Ethics: Take Sweet Apt With Dirtbag Landlord?
A guy writes into Gawker wondering if he should take an apartment from a landlord who uses tough tactics to boot regulated tenants, even though he won’t be a victim because he’s paying market rate. The Unethicist takes it upon himself to answer the question…sorta. Wait, no he doesn’t answer it.
I say “don’t take it!” because though he won’t treat you like dirt for having ridiculously low rent, he will make you miserable in other ways yet to be determined. Trust me, the yarmulked set will always find a way to screw you out of money. If he shuts people’s water off, he will definitely at the very least wait until the last legal second to refund your deposit when you move out in order to get every penny of interest.
That’s not really an ethical take, it’s a practical one, and so doesn’t answer the question. Poor guy.
Anybody have an ethical take on the question?
December 12th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
“Trust me, the yarmulked set will always find a way to screw you out of money. ”
Whoa. Didn’t see that coming.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
whoaa!!the yarmulked set..this is great. didn’t know this would be a forum for jew bashing. i happy to be a member of this hook nosed clan myself as well as donning the head gear and it is always good to hear to hear some good old fashioned anti-semitism. i’m glad i lost 30 family members in the holocaust so some piece of shit can degrade my culture and heritage..i would like to take this opportunity to mention im a hooked nose, penny pinching landlord myself, and if it werent for all of us hook nosed bastards that are screwing you over you wouldnt have your neighborhood to live in, because trust me you wouldnt have brought your little white ass out here 5 years ago when the hymies were here “screwing” everyone of their money and taking risks that others wouldnt take, so it would be habitable place to situate your pretty little ass ..think before you speak eichman..
December 13th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
well, sad to say–but I think that about put the nail in the coffin.
BUSHWICKBK: GOING, Going, going… (CRASH!)
December 13th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
amen to that..the Elders of Zion will not sit idle on this dufus.
December 13th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
And it’s not only those hook nosed yarmulked guys, we should beware of those spics and niggers too. You can’t be too careful with them around our innocent wives.
Then there are these yellows, oh my god don’t even let me go there. What happend to this beautiful country of ours.
Jeremy, don’t get scared by those who cry antisemtism at the first whiff of smoke. You’re fighting the good cause. Lets finally stand up for ourselves and get our country back.
After all we all know that if not for those Israeli Nazis we wouldn’t have this problem here in bushwick
December 13th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Wow, everyone is crazy. I make fun of Hasidic landlords — not anywhere near the first one to do it on a Brooklyn blog — and someone brings up the Holocaust and calls me EICHMANN! LOL!
December 14th, 2007 at 12:02 am
just because you’re not the first to do doesn’t make it not racist.
this website is so incredibly racist, but i guess it’s ok because it’s full of white people who are moving into the impoverished neighborhood and helping the poor folks who don’t know the first thing about culture! yup, gentrification is great!
and if mark is serious about getting “our” country back, well i think you should head back to the deep south with your confederate flag.
December 14th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Hey Derwood, who taught you to cheapen the Holocaust with such reckless abandon? There’s a differnce between making fun of Jews (not that this post didn’t make me a little uncomfortabe) and being a nazi. You can condemn anti-semitism and not bring up the Holocaust.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:33 am
excuse me a least take responsiblity for what u write just because other bloggers can be anti semitic morons,does that open the flood gate for more vile comments, actually i believe that is the way it worked in nazi germany, i really like the rational..making fun of landlords is one thing.my other question is besides the yarmulked set the rest of the landlords are santa claus giving gifts at the front door of the residence. solid reasoning skills..i mean come on this statement is classic
the yarmulked set will always find a way to screw you out of money. If he shuts people’s water off, he will definitely at the very least wait until the last legal second to refund your deposit when you move out in order to get every penny of interest.
did u base this one on shylock..
maybe in the midwest or wherever the f u r from where the jews hide the horns well this crap is acceptable but you are in ny..give me a freakin break.
December 14th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
what’s more alarming than any of this is that Jeremy doesn’t seem to notice that the Gawker column is a ‘joke’ version of The NYT’s Ethticist column.
jeremy’s a closet heeb anyway. if he gets Polish citizenship there’ll be no stopping him!!
December 14th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
“i lost 30 family members in the holocaust…”
Oh yeah. Me too. *wink*
December 14th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
i figured such jimmy, they always take the first shot..self-hating jews is a tradition that goes back 1000s of years..
December 14th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
“i lost 30 family members in the holocaust…”
Oh yeah. Me too. *wink*”
But did you lose “any” at the world trade center? *wink wink*
we will not be misled by those who dominate the press, hollywood, government, etc.
Jeremy, i’m with you, it’s not fair to pick on you, all you did was test the waters a little bit. Can’t say you weren’t treading carefully. It’s not like you advocated any harm. A slight little bit of demonizing those yarmulked hebes shouldn’t get “them” sooo riled up. And, yes, you are by far not the first. (man we’re talking a long long history here) so why do these people pick on you. Are we not letting ‘them’ live here? we are just asking them to try not to show their characteristics too much (if that’s possible hee hee). Isn’t that the minimum ‘they’ can accomodate their hosts?
SALUTE
December 14th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
this thread just gets weirder and more disturbing.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
This has really been the post from hell as it exhibits the worst that can come out of this blog.
The root of the problem is the stereotyping of - in this case - Jewish landlords. At other times it has been Hispanics who play loud music or do not pick up after their dogs. In all cases, the faults of individuals - and these ARE real faults - are employed to damn an entire group. This just poisons the well of intelligent discussion and cannot be dismissed as just some kind of joke.
A related problem to this is that the consequences of this nasty group reference cause us to overlook the very valid point of Jeremy’s post - that landlords who treat rent stabilized tenants like shit will probably - over time - treat the high rent payers in similar fashion. This provides a good “self interest” reason to reject the overtures of such a landlord - whether his - or her - name is Schwartz, Pulaski, Grimaldi, Hernandez or Brown.
But for your sake, Jeremy - and the good of the blog - I think it is important for you to say that, in this instance, you pushed the envelope too far.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Well said, John.
December 15th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Is their a group of people that you don’t make wide generalized comments about. In the past week I have seen your comments about East Williamsburg where you expressed your contempt for skinny white hipsters, then you are making generalizations about the pigs, now Jewish landlords.
So there, those are the good reasons I have for not necessarily hating you but just wondering what is up your ass.
Maybe you drink too much coffee or maybe too much blogging. I don’t know. I don’t see you offering much more than hate.
This is not a threat but a warning: Watch it, Jeremy. Your picture is up and it’s probably pretty easy to find you. One little comment is enough. The Somner/Satner group does not fuck around. Have you ever heard of the JDL. They do not fuck around either.
Me, I’m a hipster advocate that just cant stand to see the pot calling the kettle black. I also have a bad temper and a lot of time on my hands.
Watch it!!!!!!!!!
oh BTW I have seen you express concerns about your property values and bemoan the gentrification process at eh same time. Will you please either take sides or step back and stop acting like such a know-it-all.
Do a little reflecting maybe. It may help your writing and your attitude.
Little Cunt. Watch it!!!!!
December 15th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Oh, I just read the link. That was fuckin’ hilarious.
Um, Jeremy , you fucking hate monger ‘tard, It was a joke. Damn, dude you really are fucked up or something. Someone needs to smack you. You wish you could write like that too. That guy puts all his anger into something worthwhile unlike you, or me. I need to chill too. I’m gonna go rent that movie and support some other Jews.
See you at The Archive.
I’ll buy you an espresso.
December 15th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Okay, yes, it’s true, I do not actually ever read Gawker (gawd) and so I thought, at a glance, that the “Unethicist” was just the humorous flip side of the “Ethicist” — instead of a complete spoof of it So that makes me dumber than a bag of bread, I guess.
Oh, Josh, how’d you get to be so psycho?
December 15th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Derwood, you “figured as such” that as Jimmy said, I’m a “closet heeb”? Is that why you called me Eichmann? Is that why you assumed I was from the Midwest and thought Jews had horns? Is that why your entire embarrassingly overreacted set of diatribes clearly assumes that I am *not* a (half-)Jew?
As someone above said, you cheapen the Holocaust with your quick-to-the-draw mention of your dead relatives. Really, anyone who makes fun of Jewish stereotypes, you randomly call them the names of assorted high-up Nazi officials? Your whole stream of comments is so dumb I’m having trouble believing you really are Jewish — but now I’m getting into PRO-Jewish “racism” so let’s just stop here.
Humor aside, if someone asked me if I thought they should rent from a Hasidic landlord if there were other choices, I would tell them to keep looking. That’s simply a rational bit of advice based on my experience. I mean, just the fact that it’s a cult of people whose closets were last updated in the 1850s — hello!? Weird.
To cap this off, I am not, as you labeled me, a “self-hating Jew.” I just hate all the other ones.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
honestly you still havent owned up to your comment..you can digress from a landlord in a an article that u never read to “Trust me, the yarmulked set will always find a way to screw you out of money,” and you have problems with my what you call my non sequitor from anti semitic crap like this to the holocaust. how do you think holocausts happen…do you see the insane rise of anti semitic action that is going on not only in europe and south america, where synagogues are blown up at least once a year, and in our very own enlightened new york there have been 3 antisemitc attacks in the last 2 months that i have seen on the news..swastikas..so pardon me jeremy the love of the jewish people is well documented on the world stage and it is not a pretty picture..so yes stupid remarks such as your cause concern.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
not to mention your support is coming from your white supremacist backing..john well written as usual..kudos.you seem to keep this thread on point.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
i’m thinking that maybe you wrote this entry to actually get some activity on this blog, its seems to have worked..because the other content sure hasnt..
December 18th, 2007 at 7:47 am
I’ve got an ethical take -
Jeremy, YOU ARE A FUCKING RACIST WHO SHOULD MOVE BACK TO NEBRASKA.
I didn’t move to NYC so I could hang out with the SAME people I moved away from who sounded a lot like this:
“Trust me, the yarmulked set will always find a way to screw you out of money.”
December 18th, 2007 at 11:46 am
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/new_media/casual_antisemitism_the_brooklyn_blogosphere_73171.asp
Media Bistro says you ARE anti-Semitic.
December 18th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
How about we stop dignifying it any further? Honestly, are there other Bushwick blogs people can recommend that are a bit more… positive?
December 18th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Derwood, what do you mean own up? Here, I will give you this — more people than just Hasids wear yarmulkes, so that wasn’t specific enough and led people to think I was saying ALL Jewish landlords are likely bad landlords, which is simply not the case. None of this is even to say that Hasids are even bad people, just that belonging to an insulated sect as they do, they have different views on the humanity and importance of other people who are not from their fold. So unless someone is Jewish and wears his Jewishness on his sleeve in front of his Hasidic landlords, I would NOT recommend renting from them.
Dresden, you stupid psycho, my family is from the Bronx and more of them than I can count are Jewish. Not that any of this should matter because of the obvious truth of my post regardless of my ethnicity or heritage. So YOU do ME a favor and go back to Nebraska, where you actually are from.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
People in Nebraska don’t talk about Jews. They don’t have Jews in Nebraska.
December 18th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
The funniest part is all you knee-jerkoff hypocrites who think that by being publicly intolerant towards the intolerant you are somehow turning two wrongs into a right. Hilarious and predictable.
Careful though…Jeremy might just remind you all how many times he’s heard Jews bemoaning having to rent to schvartes and fagalas and goyim. Most people have a knee-jerk reaction to some other group–even those of you who think you were being different by trying to bust Jeremy’s balls–were being just as bigoted as anybody else. Welcome to the club.
December 20th, 2007 at 3:15 am
Jeremy -
We have a lot in common actually. My mother is Irish while father is a Jew. I was raised in a rustbelt town where the white trash never let me forget that I was Jewish. The Jews in NYC, the serious ones, don’t consider me a Jew.
I’m sure I was persecuted a lot more than you ever were for being “jewish”. So don’t move “back” to Nebraska. Just move there.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Jeremy, You write;
“None of this is even to say that Hasids are even bad people, just that belonging to an insulated sect as they do, they have different views on the humanity and importance of other people who are not from their fold”
Now while I very much agree to the above concept in principle, I don’t think that it manifests itself into the Hasids being bad Landlords.
The reasons can be manyfold. A- they realize that it’s the best policy to be in good terms with tenants, B- those Hasids who own real estate are already much more exposed to the world and have a more “open” view, C- There is some concept I once read in Allen Dreshowitz’s book Chutzpah, called, ‘Shanda Fur De Goyim’ which means that you realy have to be carefull in being nice to the Goyim (non-jews) so as to keep things comforable, D- there are many big buildings that are not zoned residential where (Hasidic) landlords are usually extra carfull not to pick fights with tenants, and that maybe becomes the dominant mentality in this very tight knit community.
All of the above are just theories just as yours is. In order for you to make this blanket statement about Hasids you should really have a little bit of research backing you up,(which maybe you have).
How many hasidic landlords do you know first hand that are mistreating their tenants.
How many Hasidic landlords do you know who are not mistreating their tenants.
How many Spanish landlords do you know… blah blah blah.
Please remember that stereotyping is a very powerful dynamic in racial or ethnic violence. Actually in the end it could be just another form of the selfsame malady you are blaming the Hasids in the first place “they have different views on the… importance of other people who are not in the fold” or are not like them.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
OOPS,
I meant to write, how many Hispanic Landlords do you know who mistreat their tenants and how many don’t.
blah blah blah
December 22nd, 2007 at 6:54 pm
The best part is - landlords, ALL LANDLORDS, charge what people are willing to pay.
That’s how the true cost of things is determined.