Tag Archives: COVID19

RENTER’S INSURANCE.

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Do you have renter’s insurance? Renter’s insurance costs between $150 and $200 a year, a small price to pay for a lot of coverage. First, you also get personal property insurance with worldwide coverage. That means that if your stuff gets stolen from your home, your car, or your luggage while you are traveling; you can get reimbursed. Second, you get personal liability insurance. That protects you in case somebody slips on your porch or trips over an extension cord and breaks his clavichord. I always advise tenants to buy renter’s insurance whenever I sign a lease, and tenants invariably tell me that they will do that, but sadly, a lot of them put off making the purchase until they have suffered a loss, and then it’s too late. That sounds a lot like the unvaccinated people in hospitals who say to the doctor just before they die from Covid19: “Okay doc. Give me the damn vaccine”, and then the doctor has to tell them that it’s too late for that. Sadly, that happens many times every day. It seems hard to believe that there are still large numbers of people in the United States who don’t know the difference between a vaccine and a cure. But I digress. Don’t wait until your stuff is stolen before buying renter’s insurance. If you don’t know where to get renter’s insurance, just go to Google, and type in ‘renter’s insurance’ and the name of the city and state where you live, and you’ll get lots of results. Renter’s insurance is not hard to find. If you are a tenant, you need renter’s insurance!


What about the landlord’s insurance? Doesn’t he already have insurance on the building?
A lot of tenants don’t buy renter’s insurance in the mistaken belief that they already have coverage because the landlord has insurance on the property, but that is just wishful thinking. Sometimes a tenant will ask me: “Do you have fire insurance on this building?” I tell them: “Yes, I have fire insurance.” However, my insurance only protects me from loss, not you. If there is a fire, my insurance policy will pay me for the damage to the building and the personal property that belongs to me, like the refrigerator in your apartment. However, my insurance policy won’t pay you for the loss of your property. If there is a fire and your computer is reduced to a pile of melted plastic, you need your own insurance policy to get reimbursed for that. As I said, imagining that you don’t need renter’s insurance because your landlord has insurance on the property is just wishful thinking. Insurance doesn’t work that way.

COVID VACCINE VS. AN UNTUCKED SHIRT

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As you probably know, the governors of some southern states are prohibiting public schools from requiring kids and teachers to wear face masks. In Florida and Texas, this prohibition is statewide despite the fact that these states have the most new Covid cases in the country. Most hospitals in Texas and Florida have no available ICU beds. The governors of Florida and Texas say that the reason they are doing this is because they are “opposed to government mandates“, but these states have the nation’s toughest school behavior mandates in the country. In a number of southern states, a public school student who is caught wearing his shirt over his pants instead of tucked in is subject to corporal punishment by teachers and school staff. Thousands of kids in Texas public schools are spanked, paddled, or beaten every year for offenses such as wearing an untucked shirt or laughing in the cafeteria. In Mississippi, elementary school students have been sent to ‘juvie’ (a jail for juvenile criminals) for wearing the wrong color shoes. In Florida, children as young as 6 are subjected to corporal punishment. There are no regulations in Florida as to what instrument can be used to beat children with, and Florida schools do not need permission from parents to beat their kids. Southerners support these very harsh school mandates, but they become enraged when they are told to have their kids wear face masks at school because “we don’t believe in mandates.” Covid has killed over 600,000 Americans, but no child ever died from wearing an untucked shirt or laughing in the school cafeteria. The logic of these people escapes me. Southerners love their children and don’t want them to get sick and die. I don’t get it. No foolin’. I really don’t get it.

About California. Here in California, corporal punishment is prohibited in public schools. When I tell my students that in a number of southern states, teachers can beat students with a wood paddle or a leather belt for wearing an untucked shirt, they don’t believe me. I can see it in their faces. They ask other teachers in the school and their parents if it is true. Once they get confirmation that it is true, they go silent and stare at me. Some of my students told me later that they made their parents promise not to move to the South, at least not until all the kids in the house graduate high school. Some adults laugh when I tell them that, but I can assure you that none of my 13-year old students laughs when I tell them that kids their age are beaten in schools in the South every day for offenses such as ‘horseplay on a school bus’, ‘flatulence in class’, wearing mismatched socks, or wearing an untucked shirt. 

WHAT WILL LIFE BE LIKE IN THE BAY AREA AFTER COVID19?

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We all know that the driving force in the economy of the San Francisco bay area is the high-tech industry. The COVID19 epidemic has made big changes in the way that people in the high-tech industry live and work, and some of those changes will be permanent. Most high-tech workers in this area are now working at home, and many of them will never return to working at an office. Some San Francisco tech giants, including Twitter and Square, have told most of their employees that they can now work from home permanently.

HOUSING. The fact that high-tech company employees are now working at home explains why rents in some bay area cities are falling but not others. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in San Francisco has fallen 9% since May, 2019. In Mountain View, average rent fell 16% and in Cupertino 14%. However, in Oakland, rents rose 5%, and rents in Berkeley are holding up too. In other words, rent is falling in cities where big tech companies are headquartered. Now that high tech employees are working from home, and many permanently, they can move to nearby cities where the rent is cheaper. The average 1-bedroom apartment in San Francisco currently rents for $3,400 a month. See: Rent Jungle. However, the average 1-bedroom apartment in Oakland is $2,500 a month. A person working at the Salesforce Tower may have been willing to pay $4,000 a month for an apartment nearby for the convenience of being able to walk to work, but what about now? For a recent college graduate in a high tax bracket and with student loans to pay off, being able to save over $1,000 a month on rent by moving to the east bay is a no-brainer. No one knows when this epidemic will be over, and when it is over and tech companies have reopened their offices, how many people who are now working at home will go back to commuting to the office 5 days a week just like before? Some tech people working at home may feel that they can now move far away from the bay area to places where rent is really cheap, places like Lubbock, Texas; where you can rent a modern 1-bedroom apartment that’s walking distance from Texas Tech for $500 a month. Of course, a lot of high-tech people currently working at home will still need to live near Silicon Valley when this is over so that they can attend meetings and conferences. Plus, there are a lot of people who work at home 4 days a week but who have to go to the office 1 day a week. I know people like that. Besides, how many people would really want to move from Palo Alto to Lubbock?

OFFICE SPACE. If working from home becomes the new normal for the high-tech industry, what will happen to companies that rent office buildings in Silicon Valley and downtown San Francisco? What will happen to companies like We Work? And what will happen to the businesses near high-tech company headquarters that depend on income from the people who work there – or used to work there – places like spiffy bars and restaurants in San Francisco’s financial district?

A FEW GOOD PROJECTS.

If you are looking for things to do because you are spending more time at home now because of the virus, here are some good projects.

1. Emergency water. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, all the water mains in the city burst. Some people in San Francisco didn’t have potable water for months. What would you do if that happened today? Everyone who lives in earthquake country should have an emergency supply of water. Gallon jugs of water are very cheap. You can also just clean out empty plastic milk and juice jugs and fill them with water. Store water jugs in a basement or bike shed or garage just in case they leak.

2. Dump expired food & meds. What’s in the back of your refrigerator? When was the last time you went through your refrigerator and kitchen cabinets and dumped expired food or food that has gone bad? There are a lot of foods that people never check the expiration dates on because they think they are edible forever, products like ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, etc., but that isn’t true. All food goes bad with time. You should also go through your medicine cabinet and replace expired meds.

3. Clean out your closets. When was the last time you went through your closets and got rid of the stuff that you have no possible use for? I am constantly amazed at the stuff that people store in their closets. I once had a tenant who called me over because the light bulb in his living room closet wasn’t working. I couldn’t get to the light fixture because the closet was full of used paper shopping bags. I told the tenant that I would return to fix the light after he removed the bags from the closet. When I returned, there were piles of shopping bags all over the living room. It turned out that the problem was just a burned-out light bulb. I know several other people like this, people who never throw out shopping bags, no matter how many they already have. Some people will not throw out empty boxes either. I know someone with a basement filled to the ceiling with empty boxes.

4. Start a Goodwill box. Start putting things that you have no use for in a giveaway box so that everything is in one place. Ask yourself if the things in this box are actually salable or just junk. People leave junk at thrift stores at night that should go in their garbage can instead. Thrift stores have no use for cracked dishes, broken appliances, or old mattresses. It is illegal in California for stores to sell used mattresses. On the other hand, thrift stores may actually want your old shopping bags.

WHY YOUR GRASS IS NOT GETTING MOWED.

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I know that your grass needs mowing, but I have told my gardener not to come here. I want you to know that I am not doing this from neglect. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, it is now illegal in Alameda County (and most of the rest of California) to hire somebody to mow your grass or do gardening work unless it is to “prevent a dangerous condition such as fire prevention or tree trimming and not for cosmetic or other purposes, such as upkeep.” (Alameda County Health Officer Order, Section 13. Definitions, ‘f’ Essential Businesses, ‘xiii’ Arborists, landscapers, gardeners.) I don’t understand why the health department isn’t allowing gardeners to mow people’s grass. ​​If a gardener is working alone and no one else is in the yard, where is the risk? ​Besides, the​ grass at Berkeley city parks and school playgrounds is getting mowed. ​I don’t see the logic of this, but nevertheless, it​ is​ the law.