Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 285: Con Air Landlordism (w/ special guests Katy Slininger & Ben Mabie)

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

This week we're talking about landlord self defense classes, tenant unions, and tenant organizing, with special guests Katy Slininger (Cargill Tenants Union) and Ben Mabie (Crown Heights Tenant Union, Tenant Union Flatbush). Make sure to stick around for the end, where we look at how landlords are arming themselves for the rev. Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-the-emergency-tenant-organizing-committee/ Connecticut Tenants Union: https://www.cttenantsunion.org/ Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Well, welcome to the show this week, everybody. This just in, Chicago has gone woke and gay. That's right. A man named Brandon won the election in Chicago. I don't know what that means. I'm happy for Chicago, though. I'm happy for him. I'm normally happy for Chicago.

Well, it's like I'm happy for anywhere that gets a political candidate political candidate named brandon who's not a conservative like that that's an uphill battle that's an uphill battle that's right we have a local politician named brandon smith who if the guy had half a brain he would run the world like he's gorgeous he's a great orator he's just corrupt and dumb as shit but he's got all the intangible you know and his what was his slogan this year in terms he did a let's go brandon thing did it i think he did literally say let's go brandon it's like there's no meaning anywhere in the world he got a dui which is just you know day rigor for the kentucky. Price of entry. Yeah.

But he also brought us hits like The Temperature on Mars is the Same as Earth. That was during the Cold Wars. That one was good. Right, right. The Cold War? Is that what you said? The Cold War, C-O-A-L. Oh.

Big difference. This is all Greek tar guess, but just, you know, add a little local color for the non-casual. Well, before we get into it, what won't be Greek to our guests is that Bud Light has also gone woke and gay. So I don't know if you guys know about that, but Kid Rock shot a mountain of Bud Light cans yesterday on stream, and it was badass, man. I have to say, my man looks like he's probably, just judging from his skin color, he's probably imbibed one too many of those in his day.

What did Bud Light do? I don't know, Tom. Did they do like a Pride can? I think they did a pride can. And then they, that was just a bridge too far for brother rock. Yeah. Just a delayed response in April. Yeah.

Why supply chain issues? Right. Pride month, a month late. Yeah. They did it last year in pride last summer. And it just now got to Tennessee to Kid Brock's trailer. Yeah. They got to tighten up, man.

That took too long. Seriously. The video, did y'all watch it? No, no, I haven't seen it yet. I love it when his staff right-wingers make... Andrew Breitbart used to do this a lot before he had a fucking cocaine. His heart exploded from cocaine and he died on the toilet. He used to do this a lot where he'd be like,

I cannot fucking wait for those fucking commies. We're really doing this. You know what I mean? And they have a gun, and they fucking cock it. It's just like, you know what I'm saying? It's like intentionally supposed to make them seem way more badass than they really are. It's very campy.

Yeah, it is. It is campy. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what he does. He shoots up a mountain of Bud Light, yeah yeah but that's what he does he shoots up the he shoots up a mountain of bud light uh and um he goes fizzing everywhere you know what i mean like it spills everywhere it's funny because i want to make like a good commercial for it you know he says he says he goes uh let

me say this in no uncertain terms that's what that's what i'm talking about in no uncertain terms that's what that's what i'm talking about canhiser bush i'm right there with you man i'm i guess it's it is funny how like for the same reasons but yeah it's like that was like the working man's beer 30 40 years ago right and it's like they're running out of working men's beer it's like if you like to really virtue signal like it's the great replacement of and it's like they're running out of working men's beer it's like if you like to really virtue signal like it's the great replacement of beers it's the great replacement of beers they're right that's exactly what it is yeah yeah yeah what's what's gonna happen though like where that where are they going to now i heard a lot of them are going to uh uh champagne

and beers which is kind of right Right. They're honing in. The mistake is tying yourself to a brand. They got to go prohibition. That's true. They should. Temperance. Full temperance. Sebastian Gorka, yeah, should be cooking up something nasty in his tub.

Honestly, I think the left should bring back temperance. I really think that that would throw people off because you want to have the element of surprise and surprise people. People would not expect it if we were like, no, we're strictly against alcohol. Ban it. I regret to inform you there is a crime thing zine

about just this. Temperance was one of those things that um i can see where they were coming from and i even kind of agree with them up to a point uh but john brown's son owen brown was a a big prohibitionist like he was he was like no fuck this uh you know anti-slavery anti um chinese exclusion laws you know like had all the right views on pretty much everything i think his older brother even became a socialist but towards the end of his life he was like nah man too many people are getting shit faced and passing down in the streets like we gotta ban booze i've been keeping track i think you talk about your book your john brown book every, which is great.

That's a good teaser. I really have to read it now. We're going to do an episode on it. So if you want to follow along, you want to be a part of Trill Billy's book club, go read Clatsbitter by Russell King. Well, this week we have two guests on the show. You know, sorry, I had to get the Bud Light thing out of the way. It's the elephant in the room.

I know we couldn't proceed in a healthy way. We didn't talk about the Bud Light thing. It would keep otherwise just coming up. Exactly. It would rent a hole. We'd just dance around it for an hour. Who's going to bring it up? That's right.

This week we have two guests who are going to help us talk about tenant organizing. Just some issues going on right now with housing in the United States at the moment um and landlords and at the end we're going to read a fun little article about um landlords arming themselves for the revolution so that'd be fun um but before we get there uh we're going to go ahead and introduce our guests we have katie slinger who had been on the show before uh who yes as katie pointed out the fans chastised me for not giving your entire background, social security number, address last time you were on the show. So Katie's with the Cargill Tenants Union in Connecticut and is a part of the DSA Communist Caucus.

Katie, how are you doing? Doing pretty well. Provisional member, just for legal reasons oh shit he's a prospect in motorcycle gang parlance they still gotta haze you in oh yeah yeah they hate you by making you read viewpoint articles yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah read um run drugs across state lines. Yeah, I've heard of some fucked up hazing, but that might be what's up there. We also have joining us today, Ben Mabee, who's an organizer in Brooklyn with Crown Heights Tenant Union and Tenant Union Flatbush. And is also part of DSA Communist Caucus. How you doing, Ben?

I'm good. I'm stoked to be here, guys. Good. Welcome, gang. We're very glad to have you very very glad to have you both um before we start today i wanted to read a tweet that i saw uh just the other day um is like on the show we have like a a sort of you could bet your set your watch by it pretty much that if a if a tweet starts off with y'all it's gonna be bad 100 there's not even a margin you got you found one they're getting rarer and rarer these days thank you they are they are getting rare because there's a lot of weird ticks that were popular on twitter like five years ago and they've slowly kind of gone away like people being like this you know what i'm saying and they point

down you know what i mean yeah but y'all y'all has persisted it's dropped off recently it has dropped off but it it you know some i guess this person is a landlord, so that makes sense why they use them. Or a little behind. Right. Just like Kid Rock. This tweet says, y'all, developers are just people who build homes. If we were experiencing a food shortage, we wouldn't be like those greedy farmers just want to sell us food. We need farmers to grow us food, and we need developers to build us homes.

Sheesh. Sheesh. I didn't see that. Sheesh. That's so funny. I love that they still, even in the tweet, they still can't justify their own existence. They still don't explain, what does the landlord do in that schema? They're not even in the equation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a weird thing. Someone responded, yes, but commodifying housing means that the incentives aren't aligned with what the community specifically needs. It's aligned with what makes money for the people who have invested

funding in that sector. And then the original person said, this tweet was in response to seeing people say that we shouldn't build more because developers would profit, which I find to be an insufficient argument for opposing more housing in a housing crisis.

Interesting. I know what we're talking about today isn't really housing per se. I mean, it's not houses. We're not really talking about the real estate market when it comes to white picket fence home, ranch style. But it is an interesting thing it's like we have so thoroughly internalized the idea of housing as a commodity that it's like we can't even think of it in any other way like the only way that it comes down to us is through the you know benevolent profit motive, I guess.

I don't know. No, it's totally crazy because this is the line that you're going to hear from landlords, from developers, from business interests across the board. There's a really acute housing crisis. Anybody who's renting or knows someone renting knows that. Rent is going up. Every one of

our buildings is falling apart. People can't find places to afford to live. And there's a bunch of people that are trying to spin it as fundamentally a problem of supply, that that's the exclusive cause of everything gone wrong. And the data just really isn't there. It also doesn't explain all the other kinds of problems that people have of harassment, of negligence, of shoddy construction. Yeah. Like how does supply. How does that factor into what you're dealing with, Katie? Lead paint.

Right. Like, it's like. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know it's just. Yeah, it's just it's like um yeah yeah i mean yeah no it's just yeah it's just um it's about the um the way this like formerly industrial space was like completely uh bought out by a private landlord and um just uses like a money-making machine while making it completely um uninhabitable for human beings so you know it i do think we need like in this area i i haven't done a um a deep dive yet

into the actual housing like availability in the area but in terms of what's been open to the public, um, it is like a, a supply issue in terms of, you know, um, afford like stuff people can afford and, um, live, live in. So like, I, I talked to a friend today, who's a former tenant here. She just got displaced because she has an infant and they couldn't wait for the lead abatement. Um, it was too much of a, an acute health risk. And so she's been looking for an apartment and she said, it's like a zoo out there where they're doing like,

realtors are taking over like the control of shitty apartments to show, you know, like they're actually hiring realtors for these little tiny Craigslist apartments and they're doing open houses and like 30 people are going to each one like fighting each other for these. So I don't yeah i don't know what actually i don't know how much it varies geographically in terms of like literal supply of apartments um around here it seems like there

is a very limited actual supply but i don't know in terms of literal physical space that could be used for housing i don't know you know i mean into that. No, you're so right. I mean, like supply is definitely a factor at some places, right? Like we haven't built housing that keeps up with population growth in this country for some decades. But part of the problem is that like supply doesn't automatically one mean,

like we're not, when we're talking about building, we're talking about kind of like giving a green light to developers. We're not talking about building housing that working class people need and can't afford. We're largely talking about building luxury housing, which maybe it's suggested in a long period of time through a process of violent displacement and sorting across the region might result in working class people finding cheaper housing now on the outskirts of the cities that they've been previously making a life in. might result in like working class people finding cheaper housing now on the outskirts of the cities

that they've been previously making a life in. And it also doesn't factor in that most, you know, in New York City, one out of five apartment units, 20% of our housing is uninhabited. It's just being held like off market by landlords who are trying to illegally destabilize it. It's just an asset that some rich person is kind of sitting on. It's just being thought of as exchange value, not as use value. Right. And so, yeah. In my area, I feel like that kind of luxury, like, or that, that kind of like held property that's like very visibly, you know, just a, you know, a financial asset. That's like not so much the case here, but there is like a crisis of supply because there's existing housing.

That's just completely neglected to the point of being condemned. And so we're, we're looking at like, like just endless properties with a big X on them that could be housing. So, you know, it is like, yeah, it just like, so that's like kind of our specific crisis here in terms of supply being like a manufactured crisis. Yeah, I would say that where we where we live in eastern Kentucky, there's a there's a housing shortage for sure. It's very hard to find it. Part of the reason is what you just described happening in New York City, Ben, the same dynamic exists here, but it's not with large constructed buildings. It's with land.

So it's like you have large swaths of land that are held. They're enclosed and they're held in the hands of absentee landlords who they they have that land on their books but it can't be used for anything you don't have access to it you can't use its amenities or its resources um which means you also can't live on it so it's like and it might be the same way where you're at katie in connecticut but it seems like you know it's like we have both of you on it seems like one of you uh and I know it's different everywhere you go like East Kentucky is different from like rural East Kentucky is different from rural Connecticut but just dividing it out into two broad camps you have a kind of like urban housing issue and you have a kind of rural housing issue

um and so just talking with katie over the last i mean how how long have you guys been dealing with this katie's like almost like since january yeah yeah since the beginning of the year it's like a lot of the things that i've heard you describe are things that i've seen happen um in surrounding communities where i live and um so maybe the best way to do this would be to have kind of each of you maybe talk a little bit about your work uh what you've experienced and um you know what you've seen in response to those things i don't know whichever one you want to start with maybe ben why don't you start uh okay yeah i can start uh feel free to interrupt me and ask a question or whatever too uh if i'm just rambling on oh we will we'll give you that we'll

give you the yeah yeah yeah start playing the oscar music uh yeah no uh so yeah i'm organizing here in brooklyn with crown heights tenant union is one of the projects we're having our 10-year anniversary um this spring been Been around. It was first started as a post-occupy project. Been around the neighborhood for a while and a big part of the tenant movement in New York City and New York State. And then we're also organizing with Tenant Union Flatbush, which is the neighborhood just south of Crown Heights, both central Brooklyn neighborhoods. Just to give you some perspective, Flatbush has like a quarter million renters just in that neighborhood alone, mostly in large rent stabilized buildings. So it's a pretty dense area.

That's like a three by three miles, like half the size of San Francisco, just as dense as San Francisco. There's not even that many people in eastern Kentucky, like in the 20 county watershed that me and Tom live in. And the messed up part is it, it's very easy to know everyone. You can't talk shit anywhere in these neighborhoods because you can't go anywhere with, you can't even walk around talking about one of the true downsides. Yeah.

There's, there's some, yeah, it's not all great, but no, I mean, we've been organizing here and it's like, the situation has gotten really acute.

I mean, we've been organizing here and it's like the situation's gotten really acute. I mean, like landlords have there was a bunch of people that went on rent strike because they couldn't pay rent in 2020. People lost their jobs. There wasn't sufficient state support. Landlords are already taking like half or more of people's income month to month. A bunch of people went on strike. They were able to kind of force through a number of like unprecedented tenant protections that came through both prior to COVID and right after. And landlords have kind of been responding by organizing a capital strike of their own. They're just not, they're jacking up the rent as much as possible through Eric Adams. They're getting permission to raise the rent really high, kind of really like aggressive rent hikes on rent stabilized units, but they're kind of withdrawing all of the money that they might've previously put. I mean, already it was a situation of wants

and disrepair out here, but it's only gotten worse. And even if you canvas in luxury buildings, like ones that just opened in 2019, people are talking about rats and roaches and heat not being on. And I think it's the landlords are trying to weaponize this kind of capital strike right now in Albany and in the courts by saying tenant protections are too strong. We can't afford to make repairs, despite the fact that they're all corporate landlords. Did a lot of these tenant protections come in place with the pandemic? I mean, some of these are like longstanding. A lot of New York has pretty strong tenant protections relative to other parts of the country, but it was always born initially of tenant struggles. So in the kind of grand kind of like rent strike wars of the early 20th

century, that's what first got us rent control. Further efforts at kind of unionizing like a coherent slate of protections for tenants in the 60s and 70s. And in 2019, on the backs of AOC's victory and people being, Julia Salazar's victory and people being afraid that, you know, socialists were going to primary people even in like, you know, Long Island or something. They like rushed through some tenant protections, which stabilized a bunch of units. And landlords have been really worried about this, not because it affects their bottom line, like too dramatically, they're able to collect money all the time, but they're trying to really kind of arrest the advance of a kind of tenant movement, which is growing larger and growing a little more

confident out here. A lot of our work though is just kind of like at more, not the legislative level, but the building level. Because just because you have a right doesn't mean you know what it is or how to exercise it. It's not like there was even public notices that went out about these change in laws. We don't have a kind of organization which can transmit to people like we just got this win in Albany. Like, here's how you can actually use it. And so a lot of our work is doing court support, helping build tenant associations that can raise demands against their landlord.

In some cases, organizing a rent strike against disrepair and harassment. We just had a victory in Crown Heights Tenant Union yesterday where a group that's been on rent strike for some time out at St. John's kind of place here in Crown Heights, St. John's and Franklin. They just won the right to both like have the city take the ownership out of the landlord's hands, potentially place it in tenant control.

And they got the city to back $700,000 of repairs that the landlord has been kind of like in decades not making in the building. So that's some of the kind of like work that we're doing is on a building by building level to kind of build tenant power at the place where landlord power often prevails, which is like in the domain of people's homes and their lobbies around issues like rent and disrepair cool well and so like you like you mentioned it seems like the landlords are pretty well aware at this point that they're i mean obviously they've been aware of it the whole time but it may be like the class warfare aspect of it has maybe taken a notch in the last they've been acting out lately they they are wilding out they really are

i saw one the other day that had a uh a blade like a katana or something right oh yeah for sure i don't know what i didn't inquire any further but they're doing self-defense classes they're they're deeply paranoid we had a meeting with a landlord in flatbush a couple of weeks ago he came with like a whole crew of dudes like 12 guys deep like all dressed like extras at a succession like just mean looking guys didn't say a word and just kind of like stood behind him it was like really bizarre uh i honestly think like i mean just from an outsider's perspective because i'm very new to tenant organizing but it seems like there is a pretty new wave of like newly enfranchised tenants that are starting to understand their rights. And from what I've seen, like landlords are very unused to being, to experiencing any

kind of pushback. I mean, maybe outside of the cities, especially, but that they are, especially, but that they are, when people are even remotely aggressive about defending their rights, they have like panic attacks and they literally don't know what to do. Yeah. So they overreact. It's like they've all of a sudden become these like little meek, like woe is me types, which is interesting. Cause it's like, you know, since, since we've been involved in.

Paper tigers. Right. Right. is interesting because it's like you know since since we've been involved in paper tigers right right it's it is interesting um i mean maybe it's pointless to try to make a distinction between like people who own means of production and people who owned on land or or real estate or anything like that because oftentimes those people are probably involved in a lot of the same activities. But it does seem that like among landlords, there has been recently way more whining and bitching about being in a grieved class. The really I mean, you don't even really see like Bezos and Elon and a lot of people say that like the most you'll get is like Howard Schultultz during the starbucks hearing last week was just like you know don't call me a billionaire like that's a single tear rolling down his cheek it's derogatory

um but yeah no they're freaking out they're freaking out and they act out all the time and that acting out takes a bunch of forms. I like have, I have, you know, there's like all like to be a small landlord in New York city means you have to own less than 96 units. And even that is only one out of five small, like land, let's only one out of five landlords in the city. I've got one of the few landlords that actually only owns one building that he lives in. It's very small chunk of like most new yorkers they're it's corporate consolidation and so people have all sorts of different kind of complex acid sheets they might be developers and landlords they might be like black rock you know what i mean yeah everything uh yeah you're building but they act out differently like my landlord the same day he raised our rent he shared a meme on

his instagram from the tenant union about Eric Adams raising the rent. And I don't think he was citing it as inspiration, but I think he likes to think of himself as a progressive landlord in solidarity. But then other landlords there, we had one landlord in the neighborhood tear down. He's not been to the building to do repairs in years. He pulls up to tear down black history month decorations at the beginning of february uh no way it's my kid rock just pulling my kid rock yeah yeah that's actually very bold like that's a bold move yeah really it's like not plant yeah yeah you're really asking for the pitchforks at that point like right, exactly. Like, don't fuck with public art.

Right. What's interesting, compare that a little bit. So, like, we'll keep that in mind, like, this sort of portrait that you just painted for New York, Ben. And then maybe contrast that, Katie, with, you know, what you're experiencing, Katie, and what you've seen in your community. you know what you're experiencing katie and what you've seen in your community um yeah so i'm you know i'm like i said i'm fairly new to doing all this stuff so i'm still kind of catching up on political's perspective on the housing industry and historical perspectives um so this is really just from groundwork the past few months but um so should i give like the whole background of the issue here do you think yeah why not uh because like it's a fascinating story i mean

yeah um it's like it's kind of come to me through you from you know over the past few months kind of in like drips and drabs like organizing and doing work in a small community uh well in any community really it's like something happens and then it seems like it kind of comes in waves that you um learn more and more about why that thing happened and how the various actors are implicated and what's all going on so i don't know if you just want to give like the broad outline or the basics of like you know where you live who it's owned by what you're dealing with um so i am in a converted old textile mill um in putnam which is the northeast corner of connecticut it's um an old textile industry um center and um so they been, the state has kind of been working on these converted mills,

um, because it's a great idea. They're on dams. They can be converted to hydropower. They can be like sustainable. Um, and so in 2020 open to residence and um i moved in with my family in 2021 and you know there's a lot of exposed wood and exposed masonry and exposed brick and um so it has this really, like, pleasing old mill aesthetic. Yeah. I don't want to interrupt you, but it's something that was interesting. Like, I remember when you first moved in there. I mean, was it kind of like a gentrification project?

Like, why? I mean, I hesitate to say this because, like, I like old buildings. I like old architecture architecture and stuff but like i almost kind of wonder like why they didn't just knock down the old mill and put up a new building or something i think it's a it's definitely a gentrification project um and this town is kind of in this very visually stark like process of renovating it's like this small town is driven by the chamber of commerce you know like these small businesses that just have like absolute political and cultural and social control over the town and and sometimes even the like county

um and so they've been renovating downtown it's like beautiful it It attracts out of towners. It's you know, higher cost like restaurants and things like that. And then over the river is the residential side of town. And it's just like completely dilapidated porches caved in like condemned houses, like half burned down houses that aren't demolished. And this was seen as like the star project of the town and for the mayor here. And, you know, like, Oh, it's a beautiful mill. It was, yeah. The historical society was like at the forefront of preserving it here.

And so, yeah, it was this big, like, you know, this is like an antiques town, you know? So like a restored mill is just, you know, catnip to the boomers that come in here and spend a lot of money. But so they, so sorry, it's just a very complicated, big story. And so sometimes I have trouble kind of like uh having a linear um storyline but basically um at the end of last year the the last week of december right after christmas we got a notification from the department of health that a child a toddler had been severely blood poisoned

here so this is a recent renovation again it was like this it's it had been up until very recently been just like the star of the town um there were affordable housing or affordable units within here it was like it's mixed income i'm in a subsidized unit and um and so since then it's just been this like absolute chaos of like finding out how there was such like an oversight because there was lead dust um everywhere from the construction during renovation there was there's still like exposed lead paint literally everywhere the epa level for lead dust on the floor for a square foot is like okay i'm gonna get the numbers wrong but i do remember that um this original unit with that

lead poison toddler the lead dust was 40 4800 times the epa limit for god damn outrageous and again this was a we were the first wave of tenants in here after a complete like supposedly completed construction project so it was like a huge shock to everyone um and then since then we've been doing our organizing and stuff like that but that's like kind of the background is lead paint cheaper than i don't even know what the fuck it's illegal it's it's old yeah so it's illegal how the fuck yeah so pre 1978 do you like chip it in it would be so tight if you could just get like uh asbestos and stuff but it's like

marked way down but on the black market in here and in that is you have to assume the cancer risk like long term yeah right like yeah how do you acquire these illegal so you can't it's that it was already here it was already in the building like it was on the walls and on the floor and so in buildings that are built after 1978, they don't use lead paint, but if it was built before 1978, you have to assume that the paint they used has lead in it. So what they should have been doing was lead remediation during the

construction process where they, they either painted over lead or HEPA vacced like lead dust up. But from what we can tell, and it's been essentially confirmed at this point is that they tried to get rid of lead paint by sandblasting it and then did not which is illegal so that would be a an environmental crime and then the particles in the air yes yes it does it creates lead dust and it settled into every nook and cranny um damn it and um then didn't vacuum or anything you know just left it um and then um someone at the health

department kind of said like what can happen when these buildings like come back to life where like you know people move in start treading around and things like that dust from little nooks and crannies will start to come out so um it just with people and children here it's just that just the action of living has like created a toxic atmosphere in here my god yeah um well it's it's like there's a hotel in our downtown that people have been trying to, you know, revive into like a boutique hotel. And it reminds me a lot of the building that you were living in. always assumed that if they do go ahead and revive it like they probably won't do the remediation or probably will still be asbestos and lead paint in there for sure like these are these are projects that are in some ways to them are kind of like ready-made it's like ah you just make a few

changes you slap some paint some new stuff on it and like there you go it looks quaint and it would have been so tight if they did that the hotel. Like, I walked through there and saw both a dead raccoon and a live raccoon. And then a twin size kids mattress that had like comets and planets on it. Like the 70s. Oh, no. Just lay it in the middle of the floor ominously. There's this guy on TikTok who is like working on exposing his like landlord. And he lives in a converted mill in new

england and now we have this running joke with all these mills that any kind of like horribly toxic disgusting like you know uh converted mill uh complex is always called the lofts at something yeah like the lofts at blank mill it's like ours is the lofts at cargill you know and his is the lofts that you know whatever mill it's like so funny because you can like guarantee you have rats and a bat you know right that's like oh yeah uh when that was hot like 10 years ago you'd pay like a ridiculous amount and it was just like just so you could see your duct work yeah it's like the department tom and i lived in an apartment like that like that it's like everything was held together with like popsicle

sticks it's a velvet coffin it looked great but like you just knew you were going to fall through the floor well i so there's like a more insidious like aspect to these conversion projects that's like it just kind of loops in like larger environmental issues which is green energy is a cash grab for like developers at this point right now yeah and so with the promise of converting this mill back to hydropower because we live on the dam um and installing a generator and it would also like feed energy to the town. So it would not only was it a cash grab from federal and state grants, which our landlord,

it's like she created a green energy LLC, applied for these grants, got tens of millions of dollars from the federal government and the state government. And so that initial cash flow, but also because it will feed energy back to the town, it will be a money generator in addition to our rent. Wow. So part of those funds were earmarked specifically for lead and mold remediation.

And she just didn't do it. God damn it. For legal purposes, I can't say who did it. That is a fact though for legal purposes can you also not get into some of the intrigue i can report anything that is public information so i meant like some of the more curious aspects about no i know but those are just like i can talk about it because it's just yeah no i thought this was just a fact didn't someone turn up somebody get fucking murdered that's what i want to get to there's a murder involved in this story god damn it's a fucking crisper malta santi

yeah yeah like like maybe literally i don't know but um but yeah i mean it's we this is a curious case right this whole my whole housing situation like obviously there are some very cut and dry like housing issues and that's what we have to organize around but in addition to that and it does have this like it does create like an x factor for organizing that always makes this kind of we're still trying to understand motives on the side of management as we're like organizing against them and so what I'm about to describe is just kind of this question mark that is kind of always following any kind of like demands that we make but anyway I'm going to say motive for the murder I thought you're gonna get on your Nancy real quick oh believe me believe me i have been our organizing committee has like research meetings

where all we're doing is like the background information on this because it's it's a fucking insane case but anyway um in 2016 or 2017 oh i can't remember but um the original property owner his name is greg renshaw um he was in charge of the whole renovation project up until this point um where he reported to the norwich bulletin that he was considering pulling out of the project um for some kind of vague like financial concern um which we just have been thinking is possible that extensive structural damage was found you know this anyway the construction costs were getting too high um anyway like a few months later he is shot inside of a unit in our complex um it wasn't open to the public yet it was just during the renovation project he was transported out of state to worcester uh worcester hospital

and so and the putnam police could not get the massachusetts state police to cooperate they basically would like hang up their phone calls and stuff like that see this is a this is a compelling argument for joining a tenants union because, I mean, you know, you at the very least can win some material benefits for you and your families and friends. But you also may be able to investigate a mystery like everybody wants. Yes, exactly. I'm living a true life podcast. Exactly. Everybody wants to live a true life podcast exactly everybody wants to live a true life podcast yeah so go on rent strike you may find that your landlord your landlord is definitely mobbed up you will find yeah there's some crime somewhere that's for sure yeah for sure

but anyway so two two or three months later town administrator, it starts to raise a fuss about the hydropower generator that they are going to install. He has environmental concerns about it diverting too much water from the river. He dies from a mysterious illness on his way home from work. He's also transported out of state to Worcester State Hospital, and the Massachusetts State Police refused to cooperate with any investigation. Both are still cold cases. Whoa. This is like the New England version of Yellowstone.

You all watch Yellowstone? Take it to the train station, but instead of the train station, it's Worcester General Hospital. They're never heard from again. Okay, so here's where it gets really weird, which is that we now think our... Oh, so the property went to Greg Renshaw's wife, and her name is Leanne Parker. And so she's been our landlord the whole time there's been residents here, up until maybe recently, which is the fact that we cannot seem to locate her and neither can um any kind of uh public

official or police department um or the united states postal service who say that her new residence is vacant and actually i think just went up for auction um and the only proof of life we have from her is the digital signature that they gave to us on a lead abatement plan so on the run pick her brain about how to do if she's not dead out of here how to how to go about you know disappearing that off the radar she's very good at it she never can tell and that'll be i mean the wildest thing though is to watch someone who has uh allegedly committed uh at least unsavory things um or been extremely negligent um is able to just it's like we've been begging the state to try to find someone who's poisoned children and then you look at their like history in court and it's like literally how do these people

own property how are they allowed to exist if i if i looked at my kid wrong this cop would come knock on my door and like arrest me you know know what I mean? Right. The double, I mean, it's just a very stark double standard that tenants are starting to see through this process. It's what you, it's what we learned in the flood. It's just like,

they don't give a fuck about you. It's like a fucking, yeah. A, a river of earth will wipe you off the fucking map. And they're just like, yeah, it doesn't concern us.

No, I mean, you know, but if you are growing we got it figured out right it's oftentimes if we're not organized the only thing you have to kind of prompt a court and prompt the state to try to come in and do anything to the landlord or to the property owner and i just was in housing court yesterday and it's just such a sham it's a joke a tenant who got like kicked out of their unit because a whole two holes collapsed in her ceiling was moved from a lottery unit to a market rate

unit the market rate unit they were charging over four thousand dollars a month for her to stay and now they want her they haven't fixed up her original unit that she was renting so they're asking her for rent not just for the original unit but also for the market rate unit so they're not even they're not even saying we'll give you the market rate for what you were paying with the same arrangement not even anything they're both one bedroom apartments they both look the same folks like and four thousand dollars it's insane absolute fucking crooks it. And again, you're in court. You're sitting around waiting for months and months go by to even get a court date. The landlord lawyer is objecting to every question on the stand.

They won't even let the kind of tenant translate a document into a language that they can read. It's just like the whole thing is a joke. You really get a sense of just like, yeah, just how much it's a kind of legal terrain, which is tilted in favor of property owners. It's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting, like why they have interpreted this as a threat against their personal being. I guess it's because in the process of capitalist production, you, I guess, prior to like a few years ago, before some portions of the workforce started working from home, they generally in the process of production, you have a place separate from home.

That was that was the bargain with capitalism right from the beginning. It's like, well, we don't take care of them. They are kicked off of the land and they have to find their own food and housing and everything but then we gather them in this place they make the commodities we extract their labor and surplus and then send them on their way but it's like if you're a landlord you're there you lose several of those layers between you and the person you're extracting it's pretty unmediated it's unmediated right and so it's like you're rubbing up against the bare bones of the person's life you're

literally just saying you uh give me half your paycheck or you can live on the street there's no complicated process of surplus value extraction there it's just like hand it over it is it's it's one it's like old school um it's like old school like kicking up it's like sicilian mafia shit it really is it's like it's like there's a reason the word lord is in there it's a feudal relationship it is ownership it is that's exactly what it is it's like are there any other examples of sort of like you know vestigial like feudal titles that hang around i guess like sheriff yeah would be one but like more but like ones that like specifically like imply like some sort of lording over somebody in that same way

i was like i feel like debt the whole sort of like regime of debt is very much that um it's like i was looking for tennis shoes yesterday it's like i try not to pay more than 80 for a pair of walking tennis shoes and it's like pay these off with four easy installments of 20 and the interest is like 12 it's like dude what the fuck like everything now everything go go bankrupt uh from clarna and a firm or whatever yeah uh that's it yeah it is interesting though i mean so it's like the rise in tenant unions in the last like i don't know what would you say ben because like i don't know the history here would you say that like because because kat Katie sent me an article about how tenant unions in Connecticut have exploded just in the last two years. Do you think it goes back to the pandemic? Does it go back 10 years ago? Does it

go back 40? I mean, like, you know, I don't really know the history. Well, I think that there's been a lot of different efforts of tenant organization. I mean, as long as there have been tenants, your rent is an exploitative social relation. So in the same way you've got, there's been people organizing on the job, as long as there have been jobs, there've been people organizing like as tenants, as long as people have been tenants, but the kind of forms that that's taken has changed, I think. So, you know, like there's a big effort, like again, early socialist movement in the United States, a hundred years ago, it was a key way that people were organizing was like in their neighborhoods on rent strikes. When the Red Scare comes down, a good friend of Katie and

ours, our comrade Rain, Rain Stark, she's doing research on how the first one of the first since the Red Scare is turning socialist tenant unions into more civic, defanged civic associations. Wow. And like the kind of transformation of a tenant union from something which is primarily about kind of horizontal antagonism or vertical antagonism with the landlord becomes about horizontal projection of respectability and civic responsibility and the rest. And that's kind of a history about what kind of form does tenant organizing take? Is it more durable? Is it something which like is more an ephemeral social movement? Is it primarily a legal advocacy group? Is it a project of tenants helping tenants in struggle together? That's been a kind of debate. It's taken many forms over the building level organizing organizations. That's been a kind of new thing, which has really picked up steam relatively recently. Crown Heights Tenant Union is one example.

The Los Angeles Tenant Union, which has thousands and thousands, I think like now it has like four or 5,000 kind of like dues paying members of their union in Los Angeles. A lot of monolingual Spanish speaker tenant leaders out there. It's kind of the high watermark, I think, of tenant unionism in the country. But yeah, in the last, like, it's even in the last, like, five years or so, just prior to the pandemic, that new projects have started all across New York, and a lot of states across the country, and the Bay Area with a group like Tank. And I think it does respond to, one, just like how, how rapacious landlord exploitation has become as more and more people are kind of flooding into cities to find some of the few pockets of available work uh cities have

kind of turned the other cheek because they rely on landlords such a powerful and organized base in municipal and statewide politics property taxes are one of the only forms of municipal, municipal tax base there is in New York city. Right. In many respects. So, yeah, I think that like, that these are some of the reasons why people are kind of starting to take this up. What I think is really fascinating is that the tenant unionism is kind of like a model of political organizing, which has been able to bring together very different kinds of working class

people and very different kinds of working class tenants together. And I think that's part of the kind of like what's so like, I think special about it and so valuable strategically is that you can have long time immigrant residents of a neighborhood, newer residents, sometimes college educated, maybe higher incomes. They're both treated differently by the landlord, but the kind of like model that these unions are starting to develop is that like, there's a way that they're both commonly exploited, that they deal with some common issues of disrepair, and that they have to be unified at the building level, at the neighborhood level, at the city level, in order to actually push back kind of landlord exploitation and landlord harassment. And that's kind of,

I think, one of the few political models that we've developed in recent years that can bring together people across the segregations of race, of education level, of citizenship, more than a lot of the other kinds of organizing we've been doing has been able to do. And I think that's part of the special thing about it, because everyone's just getting fucked. If you're renting, you're getting fucked. Like, there's no way around it. fucked like there's no way around it yeah i most wonder if the rise in tenant unions and um cooperation coordination that kind of stuff right if it is um if it is in some way behind this push from landlords and from small business owners and other business owners as well to shape this narrative that crime is on the rise, because I feel like that makes tenant organizing tougher if you're like paranoid of your neighbors.

And it's like there is if your neighbor's actions and everything are so highly charged, you know, I'm saying and at all times, at all times in threat of having the police called on them or being brought into that situation. You know, the first time we have a tenant association meeting out here in Brooklyn, every first meeting that I've been to, the first thing people want to talk about, people could have had ceilings collapse in their units. They could have had a fire next door. You know, in one case, there was half the building had to be displaced because of a fire. They only moved back in a couple of years later. The first thing people want to talk about is package theft

and fear about crime, because I think that's the most easily reached. It's the kind of available language and concepts to explain quality of life issues, to explain issues of inequality, to explain issues of feeling abandoned. And it's in the course of the conversation, we start to realize, you know, it's a real health risk is not so much package theft. It's the mold in our apartment, the absence of heat sometimes in the evening. And even the package theft, it turns out the landlord can buy a package cage that can easily keep our packages safe. If that cheap asshole will only spend $200 on a cage to put in our lobby.

keep our packages safe if that cheap asshole will only spend $200 on a cage to put in our lobby man you say that but you've never known the uh misfortune of looking forward to an eight pack of old spice amazon and then from desperado comes by and just snaps it off the porch it was interesting getting started here because um i was i was aware of like that tendency especially with like neighborhood groups to kind of over focus on petty crime um and around here too it's like if you look at the facebook groups it's like there's always a roving gang of catalytic converters like thieves you know i'm sure that they really exist and you know people are i've been wanting to get into that racket yeah it seems pretty lucrative um but uh you know because we had such an acute emergency um at the beginning of our organizing that helped us like really hone

in on these very specific demands targeting our landlord and management company. But when we've had lulls in kind of the process that we're going through, it's, I've definitely, it's definitely come up in a variety of ways. Whether it's like a little, like a little bit of paranoia kind of seeping into our group chat or, you know, there's been concerns about a tenant letting in random strangers for some kind of business going on in his apartment. And, you know, so I've been looking to some tenant organizing mentors, and I've talked to some

people here about those issues, because, you know's a very it's a it's a horrible american tendency right now um that's kind of fostered through propaganda like like you're talking about um i do think it's super intentional um and you know it's it gives me a lot of motivation to solidify kind of the social fabric here because there's been turnover and that, you know, that leads to people's suspicion about new people while there's these other issues going on. And I'm trying to teach this language like that Ben is talking about that what we're talking about is deteriorating living conditions. Right. And a feeling of neglect that everyone can can sense. And and, you know, it's leaving this gap where people are filled. If it's not filled by intentional organizing, it's going to be filled by like paranoia it's an important thing to just work straight through it because otherwise, you know, otherwise our project will probably fail.

Like, I mean, and it ties in abolition, you know, how are we going to build communities that don't need police? Well, we're going to have to get to know our neighbors. We're going to have to organize together and we're going to have to be able to fix these living conditions that foster them and foster, you know, poor quality in one way or another. It is. It also strikes me how kind of aspirational it is. It's like it really is. It's yeah, it's it's and it's kind of sad in a way.

It's like it's it's aspiring towards the homeowner, like the HOA association, you know, the HOA model of having like cops on call and like neighborhood watch and everything but you don't own anything like you're just kind of like renting I don't know it's it's it's an effective just being like a little bitch like for yeah pretty much yeah I mean instead of taking control of like your own you know collectively taking control of your own town you know or your own neighborhood. Yeah, we talk a lot about like, in some of our unions, like, what class independence means. And like a lot of what our unions how we translate that and the kind of idiom of just our organizing is like the unions about us taking responsibility for the building. Now, that kind of like ethic of taking responsibility has a bunch of different directions that can point in for some people,

that means we have to take responsibility for the criminal behavior in our building. What we're trying to say is that, no, we know that the cops aren't going to fix this problem for us. Like, oh, your package is getting stolen? Yeah. Have you tried to talk to a cop about that? They don't stop a package. They won't do shit. They don't care about your package. They don't give a single shit. You want rely on calling you want to rely on a city like a local politician to fix the kind of like disrepair in your building or the illegal rent increase good luck they are not going to do that like it's only us getting organized together that can actually fix these problems whether that's making us feel safer in the building where that's

making demands on how to actually address our needs where that need is package theft or mold and lead like uh yeah and this isn't new to anyone here but like those people are also tenants or working class people or poor people that like are victims of the housing industry in probably one way or another um you know and so it's just like it's not other othering. You're seeing your future self as a working class or a poor person. There's only a thin line between us and someone who doesn't have a home right now. You know what I mean? So for me, we've been staring down the barrel of homelessness the past few months, not knowing if they would renew our lease out of retaliation and things like that and knowing there's nowhere to go around here um and so you know it's it can make people panic when they reach that line and it and it occasionally does i mean i

felt the panic you know where you're like on on the edge like staring at that and um i think it's just important to catch people before they use that to turn against, you know, their future, the person they're seeing reflected back at them, you know? I mean, I think it's also related to the fact that like calling the cops on someone who's houseless, wandering into your lobby seems like a problem that's much more easy for you to control than actually getting accountability from the landlord. And I think so much of what the work of the tenant union is supposed to do, in addition to like training us how to act collectively together in a solidaristic way against a common enemy,

it's also about like saying like other things are like, we actually to denaturalize the kind of shitty living conditions that we're often forced into be like, we actually can live differently. We can do something about it differently. And that is not more possible than like just harassing a homeless guy right that's at least the wager of it yeah absolutely well and also like the way it dehumanizes you in the sense that it fosters you to uh encourages you to do anti-social behavior like calling the police on a house exactly exactly yeah and like part of organizing is it's like we have to retrain ourselves to like be fully human in a way you know we have to like

restore our own humanity by teaching us that we're actually capable of doing a repair like that we don't need to beg the management company we don't need to beg the management company. We don't need to beg the maintenance worker. Like obviously it's fine to hire a maintenance worker. Sometimes you need a professional depending on size and certain issues and things like that. There's nothing wrong with that, but being in a relation that forces you to become a beggar in every way, whether it's to beg for your rights from the state or beg from your landlord for repair, we have to like destroy both of those things and be able to take care of each other and you know and like respond to people's needs

collectively yeah but it's hard i mean it's like it's really hard because you know it's hard even to rid myself of like that kind of helplessness sometimes or looking for like the quick legal you know fixed your problem because it it seems like well no it is it is less work but it's also less fruitful you know yeah yeah yeah well do you want to read this article i mean man it's fucking yeah yeah it's like the photos on this thing um this the article is called there's just no hiding inside the self-defense class for landlords um this is in a publication capital in maine um i didn't i didn't catch this at the time but i'm glad you sent it to me um here we go let's start here if you google tenant tenant landlord murder you'll

see carrie rios says Before I go even any further, there was an article that you sent me, Katie, about in Pennsylvania. Not even a rent-a-cop shot a tenant. You know what I mean? Yeah, okay, please, please Google tenant landlord murder. Yeah, you will see. Also, all the unlisted social murder by landlords.

Exactly. Like lead paint. Right, exactly. The former traffic cop pushes her tortoise shell glasses up on her nose and surveys her class of property managers and landlords who have so far failed to match her pep at 9 in the morning. The poster behind her commemorates a 1948 campaign against rent control. Freedom is everyone's business, it reads.

Oh my god. I'm fucking... She lives it. She's living it. It's like the old WPA style, like New Deal type posters, except it's... Yeah except get your kids vaccinated but the opposite

I love that fucking like Nazi ass saying to freedom is everybody's business like that's that's so fucking yeah so many homeschoolers you know homeschool mom so many like homeschoolers yes you know homeschool mom um so many cases she says

grinning and shaking her head her head that's why this class is so important she's talking about tenant landlord murder um on a gray february day at the offices of the apartment association of greater los angeles 11 landlords and property managers have enrolled in a two-and-a-half-hour self-defense class to protect themselves from irate tenants, transients, and the other hazards of life in the private housing business. The course teaches how to stop life-threatening bleeding, maintain 360 degrees of awareness,

take cover from bullets, and disarm shooters. There's a photo on this article where the like two landlords are hiding in terror next to an open door preparing to disarm a active shooter i would have literally paid to be there that would have been so funny funny um you know it's weird it's like it's like having these like self-defense classes it's like for the longest time like right like um there'd be like self-defense classes for like women you know what i mean like if you're attacked by a rapist or something in the park like here's how you disarm them in in this net and the other um and that makes sense right that is a life skill that is necessary for certain people in this world to have but like it's weird having like a training class just for landlords like you know what i'm

saying like this is what you will be dealing with from your tenants like you know what i mean like this will be the strangest part of it too is that like the state does not hesitate to send in cops to evict people we just saw videos of that happening in detroit earlier this week so they're only actually the only situation where you have to like be forcibly evicting your tenant where they might be armed in a danger it's like when you're doing an illegal eviction or you're like walking in their apartment without notice or you know how to stay safe while breaking the law as a landlord it makes me wonder if they're training for like the revolution or something it's like that's the only other thing i can come up with it's like that's the only other

circumstance where the cops wouldn't be there to evict people if they i need lots of excuses to go to the gym too you know like maybe this is a creative way they can kind of it's like you know when you're imagining someone like chasing you so you run faster yeah it's a creative way to kind of keep these idle hands of landlords busy and active you know like you just age faster if you're just sitting at home all day not doing shit yeah um they say they're doing this course because as landlords and property managers we can be subject to verbal and or physical verbal attack how do you protect yourself against a verbal attack um by renters or tenant groups unfortunately the, the media portrays this as evil.

That's very unfortunate. Are they doing training for the verbal attacks? You just put your fingers in your ear. You just put your fingers in your ear, like, la, la, la, la, la. Just close your eyes, bro. You don't have to listen to it. Yeah, it's like that Tyler, the creator tweet.

It's like, cyberbullying isn't real. Just close your eyes yep um rios teaches the course with han sievert a 6-5 lieutenant paramedic who says he is passionate about passionate about bleeding control bleeding control i i too am passionate about that. That's so funny. You know, I do a lot of things, but my life's passion is, you know, stopping bloody wounds from. It's like how you said white blood cells, blood platelets. I'm passionate about blood control. This is such a weird quote. In COVID covid a lot of people lost their jobs they lost their family and the last thing they have is their house you're taking the last thing they have this is their worst day i'm not trying to scare you but you need to be prepared

for that holy fuck i thought they were gonna say people lost things and they're angrier and they were talking about themselves no they were talking about angrier and they were talking about themselves. No, they were talking about their tenants. Yes, they were talking about their tenants. They were saying... She tacitly acknowledges, are we evil? Oh! Heartless sons of bitches? Sure. No, they're saying these people, our tenants lost family

members. They've had their lives completely turned over by death and disease. So you need to be prepared for that. Because they have nothing left. They have nothing left. They're at the end of their rope. They're going to bring the kitchen sink, pal. They really are in futile times in their mind.

That's absolutely insane. Wow. Yeah. We're afraid, agrees a mom and pop landlord who declined to give her name because she was worried about anti-landlord bias oh that's a how do you define mom and pop landlord it's like you're saying ben it's like 96 units 96 model landlord yeah that's crazy um the sessions were an immediate hit when they were launched last year, successfully competing for space in a packed calendar

that also offers estate planning, Q&As with local politicians, like some L.A. politician, and lectures on COVID-19 eviction protections with Dennis Block, the super lawyer once called the Henry Ford of evictions. My God. For his breathtaking efficiency processing cases. It's like

it's like going to your grave having been known as the Henry Ford of kicking people out. Yeah, that's what I was like. You are like, yeah. In Dante? If you survive, that's a miracle that regular henry ford's bad enough but i'm like yeah that's what i'm saying it's like i actually they're not wrong

that like people are this mad like angry like i actually think that that's accurate it's just like hearing them accurately diagnose it and not see themselves in the position is like what's shocking yeah seeing them as the villain you know as you're gonna say in the inferno the ninth level of hell is reserved for those who have betrayed others um i would say if there's a level beneath that it's got to be for people who are known for their breathtaking efficiency at processing eviction enjoy this life pal um uh let's see until february 1st landlords could not evict tenants in la who cite covet 19 as the reason they could not pay rent the resulting conflicts between tenants and landlords in part inspired them to host the classes so this is something that i wrote about this for the nation recently um because like they not about the evictions thing but about food stamps like there was you know special um addition like people were getting

a little bit more money than they usually got before the pandemic during the pandemic because of the emergencies declared by the government is the same thing for renters and so it kind of creates this weird sort of disconnect this weird disjuncture where like you have this emergency officially ending and with it all of the kind of like welfare state good things that came along with it but like the emergency hasn't ended it's still crisis out there every single day for tons of people um i don't know it's just this weird it's this weird thing but obviously you can see how this kind of drove landlords i really think that this is a part of why they're they are so unhinged like those covet protections for like rent renters and stuff

for sure which is funny because again most of the legislation that provided relief to tenants was directly routed to landlords. It was not like money that the tenants got. It was money that they could apply for that the state would give that money to the landlord anyway. But yeah, it definitely seems COVID drove them nuts. The idea they couldn't evict people, the idea that commercial landlords were worried about people not returning to work and not paying rent uh if like business is not paying rent like clearly it it uh it got them a little spooked for sure um it definitely did um let's see this guy he says he has no research demonstrating increased violence against landlords but tenant advocates say that the pandemic heightened conflict to L.A.'s eviction defense network says that in 2020 complaints from tenants that their landlords were harassing them increased by three hundred and fifty two percent over 2019. That's crazy.

This is L.A., right? This is L.A. You know, we can kind of see what's coming in terms of like retaliation kind of tactics, because around here, it's still kind of the mode of their repression. It's like complete negligence and absenteeism. Right. And so, you know, they haven't been reacting quite this way. still kind of the mode of their repression is like complete negligence and absenteeism right um and so you know they haven't been reacting quite this way like all of our issues are like negligence related um you know obviously it includes evictions which is like an act of violence but um you know do you know what i'm saying like i don't know if landlords are acting out

act like actively the way they are in la and work but it's i think it's gonna come as we organize more totally i think you're right um um so we'll just uh close it up here in just a second i just want to read some anecdotes from this after the morning session concludes property managers nedra bloodsaw man how's that for a fucking tenant landlord named bloodsaw and lupe leon reflect on life on the front lines they deserve literal words as they fiddle with a pair of generation 7 combat application tourniquets let's uh see these are these are the biggest this is like i'm just actually been doing like a wartime medical like scene but like in your apartment like a hurt locker well you know how like every profession has its own thin colored line of some

kind it's like they're like vying for that right like they won't like uh landlord valor uh yeah it's that's so weird man there's i don't know there's some sort of amoeba causing this i just don't think people know it's the fungal thing going around yeah well yeah these two guys are property managers so they're not even landlords they're basically hired guns which is like like as they say here when we serve a notice they start screaming they're yelling why are you a victim i mean what the fuck this is like it's just like so disgusting to hear them talk about this um the company is safe they can't do that that's what they used to try to do to people a judge and the cops actually have to bring it.

If a landlord brings it, you know it's bullshit. They're just trying to get you out of there. Is that true? I wish I would have known that in college, yeah. Yeah. The company is safe. They're far away, Bloodsauce says. We have to deliver the hate mail.

When members of the county's 70,000-strong homeless population break into the building he manages, looking for shelter and vacant units, Cueis and his wife are sent to remove them we always say sitting in the office we're fucked everyone can see us and everyone knows who we are tenants they're more bark than bite but they know where we live so there's just no hiding um it's it's like this weird dynamic right because like yeah you have the landlords and you have the tenants but kind of like wedged in between there are these property managers who are are like as they acknowledge in this article even they're getting fucked by the landlords but they're still little pussy bitches like they still have to fucking do their they're like the factory system yeah exactly they think like management

they still live like workers and they're kind of caught in between in a Yeah. Yeah. I've been, we've been dealing exclusively with the management company because we can't find our landlord and, you know, we started off as like trying to appeal to them as workers. Like we only have two staff here from the management company. And, you know,

we said like, we understand you're in an impossible position because management was trying to force them like to mediate the whole issue and stuff like that and increasing their hours and things like that. But they were so hostile to us, even as we were publicly facing the only things we were saying about them is like, they we need more staff, like they need help, we need help, you know? And we know that it's like the landlord and management company's decision to actively understaff it. So we were trying to, trying to treat it, but like partly as a staffing issue, which should have benefited them, but they, they were so hostile right away and then continued to harass and harass

tenants and organizers. So it was just really disheartening to try to bridge that gap and appeal to their overall class interests, but their immediate interest is, I guess, keeping their job, or there's just so much litigation going on, it's hard to say if there's some sort of, if something's being held over their heads or something like that but um at this point we just have to treat them

like we have to be defensive for our tenants and you know that means being antagonistic to them now so i have to um i have to read this. This is insane. In well-produced videos, Avert co-founder Darcy Leutzenger tells the audience to strike the nose. This isn't the insane part. This is insane, but it's not the insane part. Strike the nose with an open palm when fighting an assailant.

It's like that movie with Harrison Ford where they're on the old nose bone through the brain. Yes. Like Con Air or something. Push your fingers into their eyes, says a former narcotics officer. Consider scratching and biting. This is this is the part that fucking killed me. Consider scratching and biting.

In the last portion of the training, the group simulates a mass shooting sievert pounds on the door with a fake assault rifle as the group hides against the wall bloodsaw covers herself with the california flag as lupe leon crouches beneath the poster of howard jarvis slathering plaster onto a cracking dam marked Prop 13, which is failing to contain a flood labeled Runaway Government Spinning. Oh my god. What the fuck?

Oh fuck. This is the stuff of paranoid. It's so wild. I mean, but it's the stuff of paranoid fantasy a mass shooting event like it's just that hasn't that's just not if there was if there was a mass shooting event management would show up like three days later be like are you okay what this is is it's like it's like renfair it's like renfair shit for landlords it's like it's like cosplaying or something it's like yeah listen to this i mean we need to put them on the couch like i think we need a psychoanalyst

to understand the kind of violence that they're projecting onto their tenants because there's no other way to actually make sense of these strange fantasies uh that they that are kind of clearly yeah occupying oh yeah like land reform, but I just think we should just join that, you know, like we should just have a reenactment. Right. It's logical. There is so much going on there. Yeah.

One of them draped in a California flag. One of them crouches beneath the poster of Howard Jarvis slathering plaster onto a cracking dam marked Prop 13, which is spelling to contain a flood labeled runaway government spending then sievert bursts in and they wrench the barrel of his gun from his hands cuavis and jackie gutierrez throw nerf balls at his face they cheer and high five when the big man goes down people want to be robin hoods ukelman says they want to transfer wealth from a property to someone else they want free rent now they say housing is human right i mean it's crazy unless the government provides housing he adds can

you imagine no wow they are the most earnest soldiers you know they really are the california flag is a nice touch a nice memorial to a republic premised on stealing a lot of other people's land truly the funny thing is is this is probably just a cottage industry for like retired cops but landlords are taking it very seriously yes one thousand must be great yeah yeah cops have a great like post-career like consulting oh yeah everybody's so afraid and they can like say well here's you know some hard-boiled tale that happened to me that you need to be ready for right right and i'm gonna tell you for the low low price

well i don't know maybe we need to do a better job organizing the the management workers on site but i don't know what yeah they're trained in a lot of effective military tactics. Truly. No comment. No comment on arming tenants. Well, I think that about sums it up for the day. Guys, we really appreciate you coming on. You guys are the best.

This is fun. No, thank you so much. This was really fun. One other plug before we go. If you do want to find out more about tenant organizing, there is actually a great program that a lot of our kind of comrades are putting on through the Housing Justice Commission at the national level DSA. And the program is called ETOC, Emergency Tenant Organizing Council.

You can find it out online. You can sign up for trainings and you can get some of your own neighbors or some of your friends that live in the same area to start to get help and mentorship and what it might mean to build a tenant union where you live. Yeah, anyone who's renting needs a union and it's a really good program

if you want some good kind of first steps. Oh, I'll do it. Can I do a shout out for the Connecticut Tenants Union? Please do. It's still a little, it's still a little amorphous, but it's a statewide organizing project and they've been a really big help to me and the tenants here with resources and experience. And so I guess for anyone in Connecticut, that's a good, good place to find some stuff. Yeah. We'll put some of those

links in the show notes. and uh maybe next time maybe next time you guys come back we can have another article to read it will be even more deranged they'll be like they'll be like trying to defuse a bomb or something rather than stop a mass shooting they're like trying to disarm a bomb they're gonna like to have a new escape room experience where you're the landlord. Yeah. That'd be great. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks for joining us.

If you would like to support us on Patreon, please go to www.patreon.com www.patreon.com Give us $5 a month or more if you'd like. And tell a friend. Spread the word. Tell them about this episode.

So thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Adios. Thank you. សូវាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប� Thank you. សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្� Thank you.