"So... for the poor, the fact that property is a "right" is of little comfort when they are blocked from ever owning property. For them, the property right is the right that the landlord has to raise the rent at will, not repair the apartment, and generally hose the tenant until the tenant moves (at no small cost for a poor person) and the same thing happens at the next location."

Competition is such that this just wouldn't happen.

Anyway, morality doesn't exist to comfort people.

"Competition is such that this just wouldn't happen."

Absolute and utter nonsense. Happens all the time. I've experienced it several times as a renter and everyone I know that has rented has experienced it. But the cost, time commitment and hassle necessary to move makes the tenant a captive to this (at least on the scale of many months). It's not like buying a soda where you only invested a dollar and can pick the other brand the next day. Besides, you move a lot and it looks bad to a prospective landlord and they are less likely to even let you move in. Also, it's not like a landlord has a brand name to protect... everyone knows what McDonalds tastes like, for example... should they mess with that the consequences in the market would be severe. Joe Smith the landlord though has no name brand to protect... I don't know anyone who has rented from Mr. Smith before and when I leave, my bad experience will be invisible to the next set of potential renters. Oh... and you can forget about the security deposit. When I move out of places I leave the place looking as good or better than when I moved in... I clean the oven, the carpet... I put in shelves while I'm there, paint walls, plant plants, etc. ...and I rarely if ever get my "security deposit" back. Hundreds of dollars down the tubes... because, supposedly, they had to pay people to clean up after me - when I know darn well they didn't do it before I moved in (and likely charged the previous tenant as well).

Maybe what I experience only takes place in the U.S. or something. That doesn't seem very likely, though.

Dexter_Morgan - Not that I have really done any renting (no need to do so and now I own my own house), but can't you ask the other (current) tenants what they think of the landlord? Should not be too hard to do. And in most of the United States at least (outside the big cities) virtually anyone that makes much of anything can afford to buy some sort of house somewhere. Where I live (west Michigan), you can get something workable for $50K or so, and a pretty decent place for $100K.

@ dexter- I haven't rented before, so if I'm off let me know. But isn't there some form of written agreement made? And couldn't you take him to court for your deposit.

@nola, Yes, you can ask the current tenant, if there is one (often the place is vacant - you know, a house)... and I learned this the hard way... one assumes (many people do) that since there is a contract that things will be on the up and up... and people just generally assume that other people won't screw them over. ...at least they do when they're young... they generally learn otherwise the hard way. For many it's like interviewing past boyfriends of your girlfriend - it just doesn't happen. You simply roll the dice (and at first you don't realize the risk you're taking). As to price, well, the other day a friend showed us a flyer for a house that was considered a really good deal (about 2,000 square feet)... $380,000. But then, I live in California - so I guess I could move to the rust belt (no offense, but that's the economics of it at this point in history)... or certain neighborhoods in Stockton, for example, I'm sure I could get something cheap. Aside: I assumed you were from New Orleans by your username.

@Hunter, Yes, written agreements are made... and I've taken landlords to court before. Heck, I even took my divorce lawyer (I was married for a short time when I was about 20) to small claims court... and won. Never saw any money from it, though. There is a lengthy and un-user-friendly process to pursue someone for the money owed even after a judgment. Considering the time investment (and court fees) it is not worth it for most people I know to bother. ...and I'm not sure under what circumstances I would bother in the future. It simply takes too much time and effort and yields so little (zero, in my cases... minus court fees which also went unreimbursed). One time the threat of going to small claims court worked... but that person obviously didn't know what a useless gesture the threat was. My experiences on this, though, admittedly could be a California phenomena... your results may vary. My last three experiences have been positive... I think it's simply due to developing a sixth sense about people more than anything.

@ Dexter- that would appear to be a problem with the government side of things then, not the market. Wouldn't you agree?

Dexter_Morgan - I can definitely see that with house rentals in particular it can be tough to talk to the old tenant, but for apartments (which are where the poorer folk tend to live anyway) there are usually lots of other tenants. Younger people probably do get hosed more often I would guess, but there is no real way to prevent people from making poor choices, though I am guessing you got a lot smarter after the first few bad experiences. Also, housing prices are ludicrous in California anyway, but people seem to like to live there (climate and all I assume), so that is price you pay since that same house here is more like $180K to $200K.

The username is actually a holdover from the ones they assigned to us in college; it is easy for me to remember and never taken on any website at which I sign up.

"@ Dexter- that would appear to be a problem with the government side of things then, not the market. Wouldn't you agree? "

@Hunter, Oh, I don't know, it seems like the blame is shared... in the case of rentals, the market allows bad landlords to exist and never get pushed out of business (due to imperfect information)... and the government (at least here) is failing to do it's job in punishing the guilty when a case is brought. You are right, though... the government alone could solve this :-) (I realize that isn't exactly what you meant) - the government could solve this by streamlining the small claims process so it isn't so onerous for the successful plaintiffs... and therefore so that the deadbeat landlords get a punishment each time they pull something shady. ...they'll stop the behaviors or go out of business given enough of that.

dexter, I'd like to know what sort of regulations exist regarding renting where you live. =P

I'm currently renting, but up here in cold ass, stagnant economy Montreal it's a tenant market so it's cheap and landlords have to compete to please the bratty students in the area, and clean after them and whatnot. Seems like it sucks to be a landlord here, though as a renting student, it's a pretty sweet deal. Even though it's my first time renting, it seemed pretty natural to question the former tenants, the neighbours, and the tenants of other properties owned by the same landlord, not at all like interviewing a girlfriend's exes. I definitely recommend it to you. It has worked a whole one out of one times for me so that's a 100% rate of success! =P

I don't know if your issue is regulatory or just simply because too many people want to live whre you live and landlords can afford to be assholes because they know they've got another tenant waiting in line. If that's the case why don't you move somewhere else? I'm guessing you like your city, but apparently so do too many people, and I guess you'll have to weigh the pros and cons.

I can't believe you compared infomercials to child molestation. >.<
The issue is that children are not generally seen to be responsible for their volition. I can tell you the emotional priming that you're describing would be perfectly legitimate between two adults, when it's called seduction. ; )