memories: that berkeley slumlord
The rental applications for some brokers ask for contact information for at least two previous landlords. Being as how I never move, I have only lived in three apartments total over the last twelve years. That means that two landlords ago, I was still in Berkeley. I realized that I not only can't really remember what I paid for that crapshack on Dwight Way all those years ago, but I had no idea what my landlord's contact info was. Well, at least I remembered the name of the company, and being as how they were literally the largest real estate holders in Berkeley, there is plenty of info on them all over the internet. Especially this awesome article about how my landlord was arrested for importing underage sex slaves from India. One 17-year-old slave allegedly died from carbon monoxide poisoning in one of his apartments. Yeah, that sounds about right. My apartment was pretty big, and rent stabilized, but it was definitely pretty shitty, too. For the first year or so that I lived there, my next door neighbors were some "relatives" of the landlord. Their apartment was a mirror image of mine, a 1-bedroom, only they fit anywhere from 8-12 people in the apartment at any given time. They were really nice to me, but they were pretty loud, too. Thankfully, they were eventually moved to another one of his death trap buildings and my awesome neighbor David moved in.
Anyway, that notorious slumlord plead guilty to a variety of charges, but apparently they didn't take away his property and he is still worth well over $50 million. After reading some of this stuff, I realized that I never once actually saw the guy. I also never saw a super, never managed to get them to fix anything, and had to kick down my front door to get in on two occasions. Ah, those were the days.
2 comments:
You rented from Reddy Realty? Wow. Som many memories in your place, in Chris and Greg's across the street, and mine (and later Chris' too) up the street....
Do you remember drinking Absolut Currant in your kitchen? or watching X-Files in your living room?
That neighborhood's gotten even way shittier in the last couple of years. Telegraph isn't cleaned anymore. It's caked with various animal fecal matter and hobos. I think it's due to all the stores closing. sigh.
What was it with us and Absolut Currant? I don't think I've had that since college. It's so crazy that we all lived on the same block, that was awesome. And it's really weird that Josh lived in your place before that, too. So I was basically on Dwight way all the way through college.
BTW, I had no idea that Reddy dude was such a dick when I rented that place. It all makes sense now that I know, though.
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