Lily's Diary
by Lily
April 17
Okay, I'm a slow learner. I simply couldn't believe it when my pal Robert told me that, after waiting patiently for five years for his last tenant to move out, and having accumulated seven tickets for the condo lottery, he has been told that he has to have a tenant living in the building to be able to do a condo conversion. Somewhere, someplace, this must make sense. His 3-unit building is empty with the exception of his unit and he is poised to update wiring and redo kitchens (this time with permits). Then he is told that unless he has 40% of the tenants sign a form stating that they wish to buy the unit, he can't act on his lottery selection. Since his unit comprises only 30%, he must now go through the process of establishing a new tenancy in one of the units. I called up a couple of people I know who've condo-converted and they just laughed it off, assuring me that you just put a friend or relative in there temporarily who will sign off. "But that would be fraudulent," sez me, the former convent-school girl. In each case there was some variation of "Hey, this is San Francisco. Don't expect things to make sense," with barely hidden distain for my naivety. I called the Bureau of Street-Use and Mapping (condo conversion central) who confirmed this sorry state. Robert's zest for his conversion has faded. Faced with starting up a whole new tenancy, he's taken to drink.
April 20
After forty days and forty nights of rain, the paint on the west wall of the top unit has bubbled up like the La Brea Tar Pit. Much to the tenant's horror, I punched a hole in one swelling to release the water and peeled away the four layers of wallpaper beneath. Trying to find out where it's coming from is like discovering the source of the Nile. And the fact that it didn't stop raining made the task next to impossible. The roofer says he can't do anything until the rain stops. The tenant is being accommodating. Even he recognizes an act of God when he sees one.
April 24
Took the final bunch of unanswered Christmas cards to People's Café this morning and finally penned some responses. These are the ones from those old friends with whom I share a desire to keep in touch, if only annually. Many were amis de guerre, fighting the battles of Propositions I, H, G and E—the alphabet soup of how we lost control of our buildings. In our common struggle, I have made some dear comrades over the years. What I noticed this year is the number of people who wrote that they were no longer in the rental housing business. There were a variety of stories: one sold the building at a loss (the result of having protected tenants) and moved to the Inland Empire (love that term); others simply took their units off the market; another went through an Ellis eviction and converted to TICs. In each case, there was a person who had given up to those who profess a reverence for preserving the rental housing stock but do everything to make it unprofitable and denigrate the provider. In different ways, each expressed the feeling that life was too short to always be on the losing side. How sad.
May 3
That linoleum I cosmetically painted over is holding up. In case you don't remember, I had a kitchen with severely abused linoleum: someone had evidently been cutting matting on it. In addition, staple marks were coming up to the surface accompanied by dark blotches. It was a mess. Faced with a $1,600 estimate for replacement, I went to work with 3-M pads and wax remover, scrubbing it clean. Then I filled the cuts with exterior spackle. Using small bottles of touch-up paint, which matched the mottled beige pattern, I dabbed paint over the blemishes until, to the casual glance, the floor looked pretty good. But when I brushed two layers of high gloss polyurethane sealer on top, it looked sensational. I wasn't sure how it would hold up until I entered the unit this morning to look at a clogged drain and had to admit, it was a miraculous job. The passing of time has erased from memory the location of the trouble spots and the over-all impression is that of a highly waxed floor, not new, but very well maintained. I couldn't be happier.
May 12
After two years of receiving imploring emails from the mayor's office, I finally volunteered for the tenth staging of Project Homeless Connect. My friend Helen and I showed up at the Civic Auditorium at 8:00 a.m. and saw some 200 people already in line for the opening two hours later. Like any of those volunteer cattle calls, there was a lot of waiting around at first. But as soon as the doors opened, I had plenty to do and soon found its concept of "one-stop shopping" quite ingenious. Here's the drill: Bill Graham Auditorium is ringed with people behind tables offering various social services, from basics like medical exams, housing information, legal advice and California identity cards to compassionate services, such as foot washing and chair massage. The city departments are there in full force as are numerous nonprofit organizations. But what surprised me was the contribution made by the private sector. Companies like Sprint, LensCrafters, FedEx, Starbucks, Luxor Cab and numerous others had been persuaded by some highly competent City Hall organizers to donate staff with expertise and technology. My lowly job was to help the clients locate the needed services inside a room the size of an airplane hanger. I was doing pretty well until one disheveled soul came up to me and asked, "Can you help me find the place where they give away the dogs?" After a moment of stunned silence and in the kindest possible manner, I told him that pet distribution was not one of the services offered. "That's not true," he protested. "I saw lots of dogs tied up outside."
May 20
That handsome Michael Sullivan did the numbers and sent them out in a "Plan C" newsletter a few weeks ago. The co-founder of the organization representing "the militant middle" was skeptical of the eviction crisis trumpeted by Supervisor Chris Daly. Michael combined the figures of Ellis evictions and OMI evictions for each of the last four years and found that, contrary to the report of Daly and the Tenants Union, who had only been looking at Ellis evictions, there hasn't been a big jump. Rather, the actual total number of evictions has been flat during that period of time. By the way, Sullivan is also author of The Trees of San Francisco—check it out for some fascinating nature walks in nearly every neighborhood of the city.
May 26
Quietly, just before Christmas, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi introduced legislation that would extend the rent ordinance's "just cause" eviction criteria to spaces for parking, storage, laundry and, well, any common space. This is particularly galling for us small property owners who live under the same roof as our tenants. As we get older, our life-needs change, often requiring utilization of different spaces within our building. But this legislation will not simply require us to reduce the tenant's rent for a decrease in service (that's how it is now), it makes us prove that one or more of the 14 "just causes" was present in order to evict a car. Great. This measure succeeds in actually extending rent control to inanimate objects and empty space. We all know that nearly all evictions in San Francisco require an attorney. If this ordinance goes through, we'll have to pay an attorney to prove we have "just cause" to take back the use of our garage for, say, the use of a caretaker, or to recover storage space for a wheelchair. Once again we are being asked to forfeit a measure of control over our property. And they wonder why owners want to get out of the rental business.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of 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 © 2006 by the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.