I’m very queer, I will not reproduce because my body doesn’t provide that feature and if it did, it wouldn’t match my wants anyway. I have no inheritance to build for anyone (a faulty concept anyway). Obviously, I don’t want to be a rentoid enlarging the wealth of the wealthy. I really wish all housing was owned publicly and you’d get allocated housing based on your needs. It doesn’t make sense for family houses to be occupied by 2 elderly people or even 1. This isn’t to even mention decadent huge housing the rich own for the sole purpose of flexing wealth. It doesn’t make sense for strangers to live with one another. It doesn’t make sense for 5 people to live in bunk beds in one tiny room while the rich landlords fill their pockets. It doesn’t make sense for people to be unable to start families, because they don’t have the space for a child while many people live in houses with unused rooms.
Also, fuck extroverts rigging the game for poor people. Cannot afford living alone? You have to rent a room in shared property, but you will pay as much as you’d pay for living alone (or more) and we require you to be extroverted and be our friend while paying for it. I literally had a live in landlord upset I wasn’t spending time with him and being his friend. I… pay you… to be in a shitty room… And I’m expected to further do the labour of being your personal clown? A hell naw. The amount of housing for poor introverts is small. Poor introverted immigrants? Smaller. Poor introverted queer immigrants? Even smaller. Poor introverted queer introverts who are interpreted as male in the society? Good luck. I was without a home many times and I’m so glad I finally found something, but fuck this shit. I was pretty certain I’d go homeless. I had to sign a very unfavourable contract and rent in an undesirable location (yet another location with a direct window into a playground - I wish it was legally mandatory to surround them with greenery cutting out sight and some form of noise control :c).
I want to get a painting of Mao Zedong to hang in my place. Anyone knows where to buy one? Displate didn’t have any which weren’t some weird stuff.
The “you would be good for my kids!” incident happened twice. One time the kid was late teenaged; another time there two elementary school-aged children. Both of these rentals were in-law units.
I think both times, the idea was that I could be some kind of role model because I did empirically have a job that allowed me to rent at that high rate they were charging? Parents, especially those that can only afford a house here because they bought in the 90s, realize that their kids will have to move away (or live at home), and are foolish enough to think that (1) kids will be inspired by me to be, essentially, bougie, and (2) even if they were, they’d have some reasonable shot at doing something beyond just… renting here.
Both times, they tried to ‘set me up’ with the kids by having their kids come out to intercept me with small talk as I walked to the unit in the backyard (the kids themselves seemed fairly uninterested), and it was uncomfortable both times.
Both times, I sort of politely blew them off and just went in my unit.
One of these places, I had to leave when it turned out there was also a pitbull they pretended wouldn’t be loose in the back yard, but, turned out, was, and attacked me every time I went to the unit. (The pitbull was set loose a few weeks after the kid intercepting incidents abated).
The other, I left for mostly unrelated reasons.
Well, everyone is going to have to get to the last stage of grief and accept that leading a normal life in western countries just isn’t possible anymore. Infinite profit seeking is a cancer that’s currently killing the host, and traditions of bourgeois paths to success just aren’t viable. Everything’s coming right on down and so many people are still in the stage of denial, which sucks because they always make it everyone else’s problem until they get past the bargaining phase (which sort of seemed like what you were talking about here in terms of “role model example” being sufficient to save their kids from the total societal collapse in-progress).
Living with someone else’s pets isn’t something I personally enjoy, so it’s something I factor in when I have to look for a place. Although, let’s be honest; who can realistically pick and choose these days? The scary thing is getting injured by someone else’s pet and having to get screwed by medical bills if it’s bad enough. Just no end to the debt trap landmine landscape in the liberal world.