Published in this weeks edition of "Hometown Oneonta"
(The Daily Star wants it to be 177 words shorter)
During the course of my apartment hunt, I was recently shown an apartment with a hole in the ceiling large enough to fit a dining room table into. The owners of the building treated the fact that the tenants of the apartment upstairs may at any moment become roommates with a blasé indifference that needs to be seen to be properly admired. They assured me that the obvious massive structural damage was no problem and could be patched up and ready for me to move into by tomorrow.
The truly astonishing thing about this story is not merely that it is perfectly factual and presented without the slightest exaggeration, but that the landlords in question were actually willing to rent Non-Student Tenants.
(The Daily Star wants it to be 177 words shorter)
During the course of my apartment hunt, I was recently shown an apartment with a hole in the ceiling large enough to fit a dining room table into. The owners of the building treated the fact that the tenants of the apartment upstairs may at any moment become roommates with a blasé indifference that needs to be seen to be properly admired. They assured me that the obvious massive structural damage was no problem and could be patched up and ready for me to move into by tomorrow.
The truly astonishing thing about this story is not merely that it is perfectly factual and presented without the slightest exaggeration, but that the landlords in question were actually willing to rent Non-Student Tenants.
A person like myself who has been
searching for less than a year might actually stand a chance of
finding a place to live here.
This sort of thing must be stopped!
Oneonta, as you may know is in the midst of a severe housing crisis. Of all the apartments here, a mere 97% of them are made exclusively available for student rental.
Clearly this is not sufficient. All
local rental units must be converted to student-only housing without
delay!
Unfortunately the landlords of this
town are forced to contend with a persistent population of non
student renters, who, with their unreasonable demands, are far from
ideal tenants. These are the sort of tenant who will actually have
the audacity ask for their security deposit back, request to be
allowed to keep pets, and worst of all demand to live in the kind of
conditions where the SPCA will allow animals to live. Our poor
landlords are virtually powerless against this outrage. The rules
governing rental housing in our beloved town are so hard on landlords
that they may occasionally consider obeying them! Some are left no
choice but to rent to so-called “Young Professionals” (which we
all recognize as a euphemism for things like:“Adjunct Professor”
or “New Family”).
It is essential that the town council do everything that they can to eliminate the subtle menace of these adult renters from gaining a toehold in our beloved town. If we allow such undesirable persons to find a place to live here, they may eventually buy houses, start businesses in our precious vacant storefronts and disrupt the cherished Status Quo with completely unwelcome prosperity. I urge you, Citizens of Oneonta, to do everything in your power to prevent this dangerous element from making their homes here. Keep our rents high and standards of living low! Make sure our younger population stays transient and do your part to prevent terrifying change from taking root. We must do everything in our power to prevent any potential of a population increase.
Only by taking definitive action
against this menace today can we keep things exactly the way they
are!
John Ryan
Oneonta?
Oneonta?
No comments:
Post a Comment