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Evicted in San Francisco

priceonomics.com

121–130 of 257 posts

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#121
post #70

While everyone focuses on the main problem, I'd say the moral of the story here for home buyers is to avoid buying any problematic homes. When my parents recently purchased a new home they made it damn sure the home has no existing warrants/tickets/legal issue to handle and they ensure no one lives in the house. They visited several homes before they could settle one that was nice, cheap and problem-free. Sometimes i…

I had a friend who bought a house with an elderly renter and she ended up going through months of running around to find her a new place to live. I imagine that some locales make relocating an existing renter easier or harder but it can clearly be a real nightmare. Obviously it's not pleasant for the elderly renter wither but I'm not sure I see the reasonable alternative.

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#122
post #44
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it reasonable to expect her to leave her friends, contacts, etc that she's built up over decades because the city is changing? YES! Absolutely reasonable. There is no right to live exactly where you want for the rest of your life (especially when where you want to live is an illegal residence). Nor should there be.

Actually there is. It's called Rent Control and it protects the elderly from stuff like this (because they need the protection). As far as I'm concerned, the landlord simply found a loophole.

Evicting someone who doesn't pay rent is a loophole?

If anyone found a loophole here it's the tenant.

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#123
post #57
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias Basically the moral center of our brain, by default, views her leaving as a choice, and you moving as a choice. Rather than her staying vs leaving as a choice. Looks dumb when you parse it right, feels right when you parse it wrong.

Lets say that I was once struck very hard in the head by a frisbee, and the moral center of my brain now causes me to believe myself entitled to live in Malibu. Wanting something is not the same as deserving something.

If you'd previously been living in Malibu for decades you might actually have a case.

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#124

Nonetheless, it’s a good time to be a Bornstein in San Francisco: in the past year alone, Ellis Act evictions have risen 170%; since 1997, there have been 3,811, and that number is constantly rising. The obvious solution to rapidly rising prices is to increase supply, as described here ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO ) or here ( http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis... ). I've posted both…

The crazy thing is that San Fran homeowners have essentially tried to increase housing supplies in the past, by creating in-law units such as the one in the story. However, it's now more lucrative to get rid of them than to keep them on and collect rent on them. It would seem to make more sense for zoning laws to require multi-family homes (or in-law units), or at least to incentivize creating more of them. If there are 10,000 illegal in-law units, and say, the next mayor decides to crack down, rental prices will go up like crazy, even in places like the Tenderloin.

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#126
post #108
post #3

Inge has an amalgam of health issues, the most serious of which is her high glucose levels. She has to take daily insulin shots, which must be chilled on ice. That might have been good advice 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. Modern insulin preparations should be kept at room temperature while in use for up to 30 days -- keeping it refrigerated while in use is contraindicated due to the potential for thermal…

> That might have been good advice 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. Modern insulin preparations should be kept at room temperature while in use for up to 30 days -- keeping it refrigerated while in use is contraindicated due to the potential for thermal cycling to result in inaccurate dosing -- and keeping insulin "on ice" is never recommended due to the risk of the insulin being damaged by freezing. Do you…

Do you have a citation for this?

Every insulin pen "user guide" I've seen says "store unopened cartridges in a refrigerator; keep your pen at room temperature".

My girlfriend tells me she needs to keep her insulin pens in the fridge. We've also noticed that her blood glucose will fluctuate for strange and mysterious reasons. Your comment wrt thermal cycling rings true, and I'm wondering if the temperature change from constantly going from fridge (~5C) to her purse (~20C) and back, several times a day, might be causing this

The biggest problem with thermal cycling is that insulin pen cartridges, unlike insulin vials, aren't perfectly sealed -- the rubber stopper needs to be able to slide. As a result, when a cartridge is cooled and the liquid contracts, it will tend to draw a small amount of air into the cartridge. This will result in bubbles forming, and obviously injecting a bubble of air will be less effective than injecting insulin.

In young adults this is a nuisance more than anything else, since we're likely to notice bubbles, but in children (who don't understand the implications) or the elderly (who are less likely to notice this due to visual impairment) it can be a serious problem.

Assuming your girlfriend falls into the "young adult" age range, it's unlikely that her blood glucose fluctuations are caused by this; assuming you've ruled out monthly and diurnal patterns from endocrine causes, I'd look at diet -- protein in particular, since amino acid catabolism can dump glucose into your bloodstream at unexpected times.

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the ordinances against housing construction in SF have very little to do with socialism or the USSR...

The zoning laws are good old NIMBYism. But the rent control? That's good ol' socialism.

Oh for god's sake, just because you don't understand what the word means doesn't mean you can use socialism for any government action in the economy. Rent control isn't stupid because it's redistributive or whatever you think "socialist" means, it's stupid because it arbitrarily redistributes from long-standing tenants (rich, middle-class or poor) to those who move more often (rich, middle-class, or poor), while introducing a massive amount of uncertainty and overhead for landlords and reducing the quality and quantity of housing stock. A little understanding of economics goes a long way; the fact that rent control is distorting the price mechanism per se is not the reason that it's retarded (by that logic, Pigovian taxes would be just as disastrous as rent control).

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#128
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much what I was thinking. $1300 a month isn't a lot, but I would be really surprised if there's not somewhere in the SF bay area or a nearby city (Sacramento, etc) where it couldn't cover a small apartment or studio, utilities, and normal monthly costs like groceries. As noted in other comments, it makes the focus of the article feel disingenuous as compared to people who are being priced out of their…

I don't think you have to go quite that far. $~1300 will get you a decent Studio/1BR/Shared in the East Bay (Dublin, Livermore). Not bad neighborhoods, close to BART. Go even a few miles East of these areas, rent drops rather quickly.

[deleted]

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#129
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>she simply wasn't interested in changing anything and that just doesn't work when you have to move and have to change your lifestyle not interested? or not being able to? it starts to look like a diagnosis (as an extreme illustration Rain Man comes to mind). It is not a big stretch of imagination to allow that after 20 years of being in the same situation an elderly person may lose ability for "changes", just like m…

But is that reason to be mean and obstruct anyone who challenges your comfort zone?

that is the point - it is basically a definition of diagnostable situation when reasoning machinery doesn't function well (i'm not a doctor of course).

I mean, was she mean and obstructing by explicit willful choice or was it a panic reaction and collapse of reasoning machinery in response to what she perceived as destruction of her world? Former is ill will, while later would seem to be a diagnostable episode.

Re: Evicted in San Francisco

#130
post #108
post #3

Inge has an amalgam of health issues, the most serious of which is her high glucose levels. She has to take daily insulin shots, which must be chilled on ice. That might have been good advice 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. Modern insulin preparations should be kept at room temperature while in use for up to 30 days -- keeping it refrigerated while in use is contraindicated due to the potential for thermal…

> That might have been good advice 30 years ago, but it certainly isn't now. Modern insulin preparations should be kept at room temperature while in use for up to 30 days -- keeping it refrigerated while in use is contraindicated due to the potential for thermal cycling to result in inaccurate dosing -- and keeping insulin "on ice" is never recommended due to the risk of the insulin being damaged by freezing. Do you…

Please consult a doctor. Do not take advice about important medical needs from strangers on Hacker News.
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