Tenants and Landlords

The recent passing of Randy Mantooth, a local boy, got me thinking.

There’s a lot going on with Renters Rights vs Landlords. My youth at 10 years old was spent cleaning the move-outs of my dad’s four units in the San Gabriel Valley during the mid-1960s. Dad being a child of the Great Depression and a WWII Vet, you can imagine what his feelings were about child labor laws. I once asked for a 20-cent-a-week allowance, as the other kids were getting. I was quickly schooled with, “So let me understand, I put food in your mouth, a roof over your head, and you now want me to pay you for that privilege?” That settled that. I ended up mowing lawns, washing cars, and collecting bottles. (A Dad’s Root Beer bottle, a whopping 10 cents!)

I was discharged from the military in the summer of ’75. I ended up in Oxnard, and I wasn’t crazy about the 65-68 degree overcast and cloudy. I decided to check out the town up the road past Ventura. Santa Barbara! The town with its funky thrift shops and sunny beaches beckoned me anytime I could get up there. One problem. Work. I had just tested for a firemans job on the naval base. I bought a $20,000 condo with what I saved. The problem was, I had difficulty selling it in order to move up to Santa Barbara. So I commuted for about four years.

I put ads in the Santa Barbara newspaper looking to exchange services for a reduction in rent. I ended up finding a roommate situation, then I bought a trailer in a trailer park. Affordable. Then I found a shack in the Carp foothills for a few years. Finally, I was able to purchase during the bottom of the condo market. It was then that I became an unwilling landlord for the Oxnard condo.

It isn’t easy making it in Santa Barbara. It has always been that way. But now, there’s this entitlement thing. Change the rules and protocols, not the process.

I eventually opened a property management business. I offered concierge services for landlords. I managed properties that had been owned for some time. The owners were more concerned with having good, well-deserving tenants. The units were aged, but clean and functional. It was important to find a good fit.

I would provide the owners with about five applicants. I would use Craigslist. I would have to take the ad down after five hours as I would have easily 20-30 interested parties. I would first seek out credit scores. Next, if they were essential employees, for instance, nurses, cops, firefighters, government employees. My only problems occurred when I would fall for the sob stories. I eventually developed some rhino skin.

The units were built late ’60s and ’70s, so they wouldn’t meet updated building codes. I couldn’t put kids in them for liability reasons, railing heights and such. I also had to manage the type of person I could put in the units. For instance, a Trumper in a predominantly minority building would not fly. True story: I had a situation where a Caucasian man was qualified and wanted to rent the Oxnard unit. The area was predominantly minority individuals. I specifically stated and asked the applicant was he aware and okay with the area’s racial breakdown. He gets back in touch with me, and in three months, states his towhead blond 8-year-old boy is being regularly picked on. I let him out of the lease.

I would not rent to Section 8. Just too much drama. I eventually met a mom with two kids who said she had a voucher and it would expire shortly. I took an application, kept my unit off the market for the two-month vetting process by HUD. She moved in, and in five months ended up leaving, moving back in with an abusive boyfriend. Always drama.

Oh, so back to Randy Mantooth. I was unaware of the TV show Emergency, as I was stationed in Germany from ’72-’75, but I felt Randy in some way was responsible for me having to take more than 25 fire department exams up and down California over four years. That along with the new federal laws dictating the hiring of minorities and women, called Affirmative Action, made it challenging to get a fire department job in the ’70s. And truth be told, I wasn’t the best at test taking. Eventually the hiring gods felt sorry for me, and I was offered a job with S.B. County Fire Department. I eventually retired, closed down the property management company some years back.

My kids are grown and live in other states, as the job opportunities, as well as housing costs, are the same as they will forever be. Not that it’s right. But that it is what it is. There are many other less expensive places. But if you don’t pay, someone else will.

Santa Barbara was one of the best decisions I made. The recent changes in the property management sector dictated my departure. The most satisfaction I derived was when I would receive a letter of appreciation and thank you, when a tenant after 8-10 years was able to buy a property and said, if it wasn’t for the rent they were paying, they couldn’t have done it. That was worth it.

Oh, and if you didn’t know it, being a landlord is a business. These people who own rental properties operate for profit. It’s a business! It puts food on their tables.