Landlords, Can You Not Be Trash Right Now?
Right now the situation is tense between many landlords and their tenets. Corona has caused layoffs for millions of workers, forcing state governments to put eviction moratoria in place. The result is a good many landlords not getting paid, at least in the interim, and they are furious about it. How furious? Well, here's a guy who is about one step removed from crashing his head through a door while brandishing an ax and yelling, "here's Johnny!"
We're talking about Frank Marr who allegedly showed up with a two-by-four and a knife to the home of a young, married couple that was behind on rent. Marr was arrested, but it's just one of many incidents in which landlords are using whatever means necessary to force tenets to leave their homes illegally. Said Marr, "I'm not a bad guy, I take on bad guys. When I take on bad guys, I do what I got to do. You're bad, get going. I'll throw you out." No, that wasn't him reading dialogue from Olympus Has Fallen Behind On Rent. It's how he actually views his role in a rental contract. It's this "being a landlord makes me some type of hero" view of reality that demonstrates why so many landlords have resorted to cutting power, changing locks, threatening to call child protective services, or just being run of the mill shitbags to their non-paying tenants.
But this all says nothing about the landlords who are using the COVID-19 crisis to sexually exploit their tenants. This isn't just a few random occurrences of douchebags trying to play out their wildest Pornhub fantasies by asking for sex in lieu of rent either. According to Buzzfeed News, the executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, Khara Jabola-Carolus said, "We've received more cases at our office in the last two days than we have in the last two years."
This isn't to say that all landlords are monsters. Even landlords have to eat, and as long as they don't follow that statement with "and what I eat is p***Y," then there's a certain amount of sympathy we can afford a struggling landlord as well. A very small amount of sympathy, but a sympathy nonetheless. COVID-19 has made it difficult to get by for all of us, but dear God, if you're a landlord, even a landlord to millionaire Mets Pitcher Noah Syndergaard, please stop trying to exploit your renters.
Because, when you go up the ladder, someone is always someone else's landlord, either literally and figuratively. If you keep treating those below you like crap, then all it does is give those above you the license to do the same. That, or sooner or later Noah Syndergaard is going to bean you with a fastball to the dick.
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