> I can't think of a mom and pop landlord I had a poor experience with. Financial incentives generally aligned fairly well for me.
I can think of a couple who were absolute nightmares. I can think of a couple others who were an absolute dream. The worst small-time landlord was WAY worse than the worst big property management firm, but the best small-time landlord was far better than the best big property management firm I've been a tenant of.
And yeah, I'm also a low-maintenance tenant. Unless something's broken, I never want to talk to you, nor do I want you in the space that I'm renting. EZ money for them.
> Tenants rights should not include the right to basically be a nuisance and a leech upon society.
The thing about strong tenants' rights laws is they're not protection against reasonable landlords; they are a shield against scumbag landlords who would treat their tenants very poorly.
For example, in San Francisco, someone who stays in a place for thirty days without a lease becomes a month-to-month tenant that requires an eviction to remove. Why? Because scumbag landlords would refuse to provide leases to tenants and toss them out into the streets on a moment's notice.
Similarly, I recall regulation preventing hotels from requiring tenants to check out and then check back in during extended stays. [0] Why? So that scumbag hotel operators can't prevent the long-term rental regulations from taking effect for renters who are -in fact- long-term renters.
To point at an analogous situation: the same rules and regulations that generally prevent cops from putting very, very careful wrongdoers who should be imprisoned (but haven't left enough evidence to prove their wrongdoing) behind bars generally also prevent cops from imprisoning folks who have done nothing wrong just on those cops' say-so.
[0] Though, I'm unable to muster the effort required to locate this regulation.