this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
336 points (99.4% liked)
Not The Onion
19076 readers
1017 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Please also avoid duplicates.
Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hear me out: I don’t blame landlords for wanting to protect their investments. But, I do have a problem with them (and guys like James here) who do it at the expense of the downtrodden. Being a landlord should not have to be mutually exclusive with helping people.
I'm not seeing it.
For there to be squatters, the landlords had to have this property open and unrented for a while. The only way that happens is if the rent is too high.
What kind of landlord can afford to have a rental property vacant for a significant period of time and not accept a lower rent? Ones who own lots of property and would prefer to lose income rather than reduce the average rent price in the area.
In the industry, withholding housing from people because you want to make more money, when you can clearly afford to get no income from it, is called "a dick move".
Squatters could move in the day after the property becomes empty. Really it depends on when it is noticed the house is unoccupied.
Sometimes houses can't be sold for months because of legal BS (happened with my moms house).
Yes, there are always edge cases. Wouldn't it be great if there were no corporate landlords and the problem was small enough to worry about those?
Huh? A squatter is most commonly simply a former renter who stops paying without moving out. The property is not vacant at any point.
You're describing holdover tenants. Those are not the same as squatters. Holdover tenants have more rights in California.
Edit: worded that wrong.
Their investments fundamentally come at the expense of the downtrodden by relegating necessities behind a paywall that they have private ownership over.
Being a landlord is fundamentally against helping people. It is explicitly about utilizing the private ownership over housing in order to profit off of someone else's inherent need of shelter.
It is mutually exclusive and there is nothing that can be done to change that. The system is fundamentally oppressive.
I'm a landlord (not by choice, but shit happens). I've never hired goons and never would. I do blame landlords for resorting to this kind of bullshit.
It might help if you read the remainder of my comment. 🤷♂️
OK I heard you out. But I absolutely do blame them. It is mutually exclusive, they're parasites and aren't helping anyone. The guy who helps fix up your home is the property manager, for which landlords occasionally hire themselves using your rent money.