Homeowners and home renters, questions...

[greenfreak]

Homeowners, how do you feel about renters in your community?

Renters, do you think your neighbors dislike you?

Rusty and I rent the 1st floor of a house. For a year, our neighbors didn't acknowledge us at all. But after I dove into the landscaping of the house, and the flowers started blooming, all of a sudden my neighbors started coming over to say hi. Tell me how appreciative they are that we take an interest in the look of the house. In the winter, they use their snowblower to clear my sidewalk and the path to my door. Whenever their children come by and say hello, I cut flowers for them to bring home to their Moms. It's a give and take, and a great thing to get along with them.

When they first approached me, they talked to me as if I understood the stigma surrounding renters in a homeowner's community. I figured it was just because the renters before us were transients who caused problems. But it's more than that isn't it? Is it because renters don't pay taxes? Or because they take no pride in where they live? Because they're more likely to be a disturbance with parties and unsightly cars in the driveway?

I'm curious what the renting situation is around you.

 

[HomeLAN]

Is it because renters don't pay taxes? Or because they take no pride in where they live? Because they're more likely to be a disturbance with parties and unsightly cars in the driveway?

1) No, since the owners do.

2) Yes, and that's why you'll see me move if my area goes rental.

3) That's sort of a codicile to #2.

What it comes down to is that renters, by and large, have zero incentive to keep the place up. Any capital gains aren't theirs to keep. Those of us who do have those concerns are forced to deal with neighbors who don't.

I understand where renters are coming from. I've been there. I just don't have a desire to continue to have to deal with it.

It's no surprise that your neighbors changed attitudes when you took an interest in the house and grounds.

 

[tonksy]

some times i wish that i lived in a rental neighorhood...or at least a neighborhood with less turn over. all the time with the damn contractor trucks and the bricklayers and the cement mixers! not to mention all the fucking realtors parking on the street. the damn street is so narrow all these large vehicles are a damn menace. not to mention that 8 am in the non winter is always met by the lovely sound of lawn mowers and leaf blowers because none of these damn people can be bothered to keep up their own lawns so they hire these friggin' landscapers in their big ass trucks and loud ass equipment and messy damn people who blow their leaf clippings on our yard because we don't use their services. the next time i find a bag of potato chips or a styrofoam coffee cup in my marigolds i am going postal.

 

[HomeLAN]

You actually have the opposite problem. Your covenants are so freaking restrictive that folks just pay for someone to upkeep the grass and call it a day.

 

[chcr]

I live in the country, so no renters nearby. I could wish my neighbor didn't keep goats (they stink) but there is the entertainment factor (they're fun to watch). I should note that I can only smell them on really hot days when the wind is blowing the proper direction and even then it's hardly overpowering. The guy that lives between me and the main road used to be a landscaper, across the road is a dressage stable and the other side is a field.

 

[Dave]

the neighborhood i live in was entirly rental units when we first moved there. not only that, it was all section 8 housing. we were the only ones paying full rental price.
if you could have seen the condition of the units and the grounds back then, you wouldnt have had to ask that question. just about all the units had to be basically gutted before they were sold. the new owners (us included) were stuck cleaning up the properties. i must have filled 8 or 9 garbage buckets with bottles,broken glass, chunks of carpet, you name it, it was probably thrown out back.

 

[tonksy]

You actually have the opposite problem. Your covenants are so freaking restrictive that folks just pay for someone to upkeep the grass and call it a day.

i could deal with the landscapers. it's the constant fucking with the houses that goes on. nothing is ever finished around here.

old owners "i'm so glad we put in this pool! it looks so lovely and it will sell so much faster!"

new owners "i'm so glad we pulled that pool out and planted a rose garden! it looks so lovely and will sell so much faster!"


new new owners "fucking roses...wanna get a deck installed? oh! or a pool!"

right now the house across the street looks like it belongs on the set of black hawk down because the owners decided they'd like a brick facade instead of the stucco it was....and all that debris winds up on our lawn...and lets not even get rob started about the tire gouges in the lawn

 

[HomeLAN]

Now I'd be bitching about that. That's bullshit.

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

Out here in the sticks, I think there is one house within five miles that rents, and the tennant is the son of the owner, so...

If I could change one thing around me, I'd outlaw the trashy trailers. Mobile homes are not in and of themselves trashy, but many become that way.

I am fortunate enough to live near a moneyed gentleman who buys every available acre and is dead set against developments. His sons are like minded, so the worries about suddenly being surrounded by a gated Harmony Parcel or some such nonsense development with all its evil trappings is near negligible for me. Praise God and pass the gravy would y'please. If I wanted to hear every neighbor's televisions inside my own house because they are twelve feet away, I'd have bought it.

 

[catocom]

yep, it's the upkeep thing for me. My sister/bro-inlaw do (are buying) own their
house, but it looks like a dump.
My bro-inlaw does cut the grass, but that's about it. I've been bitchin' at
um for 6mos or better to pressure-wash their house. It's supposed to be white,
but it's green right now.

 

[ris]

we used to rent this little mid-terrace house in a nasty cul-de-sac suburb, but we got to know the local kids and a couple of the parents really well. our next door neighbour was very nice and we helped her with babysitting and sorting her comp out.
the kids thought we were ok becuase we would play football in the street with them in the summer, and as a result the parents figured we were ok.

we got slung out of that place because the landlords needed to sell up. the place we moved to has none of the community that the previous one did, i hardly know my neighbours. i sort of miss the kids and being able to kick a ball around.

 

[Inkara1]

The situation is no better illustrated than by the family I just divorced out of. They were always renters, and the yard never had any grass in it and the place generally looked like crap. Now they're in a sort of rent-to-own program for the house they're in now... and they're actually doing stuff to the house to make it look nicer, and taking care of the front yard.

 

[Sharky]

I live in the country, so no renters nearby. I could wish my neighbor didn't keep goats (they stink) but there is the entertainment factor (they're fun to watch). I should note that I can only smell them on really hot days when the wind is blowing the proper direction and even then it's hardly overpowering. The guy that lives between me and the main road used to be a landscaper, across the road is a dressage stable and the other side is a field.

Howdy, neighbor.

 

[catocom]

eh, goats ain't that bad. You should be around here when they start
cleaning out the chicken houses, and there's a good wind.

My neighbor use to have a pig farm some years back too. Man that IS some nasty smellin' stuff.

 

[kuulani]

personally, i don't see any differences between owners & renters.
as long as they're not asses, i would treat both the same

 

[Inkara1]

Term "property values" mean anything to ya?

 

[A.B.Normal]

A better question would be Homeowners vs rental property,just because someone can't afford to buy and the landlord isn't willing to put money into a property,doesn't make it the tenants fault.In alot of the cases people buy property and rent simply for the monthly income instead of a long term investment.

 

[catocom]

Term "property values" mean anything to ya?

yep, my property value is probably just now at it's peak.
Just about all the neighbors are selling out, and subdivisions are popping up
all over.

 

[Gato_Solo]

A better question would be Homeowners vs rental property,just because someone can't afford to buy and the landlord isn't willing to put money into a property,doesn't make it the tenants fault.In alot of the cases people buy property and rent simply for the monthly income instead of a long term investment.

Irresponsible behavior at it's finest.