With Marty Walsh’s new amendment to initiate inspections in housing and rentals, there is still hope for financially fragile college students and other people with low income. No more will landlords exploit the loopholes of our society. No more will tenants have to worry about their landlord showing up unannounced at their apartment. In other words – fewer code violations!
It is important to point out that there are good and bad landlords. The ones who do their job and care about their tenants should not be worried; this article is not about you guys. After reading this you know exactly whom this social reflection pertains to.
In the last few years too many cunning landlords, or rather “land-rats,” have burdened our society and slowed down the progress of our beautiful Hub. We live in a hectic world where the clock is ticking faster than ever and the only way to beat the hourglass is by prioritizing our many tasks. Certain tasks are necessary while others occur, because of incompetence and/or greed. College can be a stressful time and having a bad landlord can extremely increase students’ “stress-o-meters.” Suffolk University alumni Scott Duran ’13, had a horrible experience with his landlord when he lived in East Boston.
“He was the worst. He showed up sometimes unannounced looking for money. The apartment was never completed and things always broke. I will never rent again,” said Duran.
Duran is not the only one with a negative landlord experience. Ever since I started at Suffolk back in 2010, I have heard terrible stories about landlords allegedly taking advantage of their tenants and poisoning the gaps in our society. I experienced the frustrations of having an incompetent and greedy landlord.
My landlord never made us an extra key to the apartment. One time I got home after a long day at work and all I wanted to do was pass out. My landlord sent me a text message saying that I have to go to the other side of town and meet his son in a sketchy bar in order to pick up a spare key to the apartment. The words lazy and irresponsible could not be emphasized more in this scenario.
In addition, nothing works in my apartment because the landlord does not want to pay for maintenance. The sink does not work, the heat does not work, the light does not work. There are mice in the whole building and the floor in the living room is all warped because the cheap water pipe that should have been replaced years ago leaked over winter break when both my roommate and I were gone. The curtains are clearly from the 1960s and the insolation of the apartment is worse than a cave from the stone ages.
And it gets even better than that – apparently it is completely ok that a landlord is in his 90s. Suffolk senior Jake Athyal was the lucky tenant.
“My landlord’s bizarre. I’ve never met him. Spoken to me a couple times on the phone, but he’s 92 and doesn’t come around often. I guess I’m indifferent to him. He’s never shown up to our apartment,” said Athyal.
Hopefully with Marty Walsh in charge the landlord situation, which for most parts has been a complete disaster, will change for the better. It finally looks like it is all over for the corrupt parasites that feed on innocent college students and other people. The bad landlords know that they are cheap and that college students probably don’t have time to write a complaint, well guess what? Game over – land-rats! Stop ruining the reputation of the good landlords out there!
