kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (08/10/86)
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Anyone who thinks that owners won't run down property have had
either limited experience or incredible luck with landlords.
Or perhaps live in an area without rent control. Rent control is
what makes running down property the only way the landlord can break
even.
In fact I have had landlords whose conscious policy was to run an
apartment into the ground, so that ideally it had zero value on
the day they died.
Please tell us, was rent control in effect?
Do you think that private enterprise exists at the convenience of
government, that government must watch like a hawk, ready to seize the
land if the landlords behave in ways the government doesn't like?
That seems to be what you are implying. You seem to be saying that
some landlords act irrationally and that governmnent should take over
the property, or at least the control of the property, to utilize it
to better ends.
Even if an apartment gets shoddy, can't it be fixed up?
In some cases, running into the ground means destroying the value
of the land for a long time, such as creating a bogus toxic waste
dump.
Huh? How many landlords have done THAT to your apartment? How many
do that to ANY apartment?
...Keith
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