Maybe it’s because my landlord just increased my rent by $150 after having an elevator out for a month and I didn’t have hot water for two days last week, but friends, I am down on landlords lately. I’ve come to terms with the fact that unless I can get hit by some well-insured rich person’s car when I’m crossing the street, home ownership is probably out of my reach in this lifetime. I’ve made my peace with that, but then I come across things like this guy’s TikTok, in which he buys out a home, and then gleefully shows himself raising the rent on a woman, for no reason other than he can. It’s basically a primer on gentrification, and thanks, I hate it.
Here he is skulking around neighborhoods in Miami trying to figure out where he can rip the rug out from under people and cash in on gentrification trends:
I don’t know about you, but I spend the spare $550,000 I have laying around exclusively on avocado toast and candles. This is obviously why I am still a renter. This man has hustle (and a Lawful Evil alignment) I never will. It’s not because jobs have been reduced from W2 to contract positions which makes it basically impossible to get a mortgage, no. Clearly, it’s because I am lazy and he is not.
You already see where this is going. Here is he telling the tenant of the home he’s raising her rent from $1,100 to $2,200. Ha ha, f*ck you!
My previous landlord dropped a garage on my car and then blamed me because he didn’t clear the snow off the roof of the garage and somehow that was my fault. Then told me that it was a good thing the garage collapsed because he was able to make upgrades on his property as a result. He also then raised my rent because of the improved value of the property. Do you see how this works?
What’s really interesting is that somehow this landlord thinks he is the victim here, because he is doubling this woman’s rent, and she is rightfully upset. Then, he’s putting it on TikTok for reasons known only to him. By the way, Florida is a two-party consent law for recording, so unless she agreed to be recorded, she’s got a case here. I guess he expected her to be grateful because people like this always expect you to be grateful.
This series ends with the landlord threatening to bring the sheriff to evict the current tenant who refused to pay more than double her rent. What in the world did this man think would happen when he posted this to TikTok? Unless he fully upgraded that home and put a lot of time, amenities, and effort into it, there is no way it was worth doubling the rent for the tenant—and even then, she’s been at the property for 10 years as she stated in the first video. Having to pay more than $13,000 more a year for the same place you’ve been living for a decade is just ridiculous.
I’ve been a renter for almost 20 years, so I’ve had my share of shitty landlords. I’ve rented from mom-and-pop landlords like this guy. In my rent-controlled apartment in LA, my landlord thought it was acceptable for me to have a roach infestation for all 5 years I lived there because he knew he could rent my unit for considerably more if I moved out because rents exploded during that time, so he did nothing about the vermin. I’ve also rented from nameless corporations, like the unit I’m in now, that don’t particularly care about any personal circumstances and raise rents based on a schedule. Being a renter sucks.
As I said, I would love to buy something, but the way the economy is set up now, I’ve accepted I probably never will. I hope that the Biden administration’s plan to implement a national renter’s Bill of Rights happens, stating in particular that rent increases need to be reasonable. No one but the genuinely evil landlord posting on TikTok would think doubling someone’s rent is reasonable.
Housing is a human right, it should not be a way for others to extract more wealth from people who are just trying to live.
(featured image: Musée de la Révolution française, Wikimedia Commons)
