Lily's Diary
by L
August 3
Just as I was getting ready to take a shower last night, I got a phone call from one of the two Jennifers living in Apt. #4, reporting that their electricity was out. They said there wasn't even one room that had power. They were sitting there in the dark. No hairdryer, TV or microwave. I threw on my robe, went down to the basement and opened the electrical box. The circuit breakers were all in position. I couldn't figure it out. I called PG&E. A guy came out, took one look and began to smile. “See this yellow seal on these wires in the meter?” I squinted at them and agreed there was something yellow there. “Do you know what that is?” he asked. I told him that it looked to me like some kind of bird banding. “No,” he responded, “the occupants of this unit didn't pay their bill.” I related the information to the Jennifers, with just a touch of moral superiority. “Bummer,” was the reply. Then after a long moment, one said, “Lucky I just charged my cell.”
August 6
Settling down in the pillows with my second cup of coffee and the Sunday paper, I opened the Chronicle Magazine (that section that used to be as fat as the New Yorker until Macy's pulled their advertising). On page six, whose face confronted me but Ted Gullicksen, grand poobah of the Tenants Union. This alone would not have ruined my day, but the piece was titled, “A Moral Education.” That was what did it. How moral is it to taunt first-time home buyers with, “Yuppie, yuppie, stole my pad. Yuppie, yuppie, bad, bad, bad!”? Gullicksen justifies it by saying that his group only pickets buildings where tenants were evicted during a TIC conversion, neglecting to add that the very people who are hoping to buy are, likely as not, current renters. One is hard pressed not to conclude that he is simply against people bettering themselves. And how moral is that? It sounds more like envy. He is quoted as saying he wants to fight for a housing policy that will be focused on “keeping people (here) who grew up here.” But of course he didn't grow up here. We know he was last in Boston and co-founded a squatters' group called Homes Not Jails, but how did he come to wield so much power in San Francisco? He says there are 2,500 members of the SF Tenants Union. We know there are approximately 180,000 rent-controlled units in the city. Considering that at least half of these units have two or more people living in them, a conservative estimate of tenants in rent-controlled apartments would be around 250,000. This means he represents around 1% of the city's tenants, even fewer if we include non-rent-controlled apartments. And yet we are in a situation where restrictions on landlords are continually ratcheted up, fostered mainly by this man and his influence over the supervisors. Why?
August 10
When I bought my flats, the prior owner, a drop-dead handsome realtor, had done a quick remodel and resold within the space of a year. (I believe “flipping” is the operative term here.) He had stellar taste and, well, I was dazzled by him as well as by his unit. Over the next few years I realized that, unlike his clothes, everything in this makeover was of the poorest quality. The linoleum in the kitchen, a thin vinyl, had apparently been laid over some spilled staples. This is no joke. As the months passed, little black marks the shape of brackets appeared like a developing photograph. In my own flat I covered them with rugs, but I really couldn't do that in the rental units. So I asked around if anyone had ever painted over linoleum. (Oy, such looks I got.) But at the gym one day, providence interceded. I overheard a young trainer telling her client about the success she'd had, yes, painting the linoleum on her kitchen floor. I interrupted and asked for the formula. Flash forward—I just did it and it looks terrific. After giving the floor a good scrub and letting it dry, I dabbed on two shades of the beige colors used in the mottled background of the lino design. These came in small bottles of acrylic paint made by Benjamin Moore, available at Robert's Hardware on Haight. Okay, I didn't get the colors quite right the first time, but with my second trip to Robert's I matched it close enough for the casual eye. When this two-tone stippling was dry, I covered the floor with two coats of clear, oil-based polyurethane. I was astounded with the results. The trainer said her job still looked good after three years, and I'm counting on the same. You won't find this kind of info in any of your property-management classes, will you?
August 16
A few months ago Supervisor Chris Daly introduced legislation freezing condo conversions for three years. I don't think it's going anywhere but, who knows? Frankly, I'm very disheartened over the whole subject. I've been in the city's condo lottery for four years. Recently, some smart person looked at the number of owners entering the lottery each year and figured out that for every year you remain in the lottery, your chances of being selected actually gets smaller. Supervisor Bevan Dufty came to the rescue by introducing legislation to restore “Pool A” back to its original purpose: to make sure people who have been in the lottery for years have a chance to be selected based on seniority. But, come to think of it, why do we have a lottery at all? Wouldn't first come, first served be fairer? At the very least there should be some guarantee of selection after waiting a designated number of years. You can find out more about conversion-lottery reform by contacting Supervisor Dufty at bevan.dufty@sfgov.org.
August 20
I was forwarded an e-mail message from someone named Sam at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic saying that the founder of Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center was being evicted from her apartment. Since I speed-read my e-mail, I thought someone had scratched out some tourist's eyes. I was so alarmed that I went to the top and read the whole damn thing. The gist of it was that the building where artist Susan Kelk Cervantes lives (in a nonconforming basement unit) was being reclaimed by new building owners and, because she is a painter of murals, Cervantes should have the right to continue living there with low rent. Sam asked that we all join a protest march to City Hall. Sure, let's establish another class of protected tenants: mural painters. Of course, this isn't the first time people have tried to protect artists. The whole live-work debacle that backfired right into a win for developers was a case in point. So much for social engineering. I say this talented person should go to a foundation that is in the business of supporting artists or do it the time-honored way and find a benefactor. Maybe someone reading this right now would be interested. But, please, we already protect those who are old or infirm, let's not protect those who are talented and successful, too.
August 26
My pal Robert, who has three lovely flats on Pine Street, recently had the opportunity to renovate a unit that had long needed it (not uncommon in these days of multiple vacancies). The crowning touch was the installation of lined, monk's cloth draw drapes, a perfect color match with the sage walls. Before the ink had dried on the rental agreement, the tenants asked if they could, at their own cost, replace the drapes. You have to understand that Robert has great pride in his decorating skills and was deeply hurt. Too deeply, in my opinion. I think that was the real reason he told the tenants that he would have to charge them to remove the drapes, with an additional fee for storage, and still another fee to have a licensed drapery installer hang them when the couple vacated. Whew. What a way to start a tenancy. I told him he should have looked at the upside. If he can figure out how to store the drapes so they won't need repressing, the next time the unit's empty, he'll be able to show it with brand new drapes. Hell, with a little touchup of the sage walls, the unit might pass as “just renovated.” It was obviously false pride that interfered with business here. (Ah, yes, it's so much easier to see this flaw in Robert than in myself.)
September 2
We all have relatives who are, well, not quite up to par. (I hope I'm not the only one anyway.) Such is the situation with my friend Rhoda, who co-owns her deceased mother's house with her brother Patrick. When the house, which had been rented for a number of years, became vacant, Patrick's reality-challenged daughter Peggy (not her real name, obviously) begged her father and aunt to permit her to move in. After a few months of back and forth, they all agreed she would pay what the previous tenants had paid, which was about 50% below market. Even though Rhoda is a hard-nosed market maven, she figured family is family. Peggy moved in with her two kids and paid the first month's rent. The second month, she wanted a discount because her boyfriend cleaned up the back yard. The third month, she paid only half because one of her children had been sick and Peggy couldn't get to work. Do you see a pattern? Soon there was no rent check at all, and calls to Peggy were not answered, then not even placed. About that time SFAA had a speaker on the Section 8 rent-subsidy program. I told Rhoda that since Peggy was now on welfare, she was surely eligible; and perhaps that way Rhoda and her brother could finally get some monthly rent. For about two days I was a big hero. Unfortunately, it turned out that because Peggy was the daughter of one of the owners (Patrick), she was ineligible for Section 8. I guess the feds were looking out for possible family scams. So Peggy is there to stay, rent-free. Chalk up another example of “No good deed goes unpunished.”
September 10
I should stop reading the Bay Guardian. When did the term “working class” sneak back into the American vocabulary? This nostalgic expression came into use in a time when anybody who mattered in life didn't work (see Jane Austen). The whole idea of “class” wasn't even discussed as such until the industrial revolution resulted in a critical mass of workers who could be quantified and labeled. Until recently, if a writer wanted to sniff at someone or some group beneath them, “blue-collar” was the term of choice. Or for the more scientific, “lower-functioning.” The term working class has now been mindlessly taken up by progressives when they refer to those for whom they're compelled (unbidden) to speak. The implication is that those who don't agree with them don't work. Besides children, the infirmed and aged, who among us does not work? And yet, it is the working class being Ellised out of their apartments, the working class that is being displaced in the Mission, the working class who needs rent control. Go figure.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. Lily's Diary is written by a longtime rental-property owner who reserves the right to remain anonymous on the grounds that her tenants might gang up on her. Comments, corrections or ideas are welcome at lilysdiary@aol.com. Copyright © 2005 by the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.