Free Republic

An Orange County circuit judge erred in allowing voters to weigh in on a proposed rent control ordinance, an appeal court has ruled, siding with realtors and landlords over renter advocacy groups who argued soaring housing prices constituted an emergency. A sharply divided Orange County Commission voted 4-3 in August to let voters decide if rent increases should be capped. If approved by voters, the proposed ordinance would have imposed a one-year cap of rent hikes for potentially 104,000 apartments in Orange County at 9.8%. After the Florida Apartment Association and Florida Realtors sued to block the measure, it narrowly...

CHICAGO - A Chicago woman was charged Wednesday with murdering her landlord, apparently using "large butcher knives" to dismember her body before putting the body parts in a freezer, police said Wednesday night. Around 2:30 a.m. on Monday, tenants in a home in the 5900 block of North Washtenaw Avenue heard screaming. Police say they tried texting and calling their landlord — identified as 69-year-old Francis Walker — to make sure everything was OK. They got a text response back, but it was later discovered that the response was sent by the murder suspect — 36-year-old Sandra Kolalou. Later in...

DENTON, Texas - Denton police arrested a 68-year-old man for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after a video shows him confronting a tenant with a gun. When FOX 4 spoke to the landlord, he did not deny his role in the confrontation. Cell phone video shows the intense Sept. 9 encounter between 27-year-old UNT grad student Mohammed Alzahrani and his 68-year-old landlord, Phillip Young Young told FOX 4 he had a verbal agreement with Alzahrani that he wouldn’t use the kitchen in exchange for cheaper rent. "So all of a sudden after two weeks, he decides he’s going to...

In a sign of the times, a fed-up Queens landlord posted two giant banners calling out his allegedly deadbeat tenants for owing him $17,000 in back rent. “MY TENANTS ON THE FIRST FLOOR ARE NOT PAYING RENT” read the bold posters slung above the first-floor rental on 175th Street in Springfield Gardens. Landlords Calvin and Jean Thompson posted the banners — which can be seen from the Belt Parkway — in the hopes of shaming their tenants into paying up. It was also featured in a TikTok video that got more than 14,000 likes — and supportive comments like, “Not...

I don't know what to do here. Landlord is "losing" my rent checks that I always send out a week or two early. I have had to stop payment and reissue two checks in a row. The second time I sent it certified mail, return receipt requested. USPS tracking says he was not present to sign so they did not deliver and left a notice.

The St. Paul City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the wording of a rent control ballot measure residents will consider at the polls in November. Now, groups for and against the initiative are gearing up to lobby for votes on the proposal to cap rent increases at 3% annually. A coalition of housing advocates gathered about 5,600 signatures in the spring and early summer, more than enough to place the policy decision in the hands of the electorate. St. Paul voters will be asked: "Should the city adopt the proposed ordinance limiting rent increases? The ordinance limits residential rent increases...

Gov. to call special session to address expiring ban after Supreme Court voided federal moratorium. House Democrats representing the five boroughs are pressing Gov. Kathy Hochul to extend the state’s eviction moratorium. The newly sworn-in governor received a letter Saturday by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and co-signed by a dozen lawmakers, including Reps. Nydia Velazquez, Carolyn Maloney, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jerry Nadler, urging her to prolong the state-level ban, which is set to expire Tuesday.

In England and California, much is made of second homes that are not placed in the rental market. The primary reason that second homes are not rented out is because of highly justified owner fears of tenant problems. These fears keep millions of higher quality houses and spacious condos out of the rental market. If millions of houses and condos were added to the rental market, rents would fall somewhat. The government insists on small security deposits because of a desire to make it easy for tenants to rent a place to live and to move. Security deposit laws were...

A newly elected state assemblyman from Rochester says he’s been arrested after trying to video Rochester city police evict a public school teacher and her children from their home. “That is absolutely inhumane,” Assemblyman Demond Meeks said of the eviction on a sub-freezing night. Meeks, who was elected last month and sworn into office in mid-November, said he went by the home in Corn Hill after hearing that police were planning the eviction.

A New York judge earlier this month recommended a landlord pay $17,000 in fines for threatening to call immigration authorities on an undocumented tenant. This is the first case related to housing where threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to harass or intimidate a tenant has been found to be a violation of law, according to a spokesperson for the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Holly Ondaan, the tenant and an undocumented immigrant at the time the case was filed, testified in court that she became "an emotional wreck" when her former landlord, Dianna Lysius, threatened...

Many matters are clear with landlords and tenants, but I've got a grey area here. If a tenant breaks a lease and requests to leave before the 12 months is up, what do they lose? If a landlord at move-in made them pay first month, last month, and security deposit, all about $1,000 each. What does a landlord have to return if they only stayed six months? What would be the purpose of taking these amounts if tenant could just walk and know they can get some of it back? Can a landlord deduct turn-over costs ? Like paying an...

A Massachusetts landlord told a Harvard University graduate student that he wanted her to move out of her apartment because her legally owned firearms made some of her roommates uncomfortable. "Since it's clear that Leyla wants to keep her firearms, it would be best for all parties if she finds another place to live," Dave Lewis, president of Avid Management, said in an email to the household obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The request that the student, Leyla Pirnie, move out came after her roommates searched her room while she was not home and found her firearms. That prompted...

Own property and been renting it out in Florida for three years now. I'm sure we have freepers that have done this for decades and even some that got out of it. 1) We see the renter that asks? Do you accept Section 8? Aside from what that might allow, does section 8 allow for payment of last month rent. Is the security deposit in anyway dictated by that govt program? 2) We see potential tenants tell us about 'service animals' that we must take and allow in. We read that at least in Florida the statute does not allow...

Donald Rennie, who co-owns the business next door, said he returned to work from a Bahamas vacation Monday to find the ocean had practically followed him home. About 2 inches of water had seeped into the carpet and onto the furniture from the neighboring storefront, Rennie said. "I opened the door and smelled a horrible smell. My feet were actually squishing in the carpet from the amount of water that was in here," Rennie said. "All of that water seeped in over here and it was just a mess." Police are still trying to track down the woman who owned...

Hey Freepers, Once again I come to you with questions. This time it's about heating my apartment. I'm the tenant. State is SC. I am renting an apartment that is part of a divided house. I live on the top floor. My apartment has 2 coal fireplaces that have obviously not been used for a long time. They are back to back in 2 different rooms, so they share a chimney. The apartment downstairs had fireplaces in the same spots (same chimney), but a previous tenant removed the mantel on one and closed up the hole (not sure about materials...

MADISON — The Wisconsin Senate on Wednesday passed what one tenants-rights advocate called a “slumlord bill," heavy rhetoric for the proposal aimed, at least in part, at giving landlords the power to dispose of property former tenants leave behind. “This new legislation will rewrite tenant-landlord law at the state level, further limiting the rights of tenants throughout the state,” Brenda Konkel, of the Wisconsin Alliance for Tenants' Rights, said in a statement. Robert Kovach, chief of staff for state Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, said that just isn’t so. “The purpose of our bill is to cut down on landlord...

The subject of James Love's precarious health came up one day last winter when his landlord was chatting with Love's wife about a leaky faucet. Barbara Thomas, who rents a home to the couple and their six children in Sleepy Hollow, asked Shira Love what her husband needed to avoid kidney dialysis. Born with sickle cell anemia, he had endured years of excruciating pain and renal failure. Shira Love told Thomas that he desperately needed a kidney but that it was hard to find a match because of his O-positive blood type. "The second Shira said James needed a kidney,...

There is much confusion in the Western world over the basic tenants of Buddhism. Many Westerners believe that Buddhism is -- a) a religion circulating around the worship of a portly Asian sage (often gilded or bronzed and meditating near the door of your favorite Chinese restaurant holding the mints and toothpicks), b) involving a lot of sitting in uncomfortable positions, and c) coldly atheistic or fancifully pantheistic (depending on which section of Wikipedia you consult) Of course, when inspected closer, these stereotypes and inadequate attempts of pigeonholing a religion that has neither formal creed nor “divine” teachings is absolutely...

I first heard about what I am about to tell you from one of the co-hosts of Bill Bennett's radio talk show. Then I listened to the interview from CBS's web site and heard it myself. On "60 Minutes" George Tenant was asked about what the CIA thought before we toppled Saddam in 2003 about Saddam getting a nuclear weapon. Tenant stated: "The intelligence community's judgment is [sic] he will not have a nuclear weapon until the year 2007, 2009." My comments on this are: Uh, wouldn't that be about now? Has this been reported anywhere other that being broadcast...

LYONS NY--After weeks of trying to get the tenants out, the building owner, Craig P. LaRussa, age 36 of 4 Spencer Street Lyons, grabbed the opportunity of an open door to make his move. He simply removed the doors leading to the upstairs apartment and on the apartment itself. Unfortunately, the tenants still refused to budge and called the police. The door removal lead to the apartment becoming cold and the unwanted tenants, along with their two young children, held out with the law on their side. LaRussa was arrested on a warrant on Saturday (12/3) for Criminal Trespass 2nd...