Lily’s Diary
by Lily
July 12
Nora and I went to a neighborhood meeting the other night and were
we surprised to see her ex sitting in the front row with his new
attorney wife. Apparently he moved back to the city and bought a
home in Ingleside. From the heated testimony, we quickly found out
that the ex and the counselor had paved over their front setback
in order to create two additional parking spaces in front of their
building. Nora and I were not sympathetic. Evidently this practice
is spreading like a virus in neighborhoods all around town. Personally,
I think it’s an indication of that “downward spiral”
that’s described in the Broken Window Theory (neighborhoods
decline in small increments)—in this case resulting in city
streets that have the ambiance of parking lots. Supervisor Sandoval
is supposed to be putting pressure on the Planning Department to
enforce rules that would require planting at least 20 percent of
the front yard setback. With budget cuts and Harvey Rose’s
audit, however, the planners have other things on their minds.
July 18
Boy, am I having a hard time sorting my garbage these days. The
“fabulous three” arrived in the Haight this week and nothing
in recent memory has changed my daily habits quite so much. I think
it’s the commingling of the newspapers with the bottles and
cans that tests my unconscious reflex the most. If it’s hard
for me, I worry about the tenants. I’ve taken the sorting information
in Sunset Scavenger’s brochure and put it in 24-point type,
placed it in three plastic covers and hung the corresponding information
over each can. Meanwhile, back in my kitchen, there’s that
dreaded little green box. I so much do not want to go back to my
70s composting days when the kitchen always had a faint smell of
rotting garbage. So I don’t use it. The “new me”
puts absolutely everything down the disposal and then I have to
paw its depths to retrieve those little ends of things that it can’t,
for some reason, consume. The racket and recoil of the disposal
has robbed the kitchen of its last vestige of calm. But, hey, anything
for the environment. By the way, I asked and plastic bags go into
the black box.
July 21
Didn’t you think that when market forces reduced rents and
freed up a lot of units, the paid tenant activists would let up
on us? Yeah, me too. So, why have they turned up the heat? We’re
being hit from so many sides that it’s hard to know where to
direct your anger. How could Supervisor Daly so overshoot his anti-bluffing
legislation that now it’s illegal to discuss any possible occupancy
changes with your tenants unless you serve them with an eviction
notice a few days afterward? He also made it illegal for a tenant
to even mention these topics to his landlord unless represented
by an attorney.
July 25
Not to be outdone by Daly, I see that Supervisor Gonzalez is trying
to turn a Tenants Union wish list into rent ordinance amendments.
Did he talk to any small property owners before he proposed legislation
that says the lease can’t control the number of people in a
unit; or that tenants’ relocation fees should be increased;
or that the term “tenant in occupancy” should be dropped
from the rent ordinance, thereby protecting pied-à-terres?
When I complained to him some months ago about the grave impact
of the increasingly punitive Rent Ordinance on small property owners,
he told me that I should consider some safer investment than rental
property. Safer? Thanks to him and Supervisor Daly, this is brutally
sound advice.
August 6
Jon and Fong are getting top dollar for their 3-bedroom flat on
Broderick and are holding their breath that the tenants (famille
Rouget) will stay. They’ve already allowed them to get a dog
(long-haired dachshund), provided them with additional storage,
and been extra nice when the fallout from Madame’s signature
hairdo clogs up the shower drain. Now Jon says they’ve decided
to forego the allowed annual rent raise. Has it come to this? You
bet your beret. And they’re not the only ones who are bypassing
the raise this year, which is 2.7 percent, by the way. Of course,
they’re planning to “bank” the raise and, in case
you’ve forgotten, that means postponing a rent raise and adding
it onto the allowable increase for a subsequent year. Jon was going
to tell his tenants about his intention, but I advised against it.
It would do nothing but make them nervous. With the help of Alan
Greenspan and the Department of Homeland Security, the rental market
will bounce back and this time next year Jon and Fong will be giving
the Rougets—their bilingual daughters and the dachshund—two
raises.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. A longtime rental property owner who reserves the right to remain anonymous on the grounds that her tenants might gang up on her, writes Lily’s Diary. Comments, corrections or ideas are welcome. © Copyright 2002.