• faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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    6 hours ago

    Part of the problem, I think, is that in common vernacular, ‘landlord’ also applies to people that are renting out a room of their personal house. The pro-landlord propaganda likes to hold them up as the gold standard we’re attacking.

    We need to be clear that we’re absolutely not talking about the couple that’s renting out their kid’s old room to get through tough times. They’re also victims of the same system, being forced to sacrifice personal property at the altar of capitalism.

    • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago

      Or even honestly, the middle aged couple that was able to upgrade houses without selling, and lets their old house to a young couple for a reasonable rate because it’s paid off. Which, in my rural experience, is really common. I am very grateful to a man that I didn’t and still don’t particularly like, because he rented me a nice property for a very fair rate. I could say similar things about other past landlords. The difference is when it’s not an investment, but a business. Treating housing like a business interaction cheapens human life, and I have lived in that situation as well, to varying degrees. The worst was an apartment in Park City UT that was owned by some yuppies in Massachusetts, part of some sheisty lease/timeshare property LLC, where the building super was just a power tripping asshole with no accountability. I’m rambling, but Landlord Bad is too simple for a complex situation.

      • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net
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        4 hours ago

        Or like if somebody inherits a house while they already have one, and decide to rent it out, that’s fine too.

        The private vs personal is introducing vocab to make a difference between ‘walmart is private property’ and ‘my house is private property’. We’re proposing that it’s ‘walmart is private property’ and ‘my house is personal property’.