So I looked at an apartment today and the landlord kept making these weird comments that, at first, didn't make sense...until I asked him where to sign (the place was nice, and I wanted to reserve it). Suddenly he started making these excuses, such as "well, I have other people coming to look at it" and shit. Then I realized. He's a bigot! He totally thinks that I don't have a job and won't pay rent because I'm brown!!! For example, when we first showed up, he asked how lunch was because he knew we were heading over after lunch. To which I said, "actually, breakfast..." totally joking around. To which he responded "must be nice to have a life like that" completely charged with disdain. Then, he kept asking what I would be doing (I just responded that I will be working at a law firm downtown). He totally didn't believe me.
I don't even know how to react to this except to report him to the fair housing people...but because he didn't outright say it, I don't know how far a complaint would get. Part of me wants to call him up and yell at him because in two years I could buy his lousy f*cking property. But, on the other hand, what good would it do?? Ugh. It was so subtle that I didn't even pick up on it until after I left and thought about it more. Thank goodness my sister was with me to reflect on it, too. It made no sense the way he was treating me. He didn't even get up to show me the property. He just sat on the porch and pointed me up the stairs. Then he wouldn't show me the laundry room or anything. I'm pissed.
8.10.2007
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9 comments:
Wow, that's super crappy! Sorry Rock! You should totally call him up and rip him a new one.
What an asshole! It might not get you far, but you should definitely report him. And fucking call him & rip him a new one.
~L
Ugh. Why does the world suck? I don't think calling him is a good idea; dealing with people like that is never fun. You should report him, however. I don't think they have to outright say it, if you feel like you're being denied housing due to racism that should be enough. At least, that's the impression I've gotten from looking at fair housing materials during my apartment search. I'm sorry people are shitty :(
Well...the "up side" of this situation is that it's better to find out now that the landlord is a racist piece of shit -- it would suck even more if he was civil when you went to check out the apartment and turned into a bigot once you moved in.
But that does not make his behavior OK. You definitely need to make some calls -- not to him, but to the fair housing people. And does Minneapolis have a renters or tenants board? If so, they might be able to do something too, if only spread the word that the guy's a jerk.
You could sue him in many different ways, but if I recall those cases are very hard to prove. Even if he outright said it, he would just deny it later. There may be some sort of burden shifting approach like Title 7. I can't really recall, but I know that you could try to do something if you wanted to put in the effort. I would probably just try to get some gov. agency to look into it for you, it wouldn't be worth your effort to try a civil suit.
Yeah, I agree Sig...it's totally better to find out when I did rather than when my toilet is broken and he refuses to come to fix it because he rationalizes that I should be used to toilets like that :)
andy, if you don't stop being such a nerd we're totally over.
I'm the greatest nerd ever. I was just thinking about it because I was working on a 42 usc 1981 claim and you could probably use that.
that's it. we're over.
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