The Berkeley Property Owners Association's fall mixer is called "Celebrating the End of the Eviction Moratorium."

The Berkeley Property Owners Association’s fall mixer is called “Celebrating the End of the Eviction Moratorium.”

A group of Berkeley, California landlords will hold a fun social mixer over cocktails to celebrate their newfound ability to kick people out of their homes for nonpayment of rent, as first reported by Berkeleyside.

The Berkeley Property Owner Association lists a fall mixer on its website on Tuesday, September 12, 530 PM PST. “We will celebrate the end of the Eviction Moratorium and talk about what’s upcoming through the end of the year,” the invitation reads. The event advertises one free drink and “a lovely selection of appetizers,” and encourages attendees to “join us around the fire pits, under the heat lamps and stars, enjoying good food, drink, and friends.”

The venue will ironically be held at a space called “Freehouse”, according to its website. Attendees who want to join in can RSVP on their website for $20.

Berkeley’s eviction moratorium lasted from March 2020 to August 31, 2023, according to the city’s Rent Board, during which time tenants could not be legally removed from their homes for nonpayment of rent. Landlords could still evict tenants if they had “Good Cause” under city and state law, which includes health and safety violations. Landlords can still not collect back rent from March 2020 to April 2023 through an eviction lawsuit, according to the Rent Board.

Berkeleyside spoke to one landlord planning to attend the eviction moratorium party who was frustrated that they could not evict a tenant—except that they could evict the tenant, who was allegedly a danger to his roommates—but the landlord found the process of proving a health and safety violation too tedious and chose not to pursue it.

The Berkeley Property Owner Association is a landlord group that shares leadership with a lobbying group called the Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition which advocated against a law banning source of income discrimination against Section 8 tenants and other tenant protections.

The group insists on not being referred to as landlords, however, which they consider “slander.” According to the website, “We politely decline the label “landlord” with its pejorative connotations.” They also bravely denounce feudalism, an economic system which mostly ended 500 years ago, and say that the current system is quite fair to renters.

“Feudalism was an unfair system in which landlords owned and benefited, and tenant farmers worked and suffered. Our society is entirely different today, and the continued use of the legal term ‘landlord’ is slander against our members and all rental owners.” Instead, they prefer to be called “housing providers.”

While most cities’ eviction moratoria elapsed in 2021 and 2022, a handful of cities in California still barred evictions for non-payment into this year. Alameda County’s eviction moratorium expired in May, Oakland’s expired in July. San Francisco’s moratorium also elapsed at the end of August, but only covered tenants who lost income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In May, Berkeley’s City Council added $200,000 to the city’s Eviction Defense Funds, money which is paid directly to landlords to pay tenants’ rent arrears, but the city expected those funds to be tapped out by the end of June.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•1 year ago

    Did you miss the part where I told you this already exists? Because it does. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think apartments are deeded by unit, because we’re talking about the real world. If you want to get your point across, do it with some brainpower instead of “I’m Dirty Dan” ad nauseam.

    • Saik0English
      1•1 year ago

      Okay… Find me an apartment complex that’s deeded by unit. Since it’s all public record you can just freely link me that information here. Since you claim it exists… you can provide evidence of it existing!

      I can show you thousands of complexes that aren’t deeded by unit… hell most aren’t even deeded by building. But by full complex, which can easily be acres of property with hundreds of units.

      Here… I’ll put one foot forward in good faith. https://goo.gl/maps/z2uRv9G14dk1GtLo9 is an apartment complex that I’ve seen before in person. It’s comprised of 2 parcels according to the county. Parcel numbers 134-22-207 and 134-22-208 which you can validate on https://maps.mcassessor.maricopa.gov/

      If you search those parcels… https://mcassessor.maricopa.gov/mcs/?q=134-22-208 and https://mcassessor.maricopa.gov/mcs/?q=134-22-207 you’ll see information for the total lot of land. Not for each unit.

      Now… The reason I chose this property to look at is because JUST SOUTH (https://maps.mcassessor.maricopa.gov/?esearch=13422267A)… you’ll see “Circle Tree Condominiums” which ARE individually owned units and are NOT apartments. MCR: 231-32. Zoom in far enough and you’ll see that each unit has a distinct parcel number.

      So… now that we’re talking “real world”… Please find at least a few examples of your situation. Since I can literally show you thousands showing that you’re wrong.

      • @[email protected]English
        0•1 year ago

        …Hold up, is the crux of your argument seriously “America is the only country in the world”? This might be a really radical idea for you but when people describe the way they think things should be, they usually don’t mean “but only within the legal framework of this specific place”.

        Since you can “literally” show me thousands of examples that I’m wrong (as opposed to doing so figuratively), I thought I’d return the favor. Also, I set a maximum price of $500,000 per apartment for salejust to make it harder.

        417 reasons you’re wrong

        583 reasons you’re wrong

        3,075 reasons you’re wrong

        3,099 reasons you’re wrong

        5,043 reasons you’re wrong

        I’m bored, I’m stopping now. You’ve already been wrong 12,217 times here though, so I’m sure it’s fine.

        It’s really not even hard to imagine how this works, either. A real estate company builds the building, each apartment is owned by its occupant, they each use their equal share of ownership to vote in the building’s resident union, appoint a president if they want, pool funds for building-wide repairs, establish dues or not, etc. Sure, people rent. Sometimes people rent in the same building where other people own the deed to their unit. But there’s no requirement that an apartment building has a master who owns the homes of all the peons. Again, landlords aren’t actually necessary, and we have living proof.

        Let’s nip one thing in the bud: me bringing up how things work in other countries is not an asspull, it does not reinforc your point of view, and it isn’t irrelevant to conversations about the United States. Don’t even try. If somebody in Texas complains that there should be universal health care and legal abortions, do you pinch off “Well ACKKSHYULLYYYY that isn’t possible under the legal framework of the State of Texas and that’s just not how things work in the ‘real world’ so be more realistic.”? No, even you don’t do that. Because you are (I assume) a sapient being who understands how context works, you would know that you can import ideas that are already in practice in one place over to a place where they are not. Which was exactly my point.

        • Saik0English
          0•1 year ago

          This thread… This post is literally about American law being reverted.

          A group of Berkeley, California landlords […]

          so yes… talking about this in the context of America is not only fair, but expected.

          Now for all your links… LMFAO you’re really special you know. None of those are “apartments” in the American sense. There’s no such things as an individually owned apartment here. They’re called Condominiums (Condos) here if they’re individually owned. I even pointed that out in my previous post. Jesus you’re dense.

          Edit: Oh… really ironic by the way that you want to talk about context… Because you completely missed that bus here.

          • @[email protected]English
            0•1 year ago

            I found a photo of you

            Unfortunately for you, your mind is an open book to me, and I saw this coming. Which is why I predicted that you would say this. The fact that you’re doing it means you are, in doing so, admitting you’re wrong. There’s no going back now though, you can’t undo it.

            Let me spell it out for you, because even though I found over 12,000 apartments for sale, that number is still eclipsed by the number of chromosomes you have. If you want to make the argument that this is wrong because of context, you have to
            #P A Y
            #AT T T E N T I O N
            #T O
            #T H E
            #C O N T E X T
            if you want to know what the fuck is going on.

            Just look. At this.

            Topical context can change over the course of a conversation, dipshit. If you want to dispute something I’m saying, look with your eyeballs and pay attention to what I say. The right interpretation is the one I’ve already written out, you just have to read it.

            Now for all your links… LMFAO you’re really special you know.

            Hang on, I just want to dissect this part. I think it’s really shameful to try and recoup face when you get proven wrong, when you really should just take it on the chin and admit you’re wrong. But that attitude! How humiliating must it be to desperately grasp at straws the way you’re doing? Also we’re not on reddit, you don’t have to try and add a pithy mic drop destruction 100 big chungus among sus moment, knock that shit off.

            There’s no such things as an individually owned apartment here.

            #THAT’S THE POINT

            #THAT’S

            #THE

            #P

            #O

            #I

            #N

            #T

            #THAT’S MY FUCKING POINT

            #THAT’S WHY I BROUGHT IT UP

            #FUCK

            And you have the audacity to call me dense? Motherfucker, you’re so damned dense you hit the point by accident and didn’t even notice. And then, without a trace of irony, you go on to parrot your own point as if you like the way the words sound so much you just couldn’t resist. This isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, this is a neutron star calling a balloon dense.

            I’m not even going to address the fact that the ownership schema of a condominium works differently from apartment ownership in other countries. Frankly, you’ve proven that you’d refuse to understand even if you weren’t too fucking stupid.

            This conversation has reached its end. If you have any decency, you will respond either by apologizing to me for wasting my time, or not at all.

            • Saik0English
              1•1 year ago

              Let me spell it out for you, because even though I found over 12,000 apartments for sale, that number is still eclipsed by the number of chromosomes you have.

              None of which are apartments per any definition used in the USA… Which is the context of this whole thread.

              I see your “context” that you so diligently learned how to use a digital highlighter for. Did you read what you wrote?

              Here’s the FULL post… I’m going to bold something…

              What, you gonna tear down the apartment buildings? You know you can just sell people the deeds to their apartments. That’s already in practice, in places with a shitload less homeless people.

              To which… in my immediate response I stated…

              Considering that Apartments are not deeded per unit.

              Further,

              in places with a shitload less homeless people.

              Is not only vague, but doesn’t actually communicate anything meaningful at all as literally every country has a homelessness problem, but let’s put that aside and let’s just assume that we all understood you mean overseas somewhere.

              In the USA… which is where this discussion is taking place under the context of. An Apartment is not separately deeded, as evidenced by the literal evidence I’ve shown you. You’re response has effectively been “well this other country defines it as something else”. I’ve even already given you the correct term here for what I believe you’re referencing. That is a Condominium… Or Condo for short.

              An Apartment != Condo. Period. When you can realize that, then the conversation can continue. So for you to assume that “Apartment” here in the USA = “Apartment” from whatever the bumble-fuck you’re from… Is already wrong. And your own “evidence” of 12000 apartment proves that point. Yet you don’t see it and somehow I’m a moron?

              Also we’re not on reddit, you don’t have to try and add a pithy mic drop destruction 100 big chungus among sus moment, knock that shit off.

              Yet here you are… acting like a teenager. You could literally just admit that you have no idea what the terms used in the USA are for these things… and move the fuck on. Instead you act like a petulant child.

              But let’s back up just a smidge… https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apartment

              a room or set of rooms fitted especially with housekeeping facilities and usually leased as a dwelling

              So even definitionally you’re wrong, otherwise the definition wouldn’t include the word leased.

              vs…https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/condominium

              individual ownership of a unit in a multiunit structure (such as an apartment building) or on land owned in common (such as a town house complex)

              Well fuck me… Which one describes what you’ve explained that you believe “apartment” to mean? Especially when you stated…

              It’s really not even hard to imagine how this works, either. A real estate company builds the building, each apartment is owned by its occupant, they each use their equal share of ownership to vote in the building’s resident union, appoint a president if they want, pool funds for building-wide repairs, establish dues or not, etc.

              But that’s been the point the whole time. Oftentimes it requires drawing up contracts that 100% of the tenants agree on that share the building. Your pie in the sky bullshit thought is that 1 person out of a 30 unit building will be able to buy the one unit they have and the rest can keep renting (or vice-versa) that makes it literally impossible for all the parties to sign onto a MCR to be recognized as 30 separate deeds within a single overarching property. Your own quote above even implicitly acknowledges this when you stated " A real estate company builds the building" as in it was intended to be condos from the start. But see… rather than recognizing that you could be wrong especially with how apartments might be recognized in the USA. You instead turned into a frothing lunatic.

              Feel free to keep ad hominem attacking me though. Makes your case real strong! I’m not grasping at any straws. You’ve failed to communicate effectively and now you’ve gone off the deep end like winning arguments on the internet is the only thing that keeps you emotionally stable.

              And you have the audacity to call me dense? Motherfucker

              Just remember… you started it ;)

              • @[email protected]English
                0•1 year ago

                Nope, no decency.

                So you’re aware, I did make sure to not read it past the first words. You’ll never get to hear what you have to say heard by me.