Should I resent having been evicted?

There's a weird presumption among liberals that libertarians have no right to accept human decency in interpersonal interactions because, after all . . . the market!

People have a legal right to mutter "bitch" as I walk past, blog extensively about how fat and unattractive I am, or ignore my ideas on the grounds that Irish Catholics are naturally stupid. Businesses have a legal right to provide sullen and unhelpful salespeople, filthy premises, and cheaply made products that fall apart one day after the warranty expires. All Americans have the legal right to say nasty things to their spouses, watch football instead of talking to their kids, stop bathing, and drop dear old friends in favor of richer, more attractive ones.

I would not dream of making any of these things against the law. But I can still be appalled when people do them. Being a libertarian means recognizing the limits of the formal legal system to regulate human behavior--not recognizing the formal legal system as the only limitation on human behavior.

My landlord was entitled to evict me on a month's notice, forcing my 62 year old mother to commute to pulmonary rehab from upstate New York. And though I could have made trouble for my landlord in New York's famously tenant friendly housing court, I didn't, not only because I didn't want the hassle, but also because I genuinely believed that they had the legal right to evict me.

But that doesn't mean I have to like the way they treated me, or think it's fair; I just have to accept it as the price of living in a modern (classical) liberal system.

Update I forget I have new readers now. I was evicted at the end of April because my landlord sold the building and the new owners kicked everyone out in order to, apparently, do a quick flip. I didn't do anything, other than occupy an apartment they wanted to sell, to bring it on myself.

Comments

But since you haven't given any reasons for why you were evicted, how are we to know that those noble libertarian declarations are not in actuality making a virtue of necessity? How do we know that you 'could have made trouble' for him?

For example, if you were evicted for failure to pay rent, I'm sure you 'could have made trouble' in a tenant-friendly housing court, and that they also would have had the legal right to evict you.

Oh, and my sympathies as well. I hope you find something better soon.

Posted by ScentOfViolets | October 16, 2007 8:23 PM

Fat? Unattractive? I see neither. I see a lovely Irish Rose.

Posted by Llyonnoc | October 16, 2007 9:09 PM

You can't possibly be Irish. Resisting (and even shooting) bastard landlords is one of the finest Irish traditions.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | October 16, 2007 9:32 PM

If you had gone to housing court and won, "they" wouldn't have had a legal right to evict you. What you mean is that as a libertarian you believe that landlords ought to have the right to treat tenants heartlessly, even if some bleeding heart legislature and some cockamamie bleeding heart housing court judge says otherwise, because the rich are always right!

Posted by Alan Vanneman | October 16, 2007 10:20 PM

Something like that, Alan. My point was that if she was evicted and her eviction was contractually proper, etc, then she would not have a leg to stand on in court. So being 'noble' is just so much sour grapes in this case. Otoh, if her eviction was not contractually or legally sanctioned, then not taking legal action, is, well, just silly. Libertarians of all people would not shy from attempting to punish someone violating a contract.

Posted by ScentOfViolets | October 17, 2007 12:08 AM

I think you may be off base on this one. Let's take a couple of scenarios:

1) The developer wasn't able to confirm a May 1 start date until March 25. Do you expect them to delay the start of the redevelopment in order to give you more time, which you may or may not need?

2) The developer knew in December that redevelopment would start on May 1 and gave you 5 months notice. It is likely you would have begun looking for a new place immediately. If you found one in January I'm sure you would have given your own 30-day notice and been out of the unit in February. The unit would then sit empty for 2 months and the developer would have to absorb the loss. Is that really expected?

I'm all for human decency, but I don't think anyone should compromise their own economic position in order to accomodate someone with whom they only have an economic relationship.

The real issue here is the shortage of rental units in NY (due to rent control?). I live in Los Angeles. If I'm given a 30-day notice to vacate it'll take me all of one day to decide amongst the 10+ comparable units currently available within a 1 mile radius. Yeah, it would be a minor headache to physically move and deal with the change-of-address type stuff, but certainly nothing that would rise to the level that would warrant a blog post.

Posted by EstebanSegundo | October 17, 2007 12:39 AM

Dude, you were NOT evicted. "Evicted" means forcibly removed by legal process. Even with a loose defintion, they didn't terminate your lease. You were on a month-to-month lease. The required notice for non-renewal of a month-to-month lease is 30 days. They gave you proper notice that they would not renew your lease on the same terms. You did not like their new terms. You chose not to renew.

Approximately 90% of NYC renters renew their leases every year. Approximately 90% of NYC landlords demand rent increases every year. Approximately 100% of NYC renters do not want to pay more rent. Approximately 90% of NYC renters have some disagreement with their landlords over lease renewals each year. Is every tenant who moves because she doesn't want to pay what the landlord asks "evicted"? I understand this is a pain in the ass. I moved back in June because I didn't want to pay a 40% rent increase. Do I tell everyone I wuz evicted? Come on.

Posted by Kwyjibo | October 17, 2007 12:51 AM

Kwyjibo wrote: Do I tell everyone I wuz evicted?

No, because the unit was still available for rent at a marketable rate; you chose not to pay that rate. This is not the same thing as being told that your lease ends with no possibility of continuance.

Pop out a dictionary -- although the legal aspect of eviction is a common usage, that use didn't appear until almost a hundred years after the word arose. The original sense of the word is simply to expel someone from a property, or otherwise recover a property by means of a superior claim to said property.

Posted by anony-mouse | October 17, 2007 1:19 AM

No, because the unit was still available for rent at a marketable rate; you chose not to pay that rate. This is not the same thing as being told that your lease ends with no possibility of continuance.

That she was able to consider buying the unit implies that continued occupancy was possible. If so, there was likely some price that would have made continued month-to-month practical.

Pop out a dictionary -- although the legal aspect of eviction is a common usage, that use didn't appear until almost a hundred years after the word arose. The original sense of the word is simply to expel someone from a property, or otherwise recover a property by means of a superior claim to said property.

Said dictionary says that said word arose c. 1400-1450, so the legal process definition has been in use since 1550. It's also the first definition in American Heritage, Random House, and Webster's. Or I can go look for Baker and Milsom to get some color on the subject.

Posted by Kwyjibo | October 17, 2007 1:39 AM

Fat? Unattractive? I see neither. I see a lovely Irish Rose.

Posted by Llyonnoc | October 16, 2007 9:09 PM

Christ.

Posted by Joe Strummer | October 17, 2007 9:08 AM

Having just been through this process just a month ago, I can completely understand how the word "evicted" could apply. In my case, the landlord put us on a month-to-month back in April when he refused to counter-sign a new lease (which included a rent increase we were willing to pay). So we got our 30 days notice (and it was precisely 30) to leave our Chelsea apartment in an old tenement building which contains 9 apartments two months ago.
The landlord would never say why he was evicting us, but we suspected he didn't want the four rent-stabilized apartment dwellers present in the building to know what was going on (ours was not rent-stabilized....enterprising googlers can now find it on-line with this info). The landlord had owned the building for at least 30 years, so why was he selling it?
Based upon the cash flow of the building including the rent-stabilized and non-rent stabilized apartments, the building was clearly returning way, way less in cash flow than the invested proceeds from a sale would provide.
The existence of those four rent-stabilized apartments of the nine total were skewing the return to the landlord in such a huge way, it was no longer worth holding as a rental property. I don't think it will be worth holding as a rental property to anyone. At a selling price of nearly $4 million, it's likely that a buyer will convert half the building (just so happens the front half is now empty with the back-half facing the garden having the rent-stabilized apts) to a luxury townhouse and five relatively affordable apartments will go away. It is true the new landlord would not be able to throw out the rent-stabilized tenants in the rear-half of the buiding, but it's not a big building so a major construction project could make their lives awfully dreary for a year or more. The rents are soooo low (again this info is posted in the realtors info sheet) on those four, the tenants could probably afford to just rent another place while the construction goes on and then move back in when it's complete.

Rent stabilization is doing nothing for Manhattan other than driving up the costs for most of us who don't have a rent-stabilized apartment and never will. I'm not exaggerating much when I say that there's a three-tier system in Manhattan:

- those than can afford to pay $1500+/sf for an ok-ish apt somewhere below 95th St or can afford monthly rent on a 1 BR in the $2500-4000 range (price range describing trashed apt in ok neighborhood, to decent apt in the W Village)
- those that have a rent-stabilized apartment
- those that live in public housing

Doesn't seem tremendously diverse to me. Yes, my former neighbors would have to pay more than $600/mo for the privilege of living on a gentrified block in West Chelsea, but then, they should.

Posted by Michael W | October 17, 2007 10:08 AM

Suggesting that the landlord forced your mother to commute to rehab is not only unlibertarian, it's un American.

Your mother could purchase a luxury apartment or a mansion within blocks of her hospital. Or she could equip her home with the latest medical technology and pay a doctor to drive to her home (or live in).

Had she been prudent, she would have purchased a property adjacent to the hospital in her 20s or 30s, instead of having children, since she couldn't afford to do both simultaneously. But she was irresponsible, and now you expect a businessman to subsidize her foolish choices.

We're not suggesting your mother should be denied medical treatment, just that she is the only one to blame for her circumstances.

And you're the one who injected her into this debate. You should have taken better care in vetting your parents.

Posted by Shorter National Review Online's The Corner | October 17, 2007 12:01 PM

All Americans have the legal right to say nasty things to their spouses, watch football instead of talking to their kids, stop bathing, and drop dear old friends in favor of richer, more attractive ones.

God. Bless. America.

Posted by RMc | October 17, 2007 3:07 PM

How is your mother doing?

Posted by AS | October 17, 2007 6:41 PM

Well Megan - first of all - it is your own damned fault for agreeing to be put on a month-to-month lease for any long-term period of time if you actually were intending on staying there for a period of time.

Under common law contract law (for every contract except goods purchased in excess of $500.00, which falls under the Uniform Commercial Code), a lease is a real estate contract. If you have a lease in writing, then that lease is enforceable under the Statues of Fraud for the period of time the lease in enforce.

As such, a lease is technically a de-facto temporary transfer of the rights to use that property (even if ownership does not change, but leasing away something, you retain ownership, but legally transfer the rights associated with that property). What shocks me is that since the new owner was able to kick everyone out, it appears everyone was on a month-to-month lease agreement. Which makes me believe that everyone was on a month-to-month agreement, since if anyone else was on a longer-term agreement, that lessee could have legally stopped any attempts at eviction (since technically in that case it would be an eviction). The reason being a least is the right to legally utilize the asset under lease in accordance with generally accepted uses for such an asset unimpeded.

Two things – most people and landlords do not want to be on a MTM least unless one of the parties has an expectation of getting out on short-notice. If your landlord wants a month-to-month lease, either run away or be prepared for what Megan just went through. Megan –you act as if you are angry, but quite frankly – what did you expect?

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