properties as well as they used to, and I don’t think they ever did.” I told this guy that there was a flaw in his logic, but he didn’t see it. He thought I was telling him that he was being illogical because I was a landlord myself, and I was simply defending the people my business from criticism. After a while, this guy’s roommates started talking the same way. One of his roommates said to me: “Berkeley landlords never took care of their apartments as well as they used to.” It was very frustrating for me to listen to this. They were all college students, but none of them could see the flaw in their logic.


Logic. Many years ago, I took a course in logic at the University of Maryland, and I am glad that I did. It is a subject that I highly recommend. Most people today don’t realize how important logic once was as a subject of study. Back in the 18th Century, logic was a required subject at most major European and American universities. You couldn’t get a college degree if you hadn’t studied logic. Unfortunately, not only is logic no longer a required subject anywhere, most universities, including big ones, no longer offer even a single course in the subject. I don’t know why that is. It is certainly not because the ability to think logically is no longer important, and it is certainly not because illogic is no longer a problem in academia, business, or politics – especially politics. I sometimes listen to Congressmen and presidential candidates on TV saying incredibly illogical things, and it depresses me to think that these people run the country.

G. Harrold Carswell. Here is a example of illogical thinking by a politician that I remember well. In 1970, President Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. The nomination came under fierce criticism on the grounds that Carswell was an incompetent judge. His rulings were often overturned by higher courts on the grounds that Carswell failed to understand the applicable law. Carswell was also an unapologetic white supremest who said nasty things about black people. The Senate ultimately rejected Carswell’s nomination to the Supreme Court. One of Carswell’s few supporters in the Senate from outside the Deep South was Roman Hruska of Nebraska. Senator Hruska agreed that Carswell was a dim-witted judge, but Hruska argued that for that reason alone, Carswell should be on the Supreme Court. Senator Hruska said: “There are a lot of mediocre people in this country, and they deserve a little representation too.” In other words, the interests of incompetent people would be best served by having incompetent judges on the Supreme Court. Senator Hruska became a national laughing stock and was defeated in the next election. I don’t think Senator Hruska ever saw the logical flaw in his argument.
 

World’s Worst Applicant

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Logic, logic. I think the subject of logic is on my mind right now because of a phone call I got a few days ago.  A college student called me on the phone because he heard a rumor that I had a one-bedroom apartment coming up for rent. I told the guy that the rumor was not true and that I did not have any one-bedrooms coming up. He said he didn’t believe me. I don’t know why he thought I was lying, but I was telling him the truth. I was feeling uncomfortable about the way this guy was talking, and I wanted to end the conversation. Unfortunately, he wanted to keep talking. Finally I said to him: “Look, there is no point in going on with this conversation. I don’t have any one-bedroom apartments coming up for rent. There is nothing else I can say.” He became angry and said: “When there is nothing else to say, I will be the one to say it, not you!”  Then he hung up the phone. I am sure that this guy didn’t see anything wrong with his logic, but I was certainly not going to call him back and explain it to him.

Move-Out Notices

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It is very important that you give me a proper and timely move-out notice before you leave. For a number of legal reasons. I cannot rent your apartment or even advertise it for rent without a move-out notice from you. Your move-out notice must be in writing. That is in your lease. You have not given me a move-out notice by calling me on the phone and telling me that you are leaving.  A voice mail message is also not a move-out notice. An e-mail is not a move-out notice either. 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 you will move out, and your notice must be signed. Your notice must also be definite. I sometimes get move-out notices like this: “I will be moving out by July 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 your apartment to a new tenant if I do not know for certain that you are moving out. You can deliver your move-out notice to me personally or you can mail it.

Luxury Ice

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I am constantly amazed at the silly things that the super-rich spend their money on. The Glace Luxury Ice Company makes ice cubes, very expensive ice cubes. Each ice cube is hand carved out of a block of ice. Glace ‘luxury’ ice is available in cubes and spheres. 25 ‘luxury’ ice cubes in a hermetically sealed pouch sells for $200, but if you want to save money, you can buy 50 ice cubes for $350.
Mark’s Money Saving Tip: If you want to save even more money on ice cubes, buy an ice cube tray at Dollar Tree and make your own ice cubes. If you don’t know how to make ice cubes, send me an e-mail, and I will send you the recipe. Ice cubes are not hard to make.
You can order Glace luxury ice cubes directly from the company’s web site. The company claims that their ice cubes melt more slowly in cocktails than regular ice cubes. I don’t know if that’s true. It seems to me that the speed at which an ice cube melts in a cocktail is determined by how cold the ice cube is, not by how much it costs, or whether it is hand-carved are machine-made. I rent a house to a bunch of chemistry grad students. This sounds like something they should be able to figure out, so I will ask them.

Berkeley’s Hyenas.

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For over 30 years, U.C. Berkeley has maintained a hyena colony on campus up in the Berkeley hills. It is the only captive hyena colony in the world. Unfortunately, due to big cuts in federal science funding, U.C. Berkeley will be shutting down its hyena colony later this summer and will ship their hyenas to zoos and parks around the country. I have never seen the hyenas myself, but I have heard them. As you drive past the U.C. Berkeley botanical gardens, you can hear the hyenas howling and giggling. They make an eerie sound, and you can hear it at a considerable distance.

WORST APPLICATION EVER.

Did You See ‘The Lion King’?  A long time ago, I got a rental application for a house I owned on Shafter Avenue in Oakland from a group of 3 U.C. Berkeley graduate students. All 3 of them were involved in research at the U.C. Berkeley hyena project. One of the applicants told me that he was in charge of transportation. I asked him: “What do you mean by ‘transportation’? Do you ever bring hyenas home with you?” Now I know that sounds like a silly question. After all, it would be grossly irresponsible for anyone at U.C. Berkeley to let a grad student take a hyena home with him; however, I have known quite a few very smart and very well educated people in my life who were completely irresponsible. From my observations, it appears that there is absolutely no correlation between education and a sense of personal responsibility. Anyway, this guy didn’t answer my question and changed the subject, which made me suspicious. I am always suspicious whenever applicants give me evasive answers to my questions. Since this guy was not going to answer my question and was beginning to look annoyed, I decided to ask a different question.
hyenas
The Lion King. I said: “Aren’t hyenas dangerous?” The guy said: “Did you ever see ‘The Lion King’?” I said: “Yes, I did. I liked that movie.” He said: “Well, everyone who has seen ‘The Lion King’ has a very negative impression of hyenas.” I said: “Yes. The hyenas in ‘The Lion King’ were evil, but they were just cartoon characters. I know that. However, that doesn’t answer my question. What I want to know is this. Aren’t hyenas dangerous, and do you ever bring them home with you?” The guy changed the subject again. He told me how hyenas organize their society and raise their young. He showed me pictures of his hyenas. I learned a lot of interesting things about hyenas. For example, I learned that a hyena can eat 30 pounds of raw meat in 10 minutes. However, that wasn’t what I want to know. What I wanted to know was whether this guy was planning to bring wild, vicious, carnivorous animals onto my property.

Hyenas Are Good For You. My applicant also told me that “hyenas are good for people.” He said that hyenas control the spread of disease by picking off and eating sick animals before they can infect other animals and humans. That sounds believable to me, and while that may work very well in the jungles of Africa, there was an obvious flaw in his guy’s logic that he did not see. Here in the United States, we do not control the spread of contagious diseases that way. For example, when someone is admitted to Kaiser Hospital with a contagious disease, like tuberculosis for instance, the doctors there don’t prevent that person from infecting others by putting him in a sealed room with a pack of hungry hyenas and let the hyenas devour him.

I learned a long time ago that the owners of exotic and dangerous animals are very defensive about their pets, and that it’s best not to argue with them about it. Although these hyenas were not pets, these grad students were talking and thinking about them as those they were. I rejected this application and rented the house to a young couple with 2 cats.

Disney World. It looks like some of U.C. Berkeley’s hyenas will be going to Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando. That will be ironic. When Disney made ‘The Lion King’, animators from Disney studios came to Berkeley and spent a good deal of time here studying and making drawings of the hyenas here. The hyenas in ‘The Lion King’ were based on those drawings of Berkeley’s hyenas.

Michael Phelps and Meadowbrook Swimming Pool.

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Michael Phelps is back in the news. He just won another important swimming competition, this time the Charlotte Grand Prix. That guy never seems to get old! Whenever I hear the name of Michael Phelps, I think of Meadowbrook Swimming Pool. Michael Phelps did most of his swimming at Meadowbrook when he was growing up, and now he runs the swimming school there. When I was a kid myself growing up in Baltimore, I always wanted to swim at Meadowbrook, especially on hot muggy days, and Baltimore gets a lot of hot muggy days in summer. Besides, our house didn’t have air conditioning. Meadowbrook had the biggest and best swimming pool in Baltimore, but unfortunately, I couldn’t go to there because Meadowbook was restricted.


Restricted. Most Americans today don’t know what the word ‘restricted’ meant back in the 1950s. When a business said that it was ‘restricted’, it meant that racial minorities and Jews were not allowed in. This largely came to an end in 1963 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. After that, businesses could no longer advertise that they were ‘restricted.’ However, private clubs like Meadowbrook were not covered by the Civil Rights Act and continued to be restricted. Meadowbrook did not allow Jews to swim in their pool, and they said so too. There was a big sign at the entrance to Meadowbrook that said that admission to the swim club was restricted to ‘approved gentiles.’ See the picture below. By ‘gentiles’, they meant white Christians, and not even all of them. Some white Christians were also not allowed in the pool, like people with Spanish surnames. It didn’t matter where they came from.
meadowbrook
No Jews Allowed. In the Deep South, lots of businesses had signs in their windows that said ‘No Jews’, but not in Baltimore. Maryland was a slave state, but Maryland did not join the Confederacy, so the rules of racial and religious discrimination were not quite as harsh, at least in appearance. For example, the Baltimore Sun newspaper would not accept ads for apartments for rent that said ‘No Jews,’ but they would accept ads that said “Christians Only,’ and lots of the classified ads in The Sun did say ‘Christians Only.’

I assume that Meadowbrook is no longer restricted, but I am just guessing about that. I really don’t know. If you know for sure if Meadowbroow now allows Jews to swim in their pool, let me know. I have often wondered about this. There are many swim, golf, tennis, and foxhunting clubs throughout the South that still do not allow Jews to join.

Foxhunting in Maryland. English foxhunting is now illegal in England, but they still have foxhunts in Maryland. When I was a kid, I knew that Jews weren’t allowed to join foxhunting clubs, but that didn’t bother me. I would never have joined a foxhunt, even if anti-Semitism and money were not issues, and money is a big issue with foxhunting. Foxhunting is a very expensive sport. Fox hunters need a horse,  a stable, expensive custom-made foxhunting clothes, and they have to pay the cost of maintaining a large pack of hunting dogs. They also need foxes. You know, you can only use a fox once when foxhunting.

When I went to Boys Latin School in Baltimore, I had a friend there who went foxhunting every summer with his father. They belonged to a foxhunting club in Mt. Airy, a small town just west of Baltimore. My friend tried to get me to go on a foxhunt with him but it was a ‘no sale’ with me. I never had the slightest desire to participate in an English foxhunt. To be honest, I must admit that foxhunting does look beautiful in movies, but that is because in movies they never show the end of the hunt, when the hounds tear the fox to shreds. The end of a foxhunt is a horrible bloody mess. Here’s a video of a recent foxhunt in Maryland. Fox Hunting In Maryland. Doesn’t it look elegant?

Foxhunting in the Bay Area. There are no foxhunting clubs in Berkeley; however, there are several foxhunting clubs nearby. The Los Altos Hounds conducts foxhunts in Woodside in the coastal hills above Palo Alto. There are also foxhunting clubs in Marin and Solano counties. Jews are allowed to join foxhunting clubs in California. I know quite a few Jews who moved to California from the East Coast, but to the best of my knowledge, none of them moved here so they could go foxhunting.

If you decide to go on a foxhunt – remember – foxhunting is a lot more fun for the hunters and the hounds than for the fox.

Berkeley’s ‘Windfall Profits Tax’.

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I am always very suspicious whenever I hear the term ‘windfall profits tax.’ The term ‘windfall profit tax’ is just a euphemism, and it is invariably used as a gimmick to get a new tax measure passed that could not get passed on its own merits. A windfall profits tax is never actually a tax on windfall profits, like winning the lottery or finding a chest of pirate gold in your back yard. A ‘windfall profits tax’ is called that because a lot of voters will support anything called a ‘windfall profits tax’ without thinking about it because it appeals to people on an emotional level.

Right now, the ‘Berkeley Robin Hood Committee’ (as they call themselves) is collecting signature to put a measure on the November ballot to create a ‘windfall profits tax’ on landlords. The new tax will be 3% of gross rents collected. A tax on gross rents is not a ‘windfall profits tax.’ In fact, it is not a tax on profits. It is a sales tax, and like all sales taxes, it will be paid by consumers, in this case, tenants. Businesses do not pay sales tax. They collect sales tax from their customers and send the money to the government. All sales taxes work this way. You know that. You have paid sales taxes often enough. Landlords will simply add the cost of this new tax to their rents. The money will not come out of the pockets of landlords. It will be paid by tenants. This so-called ‘windfall profits tax’ will simply raise rents in Berkeley. It will not reduce landlord profits.
It is ironic that the sponsors of this ‘windfall profits tax’ call themselves the ‘Robin Hood Committee.’ According to legend, Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor; however, sales taxes are regressive in nature. They take a disproportionate amount of money from the poor, not the rich, and this tax will be paid by tenants, not landlords or homeowners.
As you can tell, I don’t like this ‘windfall profits tax’, which I think is a cruel voter hoax; however, there is one good thing about it. I will be exempt from paying it! Yes, this ‘windfall profits tax’ ballot initiative specifically states that landlords who own single family houses and duplexes will not have to pay the new tax, and the only rentals I own in Berkeley are single family houses and duplexes. So even though I think this tax is a bad idea, I don’t plan to get involved in this campaign.

Free Electronics Waste Disposal.

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The end of the school year will soon be here. If you are moving out at the end of May, now is the time to get rid of your junk. Students often put off getting rid of their junk until the last minute, and they always wind up regretting that. Getting rid of old electronics is a good place to start, but it is illegal to put electronic products in your garbage can. If a garbage collector finds an electronic product in your garbage can, you can get a $500 fine. This is not one of those crazy Berkeley laws that nobody enforces, although we have lots of those. This is a California state law, and it is enforced. People really do get fined for putting electronic waste in their garbage cans.

Fortunately, you can get rid of your electronic junk for free! At the Green Citizen store at 1971 Shattuck Avenue, near the corner of University Avenue, you can drop off most electronic products including TVs, computers, monitors, printers, DVD players, microwave ovens, etc. at no charge. They also accept for free disposal many small electrical appliances, like dorm refrigerators. Most of the dumps in this area charge $50 or more to drop off a small refrigerator. They have to drain out and recycle the Freon, and that costs money, but Green Citizen takes small refrigerators at no charge. This is a great service! You should use it. You’re paying for it. When you buy an electronic product in California, you pay an electronic disposal tax ranging from $6 to $10 for any item with a screen or electronic display, like a DVD player. That money goes to places like Green Citizen, which is how they finance their business.

Do I Need A Lawn Mower That Goes 100 Miles An Hour?

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I subscribe to a number of landlord trade magazines. In almost every issue of every landlord magazine there is at least one article describing some amazing new product. I don’t usually read these articles because most of the time they are just thinly disguised ads.

lawnmowerHowever, one new product article in the current issue of a national landlord magazine did catch my eye. The article is about a company that converts riding lawn mowers into high speed racing machines.  They take a Honda ‘Mean Mower’ and replace the engine. The converted ‘Mean Mower’ has a top speed of 105 miles per hour. According to the article, this lawnmower “features a six-speed paddle shift gearbox meshed to a 1,000cc engine. It produces 532 horsepower per ton and ensures a 0 to 60 mph time of 4.0 seconds.” Although I don’t understand that technical jargon, I am pretty sure that I do not need a lawnmower that goes from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds or that travels 105 miles an hour. What do you think?

You may wonder: ‘who would buy a lawnmower like this?’ You can’t cut grass at 100 miles an hour. I think that this lawnmower was made for rich people who like NASCAR racing, something that bores me to death. The article doesn’t say how much this lawnmower costs, but I assume it is very expensive. See the photo below of the lawnmower on a test track. (I am not going to ask my teenage nephews Julian or Michael if they think I should buy this lawnmower. I think they would say ‘Yes!’ and demand that I give them the keys)