patrick.net

If the unit looks like it needs demolished than the cable guy may have been concerned about the tenants. Working class hero stuff: Boss man slumlord needs to be taught a lesson. Probably a busybody bleeding heart liberal. No offense to my lefty peeps.
You put a roof over somebody's head and they want to nail you to a cross. Now those tenants will wind up living in a relative's or friends garage with no heat and have to pee in a bucket.

mikey says

Now those tenants will wind up living in a relative’s or friends garage with no heat and have to pee in a bucket.

This is exactly what happened. Well not really, one person it happened to is a co-worker. She was the renter and was evicted. She's so frustrated about how hard it is to find a place to live around here in the Bay Area, she decided to resign her job and move back home to Oregon.

And no, the unit didn't look like it needed to be demolished. It was actually remodelled before she had moved in (paint, carpet, granite counters).

Well. alas, the bay area is a Marxist stronghold. No offense to my pinko peeps. Landowners are despised. You ain't got a Chinaman's chance to get a fair shake.

mikey says

You put a roof over somebody’s head and they want to nail you to a cross. Now those tenants will wind up living in a relative’s or friends garage with no heat and have to pee in a bucket.

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA had a 10% 4Q09 rental vacancy rate so don't give me that bullshit.

mikey says

Well. alas, the bay area is a Marxist stronghold. No offense to my pinko peeps. Landowners are despised. You ain’t got a Chinaman’s chance to get a fair shake.

I have no moral problem with owners getting a capital return on their undepreciated fixed improvements. That's great, capitalism in action. Sheer rentierism, however, is a dysfunctional, parasitical form of capitalism that has been rife in the bay area since the 1970s when RE rents went up but existing RE debts did not. Prop 13 then sealed the deal, of course.

When living in the flats of El Cerrito, across from Central Part in the mid-70s, the LL was Chinese.

Google Maps

Nice little income property, wouldn't mind owning it, LOL.

Whoops. I'm afraid my post was a freak occident.
But speaking of Chinese, I used to have two cute Chinese neighbors, Terry and Suzie Yaki. They were small fries but boy could they wok on the wild side and stir things up. They really knew their way around a noodle and that's my mein point. I know this is a saucy thing to mention but soy what?
They loaded up their won ton truck and left a while back. My bad fortune but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Troy says

mikey says

You put a roof over somebody’s head and they want to nail you to a cross. Now those tenants will wind up living in a relative’s or friends garage with no heat and have to pee in a bucket.

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA had a 10% 4Q09 rental vacancy rate so don’t give me that bullshit.

The homes in the Santa Clara county are a bit different. You either rent out the whole home or nothing. Then there are flats/apartments. I don't think many people really convert a garage into a living unit. Just the ground level of their homes. They will still have a garage.

But if we talk about a city like San Francisco - if all illegal in-law units were demolished, it would be a big problem as there won't be enough units.

It's real possible that the cable installer reported - there may be financial incentives for them to do so, or it might be a requirement that the company's installers report such things. But it also might be a self-righteous asshole working for the cable company who's "going rogue." (couldn't resist, my apologies...)

Such scum. They charged for an installation without the customer knowing it won't be of use to them.