My Corona Diary (Take XXXVII): Welcome To The Boardwalk (They're Jacking Up Your Rent)

 

<"Under The Boardwalk...

Take I"/The Reckoner>

<i.>

Only a couple months ago, the Squawker and I were pondering what the impact of new management on our apartment complex might mean next year. Well, we need not wonder anymore. Management's happy to re-up, but they're also jacking up our rent by roughly $130, in fact. Fifteen-odd years of $25 and $50 increases will now become a distant memory, as we prepare for the reality of paying $992 a month, starting in May.

On one hand, the situation is workable, thanks in part to a year-long contact job that I started last December. I'm making about $600 more per month than usual, ensuring that some of our money sticks around in the bank -- instead of whizzing through the front door, and out the back, to pay somebody-or-other with their hand held out. 

That's the pattern we experienced before the pandemic. Let's face it, most people's accounts are just pass-throughs to pay bills. It's a slightly different pass-through than someone like Senator Ron Johnson is used to seeing, with the $30 million or so in wealth that the Wisconsin Wingnut married into. But I digress.

But I might manage to soften the blow, I assured Squawker. At the moment, I make $100-odd per month, filling out surveys -- money I could set aside, presumably. There's also the $1,800 cherry dangling at me, if I finish out my current contract successfully. We could set that money aside, too.

Still, we're left wondering where the future will take us. When I asked the manager, "Why is it so steep," she responded that market rates will guide the new ownership. In other words, if our rapidly gentrifying little town continues to support what the greedheads already charge, we'll get slammed, right along with them. For that reason, she admitted, a similar $100-plus increase is possible next year, too. Fast buck, feral capitalism at its finest. Ain't it grand?

I don't blame the manager, who's only the messenger in these situations. Others had voiced similar concerns, she acknowledged, which is hardly surprising, given the preponderance of seniors and people with disabilities living here. It's worlds apart from announcing more upbeat news (like the upgraded laundry we got several months ago).

<"A Matter Of Perspective":

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

In another sense, though, I'm not surprised. One of the new management's first moves was to offer reserved parking, for $50 per month. Squawker and I found this development something of a surprise, since neither of us recalls seeing any one percenters picketing the place, until they got their precious reserved pieces of real estate.

Honestly, though, who needs a reserved space, other than people with disabilities? I've seen how it twists people, like the publisher at one of my previous media jobs. One day, Blowdried Bobbie dropped in for lunch, only to flip out, on seeing a delivery driver parked in her privileged spot. 

Bobbie scoured the building, presumably to surprise the unwary driver, and send him moving (or packing). Thankfully, she didn't find him. By the time she'd finished her pirate raid through the building, the driver had taken his bundles, and left. Nobody gave him up, and the whole episode was quickly forgotten. If that's the kind of customer our new owners want, they're welcome to it.

So what's all this have to do with the price of rice, to lift a phrase from one of Howard Beale's soliloquies in Network (1975)?  Well, on the surface, it's not a huge move. I'm certainly not adding $50 per month more to my rent, just so I don't have to walk a few more yards. Yet it's also the kind of gesture that signals, "You're a walking dollar sign. Get used to it."

<"Under the Boardwalk..."

Take II/The Reckoner>

<iii.>

The Squawker and I have girded a long time for this day. From time to time, we've done a classic tabletop exercise. It's an emergency management term for a scenario that the participants discuss, to work out how they might react, and then, develop a plan along those lines.

You might start off such an exercise by asking, "An armed gunman shows up near ABC School, off XYZ Street. What would we do, and how would we respond?" In our case, the Squawker asked, "Can you find an apartment in the county at, or only slightly above, the $900 per month we pay now?"

Our current hometown offers no obvious solutions. The cheapest places start at around $1,200 per month, and rapidly escalate to $1,500 to $2,00, whether you're renting an apartment or a house, another option that we've discussed. If we want relief, we'll have to look elsewhere, apparently. 

So far, the returns aren't terribly encouraging. We've found two smaller towns, 15 to 25 miles away, where rents average around $700-800 per month. The downside? Their apartments are quire a bit smaller, in more isolated areas, with fewer of the supports that we're currently accustomed to having (like our visiting home doctor, for example). But until we take a recon trip or two out there, we can't be sure.

Nor is it much better elsewhere, as my sister informed me, during our weekly phone chat. Apartments in her neck of the woods (Metro Big City Ohio), start around $1,800 per month, and rocket upward from there. One sign is her former workspace, which her agency's leaving for a smaller building, "because we're all going to be working remotely from now on," she said. 

I remember that old building well. I interviewed for a job there once, hoping I'd get the government gig of a lifetime. What's happening to that structure, you ask? That's destined for condo-hood, apparently, she reckons. "It's all about what they can crank out of people."

As for me? I think John Lennon said it best: "“I’m warming to the idea of having it in an asylum.” He was referring to potential touring plans that morphed into the Beatles' celebrated rooftop concert of 1969, but the way things are going around here, we'll all be sleeping in front of the asylum, next to John's ghost. 

This is where the Rental Arms Race leaves us, trapped in the usual mindless binary non-choices (Aetna or Cigna? Chocolate or vanilla?), with nothing in between. Have no fear, though. Long before then, the Squawker and I will know if our quest is a real possibility, or only a pure pipe dream.--The Reckoner

<Coda>

Update (3/28/22): For some reason that management has yet to explain, one of the newly-minted reserved spaces has now migrated -- across from it, where people with disabilities park. So, for now, at least, that spot is open to all comers again. Our "pole position" (one of them, anyway) is back on track.

The Squawker and I spent part of our weekend going through old housing files, including applications and waiting lists. So far, the returns haven't been terribly encouraging. We've even contemplated moving back to Highlandville, one of our former ports of call, but one brief glance at the rental prices has prompted us to think twice.

Rents at our former crackerbox palace, we've found, now range from $630 to $900. Yes, Virginia, an area often derided as the place as that time forgot has now caught up with the other greedheads fighting for profit in the Rental Arms Race. "It's a truly rich irony," I tell Squawker, "but one that's perfect for us." We'll see how the search goes....stay tuned. Time will tell, I guess.