Tag Archives: Berkeley

HEIDI AND THE ANTS.

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In most American cities, when a tenant tells his landlord that he has ants in his kitchen, it is usually because he wants the landlord to kill them, but this is Berkeley where things are different. I was just reviewing a series of emails that I got several years ago from a tenant who had ants in her kitchen and wanted me to get rid of them – but without harming them. I think you might enjoy reading this exchange. Here are some of the emails I received from her about this subject. There were more emails about this from her, but I can’t find them all. I changed her name in the letters below. Her name wasn’t actually Heidi. My stepmother had a dog named Heidi, but I never had a tenant named Heidi.

Dear Mark:
The ants are back. I have tried everything, but nothing works. I have even tried yelling at them.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I have been meaning to talk to you about this for some time. I know that you have been yelling at the ants in your kitchen. I can hear you from my office. However, yelling “Get out! Get out!” at ants doesn’t work. I don’t know if ants have ears, but I am sure that they don’t understand English. I will come over and spray something in your kitchen to get rid of them.

Dear Mark:
Will this spray kill the ants?
Heidi

Heidi:
Yes. I use a product that is made from the oil of orange peels. It is not harmful to people, but it destroys the respiratory system of ants and other insects. They die quickly because they can’t breathe.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I don’t want you to do that. That sounds awful. How would you feel if you couldn’t breathe? Let me think about this for a while. I was hoping you had a spray that would just keep the ants away, like mosquito repellent keep mosquitoes away.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I don’t have ant repellent. I don’t even know if such a product exists. I use orange peel oil because it is non-toxic to people and safe to use in restaurants and home kitchens. However, this product does kill ants. I doesn’t just repel them.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I need time to think this over. Please don’t do anything until I say so.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
OK. Think it over. I will spray or not spray your kitchen as you wish. There are many products on the market that will kill or repel ants, but I don’t know of any, aside from orange peel oil, that are safe to use in a kitchen or around food. I have investigated this matter.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I found 6 more dead ants in my kitchen this morning. I found 4 dead ants in my kitchen yesterday. Did you spray that stuff in my kitchen? I don’t think there is anything in my kitchen that would kill ants. I found most of the ants on the top of the sink near the soap. Do you think the ants might have eaten the soap and died? Is soap poisonous to ants? If it is, do you know of a brand of soap that won’t kill ants if they eat it.
Heidi

Heidi:
I did not spray your kitchen. You told me not to. Frankly, I think it is silly for you to worry about the health of the ants in your kitchen. You have probably killed hundreds of ants by just walking on the grass in your yard.
Mark

Dear Mark:
Wow! I have been thinking about what you said about walking on ants in the yard. You are probably right. It makes you wonder if it is OK to walk in the yard. I have been taking the ants in my kitchen outside and putting them in the yard, but I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. It is depressing, but I know you are right. I am now taking the ants to the back porch and dropping them off into the yard. Some of them may get hurt in the fall, but that’s better than walking on other ants in order to save the kitchen ants. Don’t you think? What do you think I should do?
Heidi

Heidi:
Do whatever you think is best.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I asked my mother for her advice about the ants. She thinks that trying to save ants is stupid. She says that she kills ants all the time. My mother thinks that I have too much time on my hands. She says that instead of trying to save the ants in my kitchen that I should come over to the church today and help her make brownies for gift baskets for our very old members. What do you think?
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I agree with your mother. If you change your mind and want me to spray your kitchen, let me know.
Mark

Dear Mark:
Would you like some brownies? My mother and I made a lot of them today at the church for gift baskets. We made too many of them. They are very good. If you want to spray my kitchen, go ahead. I have lost interest in the ants.
Heidi

In any other city in the U.S., a tenant like Heidi would be considered bizarre, perhaps even unbelievable, but nobody who has lived in Berkeley for a long time would be surprised by a story like this. Landlords in Berkeley have to deal with tenants like Heidi all the time. When inexperienced Berkeley landlords ask me for advice, I tell them that the key to successfully dealing with someone like Heidi is patience, lots and lots of patience. – Mark Tarses

How Much Money Do You Have To Earn In Order To Rent An Apartment In A New Building In Berkeley?

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As I said last month, Parker Berkeley on Shattuck Avenue is now open and renting apartments. It is 4 blocks from my house. This place is huge. It covers a whole block and half of the next block. 2 bedroom apartments at Parker Berkeley rent for $4,500 a month. Parking and utilities are extra. The rent is even higher if you have a cat. (You know, I have been a landlord for a long time, and it seems to me that if a landlord is getting $4,500 a month for a 2 bedroom apartment, he can afford to let a tenant have a cat for free.)

So – how much do you have to earn in order to rent one of these apartments? By my calculations, you would need to make at least $200,000 a year. You see, a person making $200,000 a year is only going to take home $100,000 after withholding. He is going to spend 33% of his income on federal income tax, plus 10% for California state income tax, plus 6% for Social Security. That leaves this guy with $100,000 a year or $8,300 a month in take-home pay. Landlords don’t like to rent apartments to people who are going to be spending over half their take-home pay in rent. So – what kind of people are going to live in this building or any of the other pricey new apartment houses going up in Berkeley? How many people in Berkeley make $200,000 a year? A lot more apartment houses like Parker Berkeley are going up. Many are already under construction. I think this a bubble, and I think it will end badly. The thing that I especially dislike like about these new apartment houses in Berkeley and San Francisco is that they only contain housing for the rich, the poor, and the elderly. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is being built for normal working people.

Where Will The Middle Class Live?

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Parker Berkeley is the newest apartment house in town. This place is huge! Parker Berkeley covers a whole block plus part of the block across the street. It is not on a spiffy section of Shattuck Avenue, and it is a long way from campus, but it is walking distance to the Ashby BART station. My guess is that the owners of this building are planning to rent to commuters who work in San Francisco. The rental office is now open and here are the rents:

Studio $2,900.
One bedroom $3,400
Two bedroom $4,500
Three bedroom $6,300
Parking is extra, plus the rent is higher if you have a cat or a dog.

If these rents seem high to you, remember that rents for similar apartments in downtown San Francisco are much higher than this. Like all new apartment houses in Berkeley and San Francisco, Parker Berkeley has inclusionary apartments for the poor, but all the other apartments are rented at market rate. So here is my question. If all the new apartment houses in town only have apartments in them for the rich and the poor, then where will the middle class live? I have been asking that question for 30 years. Consider a schoolteacher who makes $70,000 a year. This teacher doesn’t make enough money to rent a market rate apartment at Parker Berkeley but makes far too much money to qualify for an inclusionary apartment. So where will this schoolteacher live? Certainly not at Parker Berkeley or  any of the new apartment houses going up in Berkeley or San Francisco. America has long been a middle class society, but we are building no housing here for the middle class. None at all. Zero. Zip. What kind of society are we going to live in if we only build housing for the rich and the poor? I never, never hear local politicians talking about this issue, the complete lack of new housing for the working middle class. It never comes up. I wonder why.

Bringing Stuff To U.C. Berkeley Football Games.

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Because of the increased number of terrorist attacks in the U.S., U.C. Berkeley has further restricted its bag policy for fans coming to football games at Memorial Stadium. Backpacks and gym bags have been banned for years, but until this year fans could bring opaque bags up to 14 inches wide to games. Under the new policy, which is now in effect, fans can only bring 1 gallon clear plastic zip-lok bags or clear plastic bags up to 12 inches by 12 inches by 6 inches. The new bag policy will also be enforced at games at Haas Pavilion. Medical necessity bags will be excepted. By requiring that fans bring things in clear plastic bags, the university expects that this will also speed up the time it takes fans to get through security lines. Just within the last few months, U.C. Berkeley students were killed in terrorist attacks in Nice, France on Bastille Day and in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Convenience Fees

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Beware of Convenience Fees. A lot of colleges allow students to pay their bills with credit cards. Some students get excited when they see credit card logos on their college’s web site payment page – but beware! Many colleges tack on ‘convenience fees’ when you pay them with credit cards. For example, on the U.C. Berkeley payment page, it says that they will accept Master Card and Visa for the payment of room, board, and tuition; but they charge a 2.75% ‘convenience fee’ on all credit card payments. That’s a lot! Think about how much that will cost you in dollars and cents over the time you will be in college. Their ‘convenience fee’ is in addition to the interest that your credit card issuer will charge you. If you can pay your tuition some other way, you should probably do so.
 
What Is a ‘Convenience Fee’? U.C. Berkeley isn’t the only university that tacks on ‘convenience fees’ when students pay them with credit cards. This is now a common practice at colleges all over the U.S. But just what is a ‘convenience fee’? It has always seemed to me that the term ‘convenience fee’ is a misnomer. After all, a convenience fee isn’t really a fee you pay for your convenience. Most people would find it more convenient to not pay an added fee. What businesses call a convenience fee is really a credit card usage fee, even though few businesses are willing to admit that that is what it is. The term ‘convenience fee’ implies that the fee benefits the person paying the fee, but a convenience fee is always for the benefit of the business (or university) that receives the money. I think it would be more accurate to call a convenience fee an ‘inconvenience fee’.  Hmmmm. I wonder what my tenants would say if I said to them: “Well – I know your lease says that your rent is $1,800 a month, but it would be more convenient – for me – if you made out your monthly rent checks for $2,000.”

Do Landlords in Berkeley Discriminate Against Irish Students?

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The short answer is No. There have been a lot of claims in social media and the press that landlords in Berkeley will no longer rent apartments to Irish students because of the balcony collapse at Library Gardens downtown that resulted in the deaths of 6 Irish college students. These stories are untrue. I have been a landlord in Berkeley for over 40 years, and nearly all my tenants are U.C. Berkeley students. I know a lot of other Berkeley landlords, and none of them blame the victims for this tragedy. It is true that there were far more people on that balcony when it collapsed than was prudent; however, engineering reports showed that the cause of the collapse was poor construction resulting in wood rot and that had the balcony been properly built, it could have supported the weight of those students. The sympathies of all the landlords I know are with the families of these students. Yes, it is hard for Irish students to rent apartments in Berkeley for the summer, but not because they are Irish. There is a severe rental housing shortage in Berkeley, and because of our local rent laws, most leases in Berkeley prohibit sub-leasing. The Irish counsel general in San Francisco has investigated claims of discrimination against Irish students in Berkeley and has concluded that these stories are baseless and has said so publicly.

The Dangers of Clutter and Hoarding.

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On December 27, 2015; a fire destroyed a house near where I live on the 2800 block of Acton Street near Russell. The house was occupied by its owner, Billy Carroll. Firemen were unable to enter the house through the front door because there was a pile of stuff placed up against the door making it impossible to open. The firemen eventually found another way into the house, but Carroll was in the center of the house by that time, and the firemen could not reach him because piles of storage boxes blocked their way. By the time the firemen were able to get to Mr. Carroll, he was dead.

This story is not unique or even unusual. Excessive clutter is responsible for countless fires and deaths every year. Hoarding and the accumulation of stuff is a danger to the health, safety, and lives or everybody living in that building and the neighboring buildings. Are you storing stuff in your hallways, on stairs, or near exits that people have to walk around or avoid? If your apartment was full of smoke, would firemen be able to navigate through your place without falling down or tripping over stuff? Are you storing stuff near furnaces? What happened to Billy Carroll is more common than you might think. Just within 1 block of my house, I know of 2 other houses that were destroyed by fire in which people died as a result of their clutter. There are a lot of reality TV shows about hoarding. Perhaps you have seen one. In these shows, no one dies as a result of their hoarding, but reality TV is not reality. In the real world, hoarding and clutter is dangerous, and people die as a result of it every day.  When is the last time you looked over your house or apartment objectively and asked yourself what would happen if your place was on fire and filled with smoke. Would you be able to get out? With limited visibility, would firemen be able to get in and move around inside your place to rescue you?

Do Tenants Have A Right To Party?

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The short answer is – NO.  There is no such thing as the ‘right to party.’ It is just wishful thinking on the part of tenants, especially college students, that as American citizens, you have a right to party. The ‘right to party’ is not a recognized legal concept. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution about the right of citizens to have parties. There is no place in the United States where federal, state, or local laws protect the right of citizens to have parties. There is also nothing in the Bill of Rights or U.N. Charter about it. Partying is not a human right.

‘We are fighting for our right to party!’ I am writing this piece because on October 31, 2015; there was a huge riot in Berkeley. It was Halloween and the night of the big UC Berkeley – USC football game, both considered by some students to be good reasons for getting drunk. Between 3,000 and 5,000 students participated in the ensuing riot on Frat Row. Car windshields were smashed, people were physically assaulted, police were assaulted too, gunshots were fired by unknown persons, and there were several arrests. Some of the students who were arrested, and I assume drunk, told police and that they were ‘fighting for our right to party.’ See: Frat Row riot.

Lease and other contracts restricting or banning parties are legal and enforceable. Many leases restrict or ban tenants from having parties. In college towns like Berkeley, nearly all leases restrict parties in some way. Many leases ban partying outright. In many places in the U.S., homeowners are also banned from having parties. It’s true. Many condominium CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions) prohibit parties or limit the number of people who can come to a party or set an ending time for parties. There are also a lot of planned communities in the United States where individual homeowners are prohibited from having parties by deed restrictions. Leases and other contracts restricting and banning parties are enforceable in court everywhere in the United States.

Notifying the neighbors in advance. There is a widely held myth that you have a right to have a loud party late at night, providing that you notify your neighbors in advance. That is not true! This too is just wishful thinking. Simply announcing in advance that you intend to do something that is illegal does not give you the right to do it. For example, it is not O.K. to rob a bank providing that you give the bank advance notice that you intend to rob them. Somebody idiot actually did that here in Berkeley. Many years ago, there used to be a Bank of America branch near my house across the street from the Ashby BART station. It was once robbed by a lone gunman. The bank robber was quickly caught. At his trial, the bank robber told the court that he sent a letter to the branch manager a week before he robbed the bank informing him of his intention to rob the bank. The bank manager acknowledged that he received and read the letter but didn’t do anything about the it because he thought the letter was a prank. The bank robber was found guilty and sent to prison. He did not get off because he told the bank in advance that he planned to rob them. The idea that it is legally O.K. to have loud parties late at night providing that you told the neighbors in advance is an old myth that gets college students into trouble, sometimes big trouble.

Disturbing the peace. Preventing your neighbors from going to sleep at a reasonable hour, is illegal. You can be cited and fined or even arrested!  In addition, Berkeley has one of the toughest noise pollution laws in the United States. Berkeley policeman have decibel meters in their patrol cars. People having loud parties at night are regularly issued fines and sometimes arrested. The minimum fine in Berkeley for this is $750.00! Plus you could wind up with a arrest record and/or a criminal record.

Host responsibility. If you are going to have alcohol at a party in your home, remember that hosts are legally responsible for the consequences of their guest’s excessive drinking, whether you provide the booze or whether your guests bring their own. If someone gets drunk in your home, gets in his car, and has an accident while driving under the influence, you can be held responsible for the accident, even though you weren’t there. A lot of people think that drunk driving is a victimless crime, providing that nobody was hurt. Some people even think that drunk driving is funny, like in the ‘Arthur’ movies. I am not one of those people!  According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), 4,000 people are arrested every day for driving under the influence in the United States, and 1,000 Americans are killed every month by drunk drivers. When I was in college, I was nearly killed by a drunk driver myself. I was a passenger in a vehicle that was hit hard by a drunk driver who passed out at the wheel. Since that experience, I have had no sympathy for drunk drivers. If someone is unfit to drive a car, don’t let him!

Please remember – regardless of what you hear to the contrary – there is no such thing as the ‘right to party.’ You will just get into trouble if you believe it’s true.

California Bans ‘Redskins.’ So What About Confederate Heroes?

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Last month, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law making California the first state in the nation to ban public schools from using the term ‘redskins” as a team name or school mascot. As a result of this law, 4 high schools in California will have to change the names of their teams. They will have a year to come up with new names. All 4 of the schools are in poor communities in the Central Valley. The principals of all 4 schools said that the only reason they hadn’t already changed the names of their teams was because of the cost. They say they don’t have the money to buy new uniforms. This new law raises a question in my mind: “What, if anything, is California going to do now about the many public buildings, monuments, parks, etc. in this state that are named after Confederate heroes?” (I teach Civil War history at Orinda Intermediate School.)

 
John & Joseph LeConte. California was always a free state, and it was a Union state in the Civil War, but nevertheless, there are monuments to Confederate heroes all over California, including right here in Berkeley. The biggest building on the U.C. Berkeley campus is LeConte Hall, named after the brothers John and Joseph LeConte. John LeConte was an early president of the University of California, and Joseph LeConte headed the university’s physics and natural history departments. The LeConte brothers grew up in Georgia on their father’s plantation, where the family owned over 200 slaves. During the Civil War, the LeConte brothers volunteered their services to the Confederacy. The Confederate government gave the LeConte brothers the job of solving their most urgent chemical problem – making gunpowder. When the Civil War began, there was very little gunpowder in the South, and they had no way to make it. All of the gunpowder and chemical factories in the United States were in the North. The Confederacy also couldn’t import gunpowder because the Union navy was blockading southern ports. The leaders of the Confederate government knew that unless they found some way to make large quantities of gunpowder, the South would quickly lose the war.

Gunpowder is a mixture of 3 ingredients: sulphur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, which is also known as niter or saltpeter. The South had plenty of sulphur, and it is easy to make charcoal. However, the South didn’t have much potassium nitrate. Potassium nitrate is a basic ingredient in gunpowder, and there is no substitute. You can’t make gunpowder without it. The LeConte brothers conducted experiments trying to find a practical way of producing potassium nitrate from materials commonly available in the South. Their experiments were successful, and as a result, they wrote pamphlets which were distributed to Southern farmers explaining how they could extract potassium nitrate from the urine of farm animals. Because of the LeConte brothers, the Confederacy never ran out of gunpowder during the Civil War.

Both of the LeConte brothers were committed to the principles of the Confederacy and were openly racist. Joseph LeConte wrote extensively on the subject of race. He wrote that “the enfranchisement of the negro was the greatest political crime ever perpetuated.” He found Reconstruction intolerable. In order to avoid teaching black students at the University of South Carolina, Joseph LeConte gave up his professorship and moved to Berkeley, where his brother John was already running the university. The LeContes are honored all over the city of Berkeley. LeConte Hall is gigantic. It is the largest academic building on any public university campus anywhere in the United States. In addition, there is a LeConte Avenue in Berkeley, a LeConte Elementary School, LeConte Apartments, and a LeConte Park.  According to AirBnB’s website, I live in Berkeley’s ‘LeConte District.’ Plus, there are statues, busts, and plaques of the LeConte brothers scattered all over campus.

Now What? O.K. California has banned ‘redskins’. So what should we do now about the heroes of the Confederacy? My own opinion is that, at the very minimum, we shouldn’t name anything else for the LeContes. They have more than enough stuff named for them scattered around town already. Admittedly, the LeConte brothers held obnoxious racial views, but their views were common among wealthy white men in America 150 years ago, both in the North and the South. If we rename everything in Berkeley that is now named for the LeConte brothers, then what do we do about all the other stuff in town that is named for other slave owners and racists. For example, Berkeley has both a Washington and a Jefferson elementary school. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both major slave owners.

Jack London. And what should the city of Oakland do about all the stuff there that is named for Jack London? Jack London was very racist. His 1904 essay ‘The Yellow Peril’ is full of ugly anti-Chinese stereotypes. Even worse is Jack London’s ‘The Unparalleled Invasion’, a science fiction novel in which the author gives his approval to a plan to exterminate of the bulk of the population of China by biological warfare as the “only possible solution to the Chinese problem” and then resettling the country with Westerners. Renaming everything in Oakland that is currently named for Jack London would cost a ton of money. There is a lot of stuff in Oakland named for Jack London. So what do you think Berkeley and Oakland should do?

If You Think Berkeley Rents Are High, Wait Til You Hear What They Are Charging In San Francisco.

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If you have driven over the Bay Bridge anytime in the past 3 years going to San Francisco, you probably noticed the Jasper building which is under construction on the right side of the off-ramp on top of Rincon Hill. The building is thin and 40 stories high. The Jasper will be finished soon. They has just announced their rent schedule:
  • Studios $4,250 a month
  • One Bedroom $5,300
  • Two Bedroom $7,000

jasperWhy would anybody pay $7,000 a month rent for a 2 bedroom apartment? I know several people who bought houses in San Francisco within the past couple of years, and all of them are spending a lot less than $7,000 a month for housing, and they all have mortgages. To be fair, the Jasper really is a luxury building. The apartments are large, and the building has a lot of amenities. Most of the apartments have balconies; however, I don’t know how much time I would spend on a balcony next to the Bay Bridge on-ramp at rush hour, especially on a hot, dry day. Breathing air like that can’t be healthy.

The minimum wage in San Francisco is now $12.25 an hour, which I think is too low. I ask you – how can anyone live in San Francisco who works at minimum wage? According to Zillow, the average apartment in San Francisco rents for $3,950 a month. That means that a worker would need to make $79 an hour, or $153,000 a year, to rent the average apartment in San Francisco without spending more than 30% of his pre-tax income on rent. I don’t know how much McDonalds pays their hamburger flippers in San Francisco, but I’m pretty sure that it is considerably less than $153,000 a year. There are a lot of people working for minimum wage in San Francisco, but where do they live? I really can’t figure that out. The people who work at McDonalds and Walgreens in the City must live someplace – but where?