To me the most telling detail is that he spackled and painted over the holes in the walls where nails for hanging pictures would go. That's not grifter behavior, that's crazy person behavior. This guy needs to get his head read.
It's crazy person behaviour, but not off the wall crazy. If he was planning to live there indefinitely, he'd decorate to suit his tastes. There's plenty of evidence for crazy without that.
This reminds me of the couple my parents rented to while stationed out of the country - they tried farming rabbits in the house.
You spackle and paint because you can't just scrub out the evidence of the serial killing.
They built a weird little pond in the middle of the back garden! everyone who saw it made the same serial killer jokes!
In a land without guns, the killers use small bodies of water.
Pretty sure that this story only needs a few tweaks to turn it into a cracking horror film. Maybe they come back and find that the house is superficially OK but all the faces in the family photos are slightly different?
In a land without guns, the killers use small bodies of water.
In Enlightened Gunless Europe, the people are protected by two separate but equally important groups: the forensic hydrologists who investigate crimes and the standing intergovernmental fresh water usage tribunals which prosecute them. These are their stories."
It's weird to be so predatory in a world which is relatively small and based on reputation, but boy is this guy a nightmare.
You would think so, but I can think of two guys off the top of my head that I've worked with, who, while definitely not on this guy's level, have been slashing and burning through most of their professional relationships for a few decades now, and seem to be doing reasonably ok, nonetheless.
9. The linked article mentions several of his colleagues who bravely said it was not their business because: "his students like his lectures" and "it doesn't concern the university." Profiles in courage.
a. Christ, what an asshole.
b. Perhaps not the best use of Mother Jones' investigative reporting?
c. How unexpected that Judith Butler played a role in this! Perhaps her next book will be Squatter Trouble: Sabbaticals and the Subversion of Rental Agreements.
9, 10: Oh man, the stories I could tell. It is astonishing how protected a funded academic can be from the normal social constraints on behaviour.
My parents rented out our house during my dad's sabbatical year. The story goes that my father, in his reactionary anti-hippie phase, (to date this, around the same time he voted for a Republican for President for the only time in his life -- Nixon, 1972), was delighted to rent the house to an All-American family (I think the marker of "All-American" at the time was that the father and his teenage sons all had short hair). They ditched the house early and didn't pay several months rent, but they left us 2 big color televisions (our first color televisions!) so we called it even.
We've only had a couple (out of maybe 30?) AirBNB guests who were high maintenance, and none of them anything rising to the level of troublesome- the worst was some people who left for a hotel and wanted a refund because they were expecting a hotel not a lived-in 100-year old house.
Partial- AirBNB gave them a full refund and docked us only part of our fee that was due (like $150 out of $600, and that taken out of future revenue). It was their first time using the service so the company had an interest in making them happy but I think recognized that the people were being unreasonable so AirBNB ate most of the cost.
They can't possibly have genuinely believed it was a hotel. You don't just get an address blind on AirBnB. They shouldn't have got a penny back from anybody.
We stayed in an AirBNB once -- biggest problem was lack of closet space. Six people coming from out of town for a wedding have stuff that needs to be hung.
We just did an AirBnB and the owner wanted positive reviews on the AirBnB site for us and our (grown) children before we could rent it.
I guess SabbaticalHomes.com doesn't have such exacting standards.
I used to do AirBNB and actually had astonishingly good experiences with their conflict resolution folks the two times there was any conflict. One was a French family freaking out because there was no small saucepan, which is the Frenchest thing to freak out about. The other was some Italian kids who LOST it when a mouse got in which is actually sort of legit but they were texting me incessantly and I was like look, I'm taking to the customer service people, go have a drink, and they were like "how can we go out and drink a beer knowing a mouse may be walking on our luggage?" Both times I think AirBNB relocated them and I didn't pay anything and got my cleaning expenses refunded, because get real.
A friend of mine married her AirBNB guest which I guess is a different kind of refusal to relocate esp since it's not at all an obviously great marriage.
No wait the Italians didn't even want to relocate in the end and AirBNB I think offered to strike the review if it was unreasonably bad? Which I don't recall it being.
14 yeah the one thing in that article that I was like 0_o was when the host thought "he's a professor I'm sure he'll be fine," what.
Hmm, maybe I can interest this guy in the out-of-code full-house airbnb we share a wall with, which has been driving us insane. One asshole who won't go away has got to be better than waiting for the next group of a dozen plus drunk fuck tourists to wake us at 3am.
So is there actually something about California rental law that should be reformed, or is this just the natural result of the inefficiency of the civil court system in a way landlords just as often or more often benefit from?
I haven't yet seen anyone reacting to this with "we'd better make it easier to evict people," but the state leg session hasn't really kicked off yet.
|| Has anyone ever been to Goteborg, or as the British call it Gothenburg? What's good to do there?
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26: Honestly that sounded a lot less tenant-favorable than I expected from the sub-headline. Anecdotally, "stretching out the process to a couple of months" would be on the very quick side for DC. We've got a 30-day notice/opportunity to cure requirement before the landlord can go to court here, vs. 3 days in the article.
Has anyone ever been to Goteborg, or as the British call it Gothenburg? What's good to do there?
A comely Swedish nursing student once took me through the arboretum there, which was quite nice, although not at this time of year I would imagine.
I guess there was also some nice architecture in town, and they've got some beautiful old SAAB airplanes on display in the airport.
27. There's an OK Czech restaurant about 15 minutes walk from the city center. Only there for a few days for a conference, not much spare time. I remember that the city museum was small but well done. Good pancakes in the morning, choose cloudberry anything if it is an option. Probably there are good places to catch music, but I didn't manage to do that. Nice, quiet place.
Might be dark in winter.
I remember that the city museum was small but well done.
Yeah, the city museum. I think Katarina took me there as well.
27: Rent a room and spackle the walls.
19- I wasn't clear- they knew it was a house not a hotel but they expected it to have the features of a hotel- identical bedrooms, brand new pots, no scratches/marks on the walls or counters, little toiletry kits (we do provide but in large bottles used across many rentals.) The guy we communicated with said the last straw that made his wife demand to leave for a hotel was that there was some grease on the blades of the exhaust fan above the stove.
Hotels don't have stoves. Or pots, unless you mean the toilet.
34. You've absolutely sure they weren't Swiss?
I'm not super sympathetic to wanting to change landlord-tenant laws if the landlord does zero due diligence--there's a reason you get references! Also, I agree it didn't seem *that* long for what I was expecting from the headline.
The guy did sound like a nightmare and I do feel sorry that the woman had to deal with it, but the entitlement and classism all around made me not feel as sorry for the landlord as I might have otherwise.
On the other end of the academic totem pole, I a friend subletted his studio over summer one year, and he came back to find his desk drawer filled with chicken bones. He also had even more of a mouse problem than he had before he left.
Also, I definitely agree the Swiss are assholes. Why is this fact commonly known and agreed upon in Europe and seemingly mystifying to Americans?
26-28 (difficulty of eviction): The stories I've heard about unreasonable tenant protections have been about the San Francisco municipal code, which is really bonkers. Like, at the end of a lease, if the landlord doesn't want to re-up, he's responsible for paying the tenant's relocation costs. And if you own an apartment, it's not allowed to be vacant, even if you're renovating it so you can move in when the work is done.
I don't have cites for either of these propositions, but they were both borne out by my mother-in-law's experience. She had a tenant who would make complaints about the state of the unit but then refuse to let workers in to remediate any issues, and who also set fire to the apartment, and then sued her for emotional distress suffered from the sub-par living conditions. In the end she settled for just the statutory moving expenses, all so she could sell the damned place.
Wow, ignore the grammatical errors in 42.
there was some grease on the blades of the exhaust fan above the stove.
OMG!!! Count yourself lucky that you weren't sued for emotional duress.
Bah to genealogy mostly but I'm descended from like the only Swiss emigrants to the U.S. because why would you leave Switzerland and data point I'm for sure an asshole. In high school I did a summer in like the one depressed working-class town in Switzerland, seemingly populated entirely by 15 year old alcoholic mechanics. They WERE assholes too.
When I lived in Italy it was nice to sometimes just pop over the border into Lugano bc the people transformed instantly from baffling nightmares to familiar nightmares.
Also, I definitely agree the Swiss are assholes. Why is this fact commonly known and agreed upon in Europe and seemingly mystifying to Americans?
My FIL certainly feels strongly about this, but he was born in far western Austria and lived there or Germany until 30, so I always took it to be more parochial than anything else.
When people talk about "parochial schools," they mean "Swiss-hating schools"? Just when you think you understand the world....
All white people are assholes except the Irish, who are nice, and the Swiss girl I met during a study abroad program, who was effervescently sweet like a living Heidi.
It's only parochial in Louisiana. If he were from Switzerland itself, it'd be cantonese.
My brother sublet an apartment from a university professor for six months while he was in grad school here in NYC. The apartment had no furniture. Apparently, the PRIOR person she had sublet the apartment to (who was supposedly a professor) had stolen all of the furniture, so she decided not to refurnish until she moved back full-time.
I wonder if she used the same site with the initial thief?
(My brother was fine with the "minimalist" decor - he had just gotten out of the peace corps and was used to living with very little stuff)
54: I admit I wonder if it was this same guy, who also had a lot of sublets in NYC -- someone put up a shaming website with the background check available. I think I'm okay with linking to the shaming website in this particular case. The guy still seems to have a ton of academic capital to lose.
Probably all some big experiment he's going to publish. The protagonist of the story probably didn't realize what the random IRB form was when it came in the mail.
Having been in Italy as a tourist and now having spent a cumulative total of about 2.5 months here as an appendage to an actual Italian, it's amazing how much nicer Italians are to other Italians. It's literally night and day.
IME, the friendliest tourists are French. My guess is selection bias in who leaves France, but I'm open to other explanations (modesty about mediocre English skills?)
Having been in Italy as a tourist and now having spent a cumulative total of about 2.5 months here as an appendage to an actual Italian, it's amazing how much nicer Italians are to other Italians. It's literally night and day.
IME, the friendliest tourists are French. My guess is selection bias in who leaves France, but I'm open to other explanations (modesty about mediocre English skills?)
Having been in Italy as a tourist and now having spent a cumulative total of about 2.5 months here as an appendage to an actual Italian, it's amazing how much nicer Italians are to other Italians. It's literally night and day.
IME, the friendliest tourists are French. My guess is selection bias in who leaves France, but I'm open to other explanations (modesty/self - consciousness about mediocre English skills?)
Aargh sorry guys, the power went out and I thought it didn't post, but apparently it did, twice.
44: A lot of that checks out - SF has just cause rules for eviction, and the idea is if the cause is something allowable but not something wrong the tenant did (like owner move-in), there is a right to relocation costs.
However, refusing access to the unit after written notice does constitute cause for eviction without relocation costs.
44: A lot of that checks out - SF has just cause rules for eviction, and the idea is if the cause is something allowable but not something wrong the tenant did (like owner move-in), there is a right to relocation costs.
However, refusing access to the unit after written notice does constitute cause for eviction without relocation costs.
No idea about vacancy.
44 is substantially off base re SF l-t law but that doesn't mean it wasn't rational to pay out as OYB reports.
58-60 re: French rudeness...
1. I've never had any problems like that in my year as an exchange student, nor at least 3 touristy visits. It's plausible that I was oblivious. However, it's not plausible that they mistook me for a native, not with my accent.
2. There's a difference between Paris and the rest of France. Other French people say that Parisians are rude just like English speakers say that the French are rude.
3. They appreciate people making an effort at the language. (When I put it like that, it sounds banal, but there might be something to it.) Even if their English is better than my French, I'm pretty sure they appreciated the fact that I started with French and are colder to people who don't.
After living here for years, I now have a deep insight to the Swiss character. The very worst thing you can do, if your Swiss, is make a mistake. Thus you live with a constant low-level anxiety that you've made a mistake at all times, which curdles into resentment. Then when you catch someone else making a mistake -- such as not wiping the grease off the fan -- you can take that resentment out on the person. It's an unpleasant way to live, but it's why they make such great bureaucrats.
They appreciate people making an effort at the language. (When I put it like that, it sounds banal, but there might be something to it.) Even if their English is better than my French, I'm pretty sure they appreciated the fact that I started with French and are colder to people who don't.
I found this to be true. My accent is atrocious to their ears, being half-remembered from a Canadian childhood, but I would attempt, with a good idea of what I was trying to say. Commonly the person would reply to me in tolerable English. Some would, politely, repeat what they thought I had meant, for me to assent or disagree with, and proceed on my approval.
65: My wife and I never find people in Paris all that rude, and we have a long-running argument as to why. I think it's the same reason as you -- we make an effort to speak in French. She thinks that the French expect a certain level of politeness, and that we come across as polite.
65: I thought the stereotype was that if your French wasn't flawless, they'd rather speak English to you.
Everyone would rather speak English to Americans if their [other language] isn't flawless. Speaking English with a native speaker seems to be an irresistible urge for a whole lot of people.
My mother owns a two bedroom in SF that's rent controlled at $1000. It's a nightmare. She could sell it, but the new owner would be responsible for the eviction process and would have to live in it for five years. She could move across the country for an owner move in, but that would be five years and could be contested. When the property was my grandmother's, it turns out that the goddamn tenant was living out of state and subletting against the terms of the lease (and presumably for far more than she was getting). That doesn't matter though.
65.2
Agree completely. While I have encountered rude French people, I'm happy to say it has chiefly been in Paris*, and not that many of them. I understand French and my wife speaks it ("Up to a point, Lord Copper"), which may have helped a bit.
People who have to deal with tourists anywhere (except maybe Costa Rica?) tend to be somewhat grumpy and worn down by the experience.
I have encountered a number of friendly, helpful people in Paris, too. I think it's not unlike the New York City reputation for rudeness, which is both true ("UtapLC") and confined to a small but easily noticeable percentage of actual New Yorkers.
* I found people in Provence to be especially nice.
I have been married to a lot of Parisians and I think they would freely and fully admit that they're rude. 70 is my experience for sure but also my ex's decision to marry an American Jewess was controversial among his family so maybe it was just an effort to remind me of that. Then one of the cousins married a girl from Grenoble, disgusting, so they moved on to shunning her, I was literal royalty in comparison.
I defend NYCers by saying we aren't rude, just busy, but on reflection being too busy to listen to or care about anyone is a reasonable simulacrum of rudeness.
I find that a solid background level of amiable cluelessness gets through most situations. People are nice to me even in Paris, quite likely out of pity. I don't care why.
I've mentioned before that traveling in rural France and Italy with German license plates, and then being obviously American, gives me a huge headstart in any interaction. 'Oh, you're not a German' is a great way to get things going.
My German in-laws liked me a lot, especially in contrast to my brother-in-law's French wife, who said Sie to them through the whole marriage.
I love Switzerland, and always have a nice time there: skiing, swimming the Limmat, hanging out. My best friend from senior year at HS was an exchange student, is now a small town GP in Uri. And his delightful wife (a relative of whose was the likeness for Tell on the 5 franc coin -- that's an apfelschuss country story for you) likes me.
Now the baby is here. Later, all.
||
Was this you, Potchkeh?
"I was angry when, before the story ran, a top Obama administration national security aide asked me at the White House Christmas party why we were revisiting the story of Toussaint."
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_15366.html#1882067
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Congrats Charley!
74.1 How many is a lot? I think anything less than 4 should not be noteworthy.
Mom and dad went to the movies, so grandad and oma handled the baby for a couple hours. She's 18 days old, so there's not much subtlety to the thing.
53 is excellent. I'm about 1/8 Swiss and am at least 1/8 asshole. OTOH the only actual Swiss person I've known for any length of time is super-duper nice. But he chose to marry a Mauritian and live in Africa, so.
One of the nicest people we've ever met traveling was a goat farmer from a village outside Nice. We sat with him on the train from Barcelona to Nice and he invited us to his farm, showed us the old village, fed us dinner and let us stay in his farmhouse, and drove us back the next morning. Trusting Americans that we were, we made a big show of telling my parents back in the US that we were doing this and that we'd call when we got back to the city, so that if he were a serial killer he'd know someone would be missing us. Unfortunately my wife/then girlfriend got sick from the fresh eggs or goat cheese and puked outside their farmhouse in the middle of the night.
Moral of the story: they're much nicer in Nice.
Saw lots of goats just wandering around in the mountains of Ras al Khaimah the other day. I wanted to take one back to Dubai with us. I kept telling Chani,"look, free goat!"
I've actually found Parisians to be extremely friendly, as in, stop me on the street and ask if I need help while puzzling over a map level of friendly (pretend there are hyphens where necessary there). By far the rudest French people I've encountered were in Normandy. My theory is that it's because French people universally think I'm German, and at least in 2000 Normans still hated the Germans, and 2004 in Paris was the height of the "Old Europe" love fest, so Parisians were going out of their way to be friendly to Germans. Italians also assume I'm German, which now is not as good as being American, or Swedish, which is usually better.
65. Metropolitan disease.
There's a difference between Paris London and the rest of France England. Other French English people say that Parisians Londoners are rude just like English French speakers say that the French English are rude.
There's a difference between Paris New York and the rest of France America. Other French American people say that Parisians New Yorkers are rude just like English French speakers say that the French Americans are rude.
See also: Rome, Madrid, etc.
I haven't heard that as a general Spanish stereotype about Madrilenos, but maybe that's because I know fewer Spanish than French or Italian people. Certainly Catalans in particular hate them, but that's for obvious idiosyncratic reasons.
Re: Assholes
'Famed criminal-defense lawyer Ron Kuby has heard them all, from, "If Kuby is representing him, he's guilty," to, "The defendant just looks guilty; I can't be fair to someone who looks that guilty."
But his most memorable voir dire involved a "prospective juror on a police-brutality case where we were claiming emotional damages as a result of false arrest," Kuby recalled.
"The prospective juror, working on his first novel, explained that he did not accept the idea of 'causation' for emotional damages.
"He explained, at some length, the nature of emotional life and its relationship to internal and external factors.
"We excused him," Kuby said.
The dismissed juror was the now-best-selling author Jonathan Franzen.'
I was a rude New Yorker to a bunch of tourists the other day. It turns out when I've been at work until 10 for stupid reasons and then the yellow trains aren't running i don't give a fuck about messing up anyone's Times Square photos.
I am rude to tourists who get in my face to ask for directions. I vividly remember one well-heeled woman in downtown SF springing out at me to demand information, and I gave her my very best crazy-homeless-person-I-don't-see-you stare-through without breaking stride. Yeah, not nice, but it triggered some deep ignoring instinct.
27:
Nothing, I'm afraid.
If you have time, the island of Tjörn is very beautiful.