The End (of one chapter)

The opinions contained herein are just that - opinions, and of a personal nature. If that makes you uncomfortable then perhaps you should move along. 

This was originally a comment to a friend to explain why I'm actually glad to be moving but also - please remember some of this when you walk past The Vagabond Studios on Union Street or in the Queen Square summer market. Also is it really "supporting local" when her business failed in her province and she only moved here strictly to take advantage of our housing crisis? Isn't supporting her really just encouraging more like her to come and profit from our losses?

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We've been through Chinese landlords (lovely people but they didn't even live in Canada and I think they were only selling because the fed govt had threatened to take valuable housing away from foreign investors using our economy to prop their other investments)  So they ran the place through a caretaker who really didn't care if the site burnt to the ground after her physio shop downstairs failed and so she rented the other units to some really unpleasant characters - one of whom had a bloody shootout in the burial ground (and had a bullet ricochet mark on his forehead that he bragged about doing himself "on accident") he's in prison now for other gun & vehicular related assaults. I actually found random bullets on the back porch that had fallen out of his pants pockets 🤣

Then there was another one who is currently doing prison time for a nearly deadly shootout over on the west side - his teenage prostitute girlfriend at the time threatened me ( because of the old caretaker openly telling them that we didn't like their music breaking our dishes or them leaving the 'please keep locked' doors completely open for their drug customers) had lovingly nicknamed me "demi gorgon" 🤣

Eventually, we got a management company (Leading Edge - they were in the news for teaching other landlords loopholes around the eviction freeze) and the owner/manager's name was literally Karen, go figure 😫 

Unhoused people broke in and tried to set up shop in the basement storage room. They were quickly chased off, nobody needs that adjacent to their laundry room! The other homeless folks took possession of the front vestibule where they would routinely threaten your life if you checked your mail or a delivery came for you. A few days after one overdosed in the hall and nearly didn't make it out alive we finally got street-level locks. Still, Karen was mad as hell because that cut into her take as "manager" and she really hated that she had to pay more to install an outside key for Canada Post.

We had realty viewings multiple times per week all except during the part of covid where it was illegal and even then, it wasn't taken well when I request the strangers' mask-up even after the rules changed.

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This current asshole finally bought the place, she was the only viewer who came through and treated me with the utmost contempt. She's on her Facebook and her Instagram preaching "community " and "love" but she has never spoken a word directly to me and scowled at me like I left a bad taste in her mouth on the few occasions she's seen me.  

She ended garbage removal in February and stopped cleaning the halls in December. She left a passive-aggressive note on the floor by my door last week. "Please don't smoke in the building" Girl whatever - I quit smoking when you were still packing your craft bins to come here and you already evicted me - what would you have done about it anyway?!

She comes here from BC (pandemic losses in the Maritimes caused the real estate to *boom* as she put it, she came here strictly to take advantage of our pain and loss as many greedy out-of-province investors did) however out in BC they don't have regulations to ease and safeguard the housing crisis like we now do - she's very angry that she couldn't have the entire building evicted on 30-day notices, instead we got 90 days and everyone else got 60. She had wanted to have renos finished just as the tourist season was starting - she wanted to run multiple Airbnb units in the building of her stinky store (very overpriced jewelry, candles, and leather items that she makes - with zero ventilation for the chemicals she uses I might add.) It isn't easy on allergic sensitivities, that's for sure. 

Her *partner* is as much a treat as she is. But ya know, she's so fucking "live, laugh, love" and "namaste" about it that nobody knows what a dick she is except the tenants she screwed over out of her straight-up greed.

I'm honestly super glad to be leaving but I'm mad as hell that she's going to profit from it and I honestly and truly hope she sees a complete return of all that she deserves by threefold. {smib} 🤞

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As another tenant leaves this building (Genna, the middle school teacher upstairs) I'm comforted by reading these articles pouring out about how Airbnb is bottoming out and how the company is down 47-50% this year and it's likely the greedy hosts are going to be on the food bank lines in no time, just like the rest of us.  And good on them - they caused this housing crisis, it's about time they reaped its actual rewards.

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I was reading about areas in the UK where Airbnb has almost ruined communities to the point where they can now only rent them out a limit of 90 overnights spread out over the span of a year. 

This was because greedy folks went looking to grab up every single property that came available to rent out as "investments" and because short-term rentals *can* make 5-10x more money overall than apartment rentals,  existing landlords started evicting tenants in favor of short-term rentals. 

Of course, the landlords who kept renting apartments now realized the severity of the new housing insecurities, so they knew they could raise rents by 40-400% in some cases. 

This is why the current housing crisis is nearly global. It's basically been proven to be the direct result of this awful short-term rental craze.  

Add to that the hotels raised prices to make up for covid losses, and Airbnb (along with other STR services) were up & running for travelers before the hotels even fully reopened with little to no restrictions or safety measures... they just popped!

This brings us back to investment properties and the groups who took advantage of covid tragedies and foreclosures *and* the poor folks who had no choice but to pay through the teeth for a roof over their heads - buy up everything leftover and raise the rents by hundreds of dollars per month.

Watch the poverty class grow and the homelessness in nearly every community reach literal crisis levels due entirely to upper-class greed coupled with people still supporting mostly unregulated short-term rentals like Airbnb, etc.