Cedargrove has riots starting to break out I see.

[WNYresident]

So the home owners in Cedargrove are protesting the landlords that supposily don't keep thier property maintained.

Go read B3 in the buffalo news "Landlord target of Cedargrove protest"

I couldn't find the link to the story on their website.

Anyone know who Don Holt is? Did he get any pictures of how ran down the place is to prove his point?

From the Buffalo News

He said "Look at this place, it's ready to fall down," said resident Don Holt, a homeowner who was protesting with his wife, Marge.

I read

"Private owner of units who don't properly bait for rats are to blame" said Chris Koenig, rental agent for Properties Unlimited, the company targeted Saturday by protestors.

So Chris is telling Don the rats are thier problem too? Or is this more about the tenants Properties Unlimited attracts?

Or are the buildings being rented really not maintained?

[Ragin]

Cedargrove residents protest poor conditions

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...25/1003088.asp

[moonshine]

There's a simple solution:

Make the rats fill out a credit application when they apply to live in these apartments! If I was a landlord of one of those housing units I would force the tenant to pay extra for having pets if the lease stated it was a violation. There's tenants who complain about ghosts. Well, damnit, you better get that ghost out of your apartment or I'm gonna start charging you extra. There's only two people on the lease and now you're claiming that a ghost lives there?!?! Pay up! Same with the rats.

Lunatics.

[atotaltotalfan2001]

So the home owners in Cedargrove are protesting the landlords that supposily don't keep thier property maintained.

Go read B3 in the buffalo news "Landlord target of Cedargrove protest"

I couldn't find the link to the story on their website.

Anyone know who Don Holt is? Did he get any pictures of how ran down the place is to prove his point?



I read



So Chris is telling Don the rats are thier problem too? Or is this more about the tenants Properties Unlimited attracts?

Or are the buildings being rented really not maintained?

What do you think? Sounds like slum landlords to me....

[WNYresident]

I dont know because I don't know what "units" they are refering to.

And who's fault are the rats anyhow?

The people who put thier garbage out loosely?

The people who rent who are just messy?

The landlords fault for renting to people who put thier garbage out loosely?

I sort of agree that the homeowners/renters should handle thier own rat issues.

But then what do you do with the homeowners who don't do anything that make it harder for the homeowners that do? Two messy nieghbors makes it hard for a responsible nieghbor to rid themself of rats.

What is the landlord supposed to do when they have messy tenants?

There are messy tenants you know.

If the landlord was going to evict someone for being sloppy you'd know there would be a group that would defend the "sloppy".

Perhaps a flyer on proper garbage disposal/storage with the threat of your property taxes going up if the town has to hire a "rat patrol" at current government wage rates. That should be enough to wake a few people up.

[moonshine]

Perhaps a flyer on proper garbage disposal/storage with the threat of your property taxes going up if the town has to hire a "rat patrol" at current government wage rates. That should be enough to wake a few people up.

I've never met a renter who understood that property taxes have a direct effect on rent. They usually think some wonderland fairy pays these taxes with money created out of gold from the ends of the rainbow.

[WNYresident]

What defines one landlord as a good landlord versus a slum landlord?

Is it the clientel they rent to? The maintance they provide? what?

I rented to people for a short time and believe me, it's not fun sometimes.

Here are a few examples of tenants:

Rented a bar out. The bar had urnals in the mens bathroom. One day the rentee decides to take the flusher on the urnal and remove the spring so it flowed freely all the time. Times goes on and the water bill for the building comes in. $1400 bucks. In the mean time when he removed the spring he also damaged the sealing in the handle so the water was slowly leaking behind the urnal causing the tile and floor to lift. That was about $400 to fix. In his eyes what he did was fine and argued for weeks about not paying the bill.


First apartment rental experience:

Rented my grandparents apartment out to a couple who were recommended by another couple in the nieghborhood. I was told you would be helping a nice young couple.

Well... 2 bedroom apartment, large living room/dining room, kitchen and bathroom. Dated but everything in the apartment was top notch because my grandparents kept everything very well.

Lets see...

First the kitchen faucet somehow got ripped off the sink. I was told it just fell off! Right in her hands. So we went and replaced it with another good kitchen sink faucet. 60 days later that one fell apart!.. Broke the water outlet right off the base that was attached to the sink. You know what it was? Thier kid would pull a stool up to the counter and grab onto the faucet and she got up on the counter.

about 4 months later

Same couple. Somehow the curtian rods over the front picture window got pulled out of the wall. Never got the story on that one but right in front of thier couch was this big 2 foot X 2 foot stain on the carpet. There was also like a dirt path from the entrance of the apartment through the kitchen to the living room. Her answer: I didn't pay for the carpet talk to my husband about it. Apparently when he comes home from work he would leave his boots on and plopped himself on the couch dirt and all. Once they fell 4 months behind in rent they were asked to find a new place. More damage was done in that month than over 70 years in that apartment. People don't respect other people's property anymore.

So does that make me a slumlord because I got stuck with tenants that weren't really responsible?

[atotaltotalfan2001]

What defines one landlord as a good landlord versus a slum landlord?

Is it the clientel they rent to? The maintance they provide? what?

I rented to people for a short time and believe me, it's not fun sometimes.

Here are a few examples of tenants:

Rented a bar out. The bar had urnals in the mens bathroom. One day the rentee decides to take the flusher on the urnal and remove the spring so it flowed freely all the time. Times goes on and the water bill for the building comes in. $1400 bucks. In the mean time when he removed the spring he also damaged the sealing in the handle so the water was slowly leaking behind the urnal causing the tile and floor to lift. That was about $400 to fix. In his eyes what he did was fine and argued for weeks about not paying the bill.


First apartment rental experience:

Rented my grandparents apartment out to a couple who were recommended by another couple in the nieghborhood. I was told you would be helping a nice young couple.

Well... 2 bedroom apartment, large living room/dining room, kitchen and bathroom. Dated but everything in the apartment was top notch because my grandparents kept everything very well.

Lets see...

First the kitchen faucet somehow got ripped off the sink. I was told it just fell off! Right in her hands. So we went and replaced it with another good kitchen sink faucet. 60 days later that one fell apart!.. Broke the water outlet right off the base that was attached to the sink. You know what it was? Thier kid would pull a stool up to the counter and grab onto the faucet and she got up on the counter.

about 4 months later

Same couple. Somehow the curtian rods over the front picture window got pulled out of the wall. Never got the story on that one but right in front of thier couch was this big 2 foot X 2 foot stain on the carpet. There was also like a dirt path from the entrance of the apartment through the kitchen to the living room. Her answer: I didn't pay for the carpet talk to my husband about it. Apparently when he comes home from work he would leave his boots on and plopped himself on the couch dirt and all. Once they fell 4 months behind in rent they were asked to find a new place. More damage was done in that month than over 70 years in that apartment. People don't respect other people's property anymore.

So does that make me a slumlord because I got stuck with tenants that weren't really responsible?

Nope. Those people sound irresponsible to me. It really is true that people just don't value something if it isn't theirs. If they'd owned the place, they might have taken better care. Or not. Frankly, they sound kind of slimmy to me.

As for the rats: Don't apartment buildings have those industrial sized trash bins? In all my years as a renter in aprt buildings, I always hauled my trash into one of those bins. They were very strudy and protected. Unless people are leaving the lids up, it would be hard for rats to get inside them.

[moonshine]

A slumlord can't be a slumlord without a willing tenant.

I guess there are landlords who force a perspective tenant, at gunpoint, to sign a lease, pay a security deposit, and move into an apartment sight unseen. The landlord proceeds to let the property fall into disrepair but the tenant continues to pay the rent every month out of fear.

Maybe the homeowners in cedar grove should start calling the tenants onto the carpet instead of hiding behind abstract slumlord chants. I'd bet they don't have the balls to confront their neighbors directly, but they sure do act tough with their picket signs and nasty rhetoric when the landlord isn't around.

[atotaltotalfan2001]

Depends on who these tenants are.

Are we talking dope dealers? Druggies? Or just irresponsible people?

[joe d.]

There is no such thing as a slumlord. When you actually scrutinize the condition, you'll see that there is a SLUMTENANT!!
QUESTION..WHAT CAME FIRST, THE SLUM LORD or the SLUMTENANT!!?
AS for ****TY GROVE..er i mean CEDAR GROVE inhabitants, they were all given an excellent opportunity to leave to "better housing" by the developer who wanted to drastically improve this ****hole area, AGAIN, they protested.
Let em wallow in their own spoils. they got what they asked for. MOVE ON!!!

[OneEmerald]

Properties Unlimited owns more than half of the 4 plexes and several duplexes that are mixed in with the single family homes. Many of the tenants do not follow the rules for putting out garbage in covered cans, leave trash and debris around the property, etc. The rest of the neighborhood has to babysit these people and remind the manager to get this stuff cleaned up. Then there are tenants who try to do the right things but their apartments are falling apart, the roof is leaking, etc. but they are stuck in a lease. Properties owns the duplex across the street from me. It once had beautiful landscaping but now we are lucky if the grass gets cut. The one apartment can't be rented because it has mold.

Most of the police calls for domestic violence, guns and drugs are for people living in the 4-plexes. The neighborhood is fed up. We have been actively fighting this for over 10 years. Every town board member knows who we are along with the building inspector department.

Who knows where the rats are coming from. On my street we all take care of our garbage, clean up after our pets, don't feed the birds, etc. but there still are rats. I think having the cemetary and drive-in right next door doesn't help.

I could go on and on. You all know I live here. I know there was that chance for change (that I was fully in favor of) but it was too big of a change. I don't know if the protest will do any good. It brought out the plight of drugs and other problems that some people, last year, insisted did not exist.

Some good and true points were made by others... you have a person or family living in poverty, perhaps collecting welfare, have section 8 or belmont. Properties has 2 and 3 bedroom apts that are reasonable to rent. Some are on forever welfare and don't really give a crap about the place they live in, it's an entitlement. It's not theirs so they don't care. They break things and bitch and complain. Then there's the single young mother with 2 or 3 kids. She lets her boyfriend stay there. He comes over to her place after robbing some convenient store in the city. Bah blah blah, This is what the property owners have to deal with because there are just too many freaking rental untits in here. In case anyone is interested, there are about 130 4 plexes in here. That's 520 rental units, and I think there are about 3 buildings where the owner actually lives in one of them.

I asked before and I'll ask again. Does anyone have any ideas on what to do with Cedargrove? And, no, torching the place is not an option.

[moonshine]

Does anyone have any ideas on what to do with Cedargrove?

I think you guys are on the right track, but are targeting the wrong people. You mentioned that people couldn't get out of leases even when their roofs are leaking. Bullspit! Do you want to get these landlords to comply with the leases they wrote? Provide the tenants with a copy of the New York Landlord's Law Book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087...832636?ie=UTF8

A stupid tenant enables a stupid landlord. I'll send you my copy if you instant message me and promise to educate the tenants. I think you'll find that the problem is LAZY TENANTS! I'll bet you that the tenants will laugh at your attempt to help them. That's the core problem. People with an entitlement, ghetto, mentality. Work WITH the landlord, not against him. Some landlords are scum, but most of us are trying to protect our investments, just like you. The decent ones will accept your criticism and do everything economically possible to protect their investment. Section 8 and Belmont require annual inspections. Hold the inspector's feet to the fire and force action. If a section 8 tenant is living in a leaky apartment the funding will be denied.

It's going to take a lot of community involvement to eradicate these slimeball tenants, but if you have the energy to build picket signs protesting the property owner you certainly have the energy to make the tenants accountable.

[moonshine]

Regarding the drug problem:

A landlord in Jacksonville, FL used fake cameras to end dealing on his street. They sell them at Harbor Freight Warehouse on NFB for $5 a pop. The look identical to a real camera, but don't do anything. Have your neighbors affix them to their homes, pointed in the direction of the drug dealing. Hopefully the cops won't question these devices. The cops are probably protecting the guys selling the drugs, so it's important to not disclose that the cameras are fake.

Good luck.

[Curmudgeon]

I've never met a renter who understood that property taxes have a direct effect on rent. They usually think some wonderland fairy pays these taxes with money created out of gold from the ends of the rainbow.

OH MY GOD. Rational thought from moonshine. Who are you and what have you done with the real moonshine?!?!?