> I can easily see your neighbors in Kirkland assuming you were either real estate agents, sales people, or trying to convert them to another religion or something like that.
Given that I had lived there for 6+ months, they should in the very least have recognized me!
It wasn't like we had just moved in or anything.
We actually found that a lot of the renters there were more friendly than the owners, and over time we made friends with some of the neighbors, largely those who had moved in from overseas.
> A core problem is that so many of us have never met one of these people.
Back when I rented, the corporate apartments were the worst experience since there was zero flexibility to anything, all was managed with zero tolerance based on the company playbook.
Renting from individual owners was a delight though since I was dealing with an actual human. Very flexible about everything, always open to discuss options.
> If you lived in a high-rise condo and paid go money to do so, and the two places on either side of you started being rented out to random people who were there one week and gone the next, how would you feel?
I probably wouldn't care because there would be no way to detect if it was happening, without me standing outside my door all night like a sentry.
Sure, I'd be annoyed if some of the guests came and went at all hours of the night and that was waking me up regularly, but that could happen just as easily with more permanent neighbors, and I'd be able to do just as little about that.
I’m sure it does — to you. It sounds like a one sentence horror story to me.
I enjoy living somewhere small enough that I have an active role to play in my community’s basic needs, including serving as a volunteer firefighter, while still being remote enough that I don’t need to intrude on my neighbors (or request their approval) to largely live the way I want to live — and vis versa.
> Just admit that you don't want to share your neighborhood with tourists.
I do not mind sharing neighborhood with tourists. I'm happy to have a hotel across the street, in fact I had 2 hotels within 50m of my last place and I didn't mind it, even if it was occasionally quite noisy in the evenings.
What I do not want to share with tourists is the floor in the residential building where I live, and that's a big difference.
> I have no doorbell. If a visitor does not know how to get hold of me or the other inhabitants of my property, then they probably have no business being there in the first place.
Sounds pretty cold. I've had neighbors come over to introduce themselves, some even with welcoming gifts when we bought the house and moved in. I'd hate to just shut myself out of the society like that.
There's over a thousand people living in my building, and a lot more in just a few hundred meters around me. I have very similar experience with my divorce, but I don't think I would be able to effectively communicate with this community, or to trust all these random people.
> Do Americans not get extra keys for their rental apartments?
Mine didn't though I'm sure I could have gotten extra ones if I just asked.
I've been tempted on many, many occasions to give the neighbors a dollar to get a duplicate key made so they aren't knocking on the door/window at all hours because they obviously don't have enough keys for the amount of people living there.
>> You seem nice, so I am happy to assume good intentions on your part
I was not a nice person at this point, and my intentions were to have somewhere to sleep out of the rain.
I did at one point live in actual squat where people had broken in, the breaking in part happened before I got there, but I lived there for I guess what was the greatest summer ever. That was in a different city. I got out before the eviction happened, but what happened was that the landlord eventually figured out there were 7 hardcore kids squatting in this basement apartment and he came over and told them they had 24 hours to get out before he called the cops.
In that location, the cops would have come, and the cops would have kicked the kids out that day, like literally kicked them out. Kicked their asses.
In the other situation I describe, it was in a different city. Crime central. The cops weren't coming. Not to kick me out of a squat, not to kick me out of an apartment that somebody maybe had rented way back when. Not for anything. I could have set up a meth lab. Cops weren't coming.
My meaning is, if you're a landlord, you're signing up to deal with this shit, know what you're getting in to. In some places you just call the cops. In some places, $1,000 to get rid of a non-tenant like squatter me would be getting off super cheap. It would be a business decision.
> Besides that, I don’t have people making noise all around me
I had the opposite problem. When I lived in a condo previously, I had the poor luck to live next to a shitty neighbor who would have parties at 5AM on Monday morning because she didn't work. The fact is anyone can get unlucky and have a shitty neighbor, but at least when you rent if the hassle is bad enough you can much more easily up and move.
>"The only way to attempt to improve the situation is show respect and hope it's eventually reciprocated."
With who? I don't have a neighbor, I have an endless string of rotating strangers. I understand that bad neighbors have always existed, but that's not what's happening in my specific situation.
Anyone and everyone has potential access to the house 30 feet or so from which I sleep. Anyone and everyone at any time. It's a big change.
What happened? I had an apartment abroad for about a decade, paid annually for security for the building and underground garage (this is Africa btw), cleaning and concierge and it was great. I always wondered what'd happen if things went sour in the association of homeowners but at the same time I could hardly conceive issues and never heard of problems from friends, either. A lot of issues of the commons never seemed to pop-up.
> On the contrary, a model which fits better is that people are inherently antisocial and unfriendly, and find that with rented accommodation they can get away with it.
I think you’re right. The homeowners are probably aware that they’re locked into their neighbors for a very long time so building relationships makes more sense than the more transient renters.
> Every NYC lease I've ever signed had a clause forbidding long-term guest stays.
That's a red herring, you can add the sibling as an occupant, the point remains.
> I've personally never encountered that situation
Well the reasonable conclusion is that people must not allow family to come live with them if they have druggie problems... /sarcasm
Or a reasonable person might think the point is that the neighbor has no right to insist that a family member cannot come and stay in the house.
You keep doing this so I'm going to end this conversation with you. When you decide to stop throwing out red herrings let me know and perhaps we can continue.
> In fact, most people think it's weird that I live downtown. It's definitely not a common choice around here.
That's a good thing, it keeps prices down.
I live on 1st & Union.
Everything is next door:
- the market, Target, Kress, dry cleaners, all downtown stores
- all the bus lines stop on 3rd, 4th or 5th
- the light rail station is 2 blocks away
- numerous bars and restaurants in a 3 blocks radius
- Belltown is 5 min away
- Capitol Hill is 15 min away
- Pioneer Square is 10 min away
- the waterfront is 2 min away
I have a room, with view on the Puget Sound, with my own bathroom in a 2 bedrooms apartment (1200+ sqft) with a parking spot.
The building has a doorman and all utilities, even internet are included. I pay $1,250 / month.
Given that I had lived there for 6+ months, they should in the very least have recognized me!
It wasn't like we had just moved in or anything.
We actually found that a lot of the renters there were more friendly than the owners, and over time we made friends with some of the neighbors, largely those who had moved in from overseas.
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