Three apartment fires with one common factor.
The properties were — and still are — owned by Fu De (Henry) Ren and his wife, Fang Yan. And while the Mount Pleasant fire was determined to be accidental, the buildings and their owners had a record of multiple fire safety violations.
The behaviour of the owners is disgusting. There is no such thing as a good landlord.
“Everyone deserves a safe place to live,” Vlietstra said. “I believe that is a basic human right: a safe place to live, that you can call home and not fear it’s going to burn down or people are going to break in.”
There is no such thing as a good landlord.
Careful with the generalities – they do us no good. I know a good landlord, as well as a good cop, and it’s not as rare as you may think. We could see a thousand good landlords or good cops and forget them, but news about a bad landlord and somewhere we shouldn’t live (ohai shelter) or learn about a bad cop and thus where our safety is affected (ohai security), and the threat to our basic needs makes that all-important.
Having said that, this guy is scum. And I really wish we had enough options that we could all avoid people like that.
Thanks for your comment, I agree with you that generalities are harmful (and often lazy thinking).
If I understand what you are saying, that’s not what I meant. I don’t intend to say all landlords are bad people, but that landlordism itself is bad. It is not possible for there to be a good landlord because the relationship that must exist between a landlord and renter is exploitative and harmful.
I always assumed the city has a department to check these apartments once every X years to make sure they arent violating building safety laws. Considering so many families/lifes depend on it. Guess not then.