After the spring flood, landlords realized there was money to be made from FEMA support, but the biggest issue going on here is that the state is flooded (pun intended) with oil workers... and a cap has been put on mancamps, triggering a higher demand for regular housing by people who can afford ridiculous prices.

Many of us who already live here, and are not in the oil business, have jobs that are just slightly above minimum wage, with an occasional spike to a couple of dollars more... and find themselves unable to live where they've lived their entire lives because of what is nothing but greed. "Hey, all landlords are raising rent, so why shouldn't we?"

Nothing short of predatory. We're going to improve our investment, and you're going to pay for it. By the time you can't hold on anymore, we'll have either sold the apartments to someone else or done some work and replaced your neighbors.

2 stories, 2 br and a basement for 485.00? I realize I'm accustomed to Seattle rents, but damn - that's under market.

AbbeySomeone: 2 stories, 2 br and a basement for 485.00? I realize I'm accustomed to Seattle rents, but damn - that's under market.

These were subsidized units, low income housing. I know a family in Seattle that pays less than that for a brand-new three bedroom unit with section 8. These units weren't anywhere near as nice. None of the housing is maintained here, because you don't dare to complain. Threats about leaving are empty. There isn't anywhere to go, and even if you did leave, it wouldn't hurt the landlord and he wouldn't have to fix anything. He could turn around and rent it to an oil worker desperate for housing for twice what he charged you. You'd be doing the landlord a favor, and that's the way the landlord intends for it to work. Squeeze the people you aren't making a profit from out of the market.

ZAZ: Later in the article, it sounds like the landlord discovered government subsidies would pay for higher rent than he was charging. Much like tuition increases are offset by financial aid.

So he's getting everyone to leave by free marketing them. Nice.

Sound the alarm! get everybody out! The buildings gonna burn down! well, in a few days, after I've found a new apartment.

Two bedrooms and two floors for a little bit more than the cost of a studio apartment out here? Sorry, my tiny fiddle is in the shop.

/apartment managers are dicks

Landlord can't raise the rent on you until the term is over. Are you a month to month tenant? Either you or landlord can terminate or modify the lease each month. Don't like it? Rent somewhere else, or buy a place.

[whiny voice]
...b...b...b..but I just charging what the market will bear.
[/whiny voice]

Fark landlords with a rusty poker. Greedy farkin' bastards.

That'll put those Occupy people in their place. It's about time someone stood up to the 99%ers.

charliebear: Landlord can't raise the rent on you until the term is over. Are you a month to month tenant? Either you or landlord can terminate or modify the lease each month. Don't like it? Rent somewhere else, or buy a place.

These are always the best answers. Yes, despite that other Farkers have chimed in on the situation you still bring out the tired bullshiat of rent somewhere else or buy a place. Did you even read the article and thread?

Hey, my state has a surplus and we're proud of it. That's why they cut off my unemployment after 16 weeks.

It is legal to raise rents retroactively like that? Aren't they required to give notice before a rent increase? Perhaps the law varies from state to state.

FTA: The Manor Apartments is now Meadowlark Heights.

Approves

To you it's your home, to the landlord it's a check.

I take it these people have no rental agreements with which to shove up the new owner's ass while explaining that the rent will only go up after the agreement ends?

puffy999: To put this into perspective: one can routinely find houses in ND for under $25,000.

Where? Not in the part of the state with all of the jobs. You're talking something like a seven hour drive to get from the places with housing that cheap to the oil fields.

I guess we now know where the wandering protesters will turn up next.

trotsky: charliebear: Landlord can't raise the rent on you until the term is over. Are you a month to month tenant? Either you or landlord can terminate or modify the lease each month. Don't like it? Rent somewhere else, or buy a place.

These are always the best answers. Yes, despite that other Farkers have chimed in on the situation you still bring out the tired bullshiat of rent somewhere else or buy a place. Did you even read the article and thread?

I get that, but how can the owner come back and say we're raising your rent on the first of this month after the first has already passed.

I deal with month to month leases every day, I can change the terms but by law have to give a 10 day notice before the terms change. I can't send a letter out on the 5th and say that 5 days ago your rent went up.

That would be like paying $5 for totalfark on the 1st and Drew coming in on the 5th to say it now cost $15 a month and he'll go ahead and tack the rest on your card now.

If you can't afford $1100 a month to live in a decent place, move to another city and/or state where you won't get screwed.

/This whole raising rent thing does sound like a subsidy scam tho.

moothemagiccow: What's up guy living in city people actually want to live in. These farkers live in North Dakota. That's right NORTH Dakota, the one without mount rushmore. Stop having such a nice place to live and you will stop paying such high rent.

Did you RTFA? Nice place to live? You must have grown up in some real dirt-floor hillbilly conditions if that sounds nice to you.

Housing is scarce in North Dakota right now. If I was a property owner, I'd do the same damn thing.

The article was rather uninformative. The initial question of "Lease or tenancy at will" is never answered. At Ctrl-F didn't see the words "lease" "tenancy" or anything of the like anywhere in the text on that page.

Where is 30 day notification of rent price increase(non of this retroactive bullshiat)...... And where is 30 day eviction notification for not agreeing with rent price increase?


/SlumLords are true pieces of shiat.
//Ever seen what renters do to places when the SlumLord jacks up the price.......
///The faucet must of blown a gasket and started filling into the plugged sink just after the renter left, ya know...

puffy999: diaphoresis: If you can't afford $1100 a month to live in a decent place, move to another city and/or state where you won't get screwed.

IT'S JUST THAT EASY! BOOTSTRAPS AND WHATNOT!

Ya.. suprisingly, it is not much harder than that. I noted your sarcasm, but I mock your ignorance for not knowing how to make the move intelligently.

/Quit failing at life
//nvm.. you're one of THOSE Farkers....

NemoD: It is legal to raise rents retroactively like that? Aren't they required to give notice before a rent increase? Perhaps the law varies from state to state.

No. It's not legal in any state. That makes me not trust anything in this article.

AbbeySomeone: 2 stories, 2 br and a basement for 485.00? I realize I'm accustomed to Seattle rents, but damn - that's under market.

Plus, it's Minot. North Dakota.

puffy999: How does that pertain to this particular article? I'm simply giving perspective regarding the cost of a house in many parts of the state. Basically: it's a pretty f*cking cheap place to live, and profiteering has not spread to all communities in the area.

Where are you hearing this? I think your information is a few years old. The eastern part of the state doesn't have energy industries. The whole western part of the state is pretty much occupied everywhere there's a house. There are people renting what were abandoned farmhouses a few years ago. There isn't anyplace available to live, and the landlords know it. They raise their rent through the roof to drive out the people who make $1200 a month or so and rent to people who make that much in a week. As if that wasn't bad enough, a large part of the available housing was wiped out this summer by a record-breaking flood. Thousands of people are moving into FEMA trailers as we speak. The rest of the 12,000 evacuees are still shoehorned into their friends' and families houses or living in campers.

Sounds like a good reason to have robust rental regulations. That is, ones that discourage landlords from acting like this, and financially encourage them to be reasonable.

If you have a captive audience like that, you have a responsibility to not do things like this and still make a profit. Otherwise, you deserve whatever peril that comes to you.

Minot is a very small city. It sounds like this developer has plans for this property. He (it) has to know that raising the rent that much, that fast, will cause most people to move. I think someone should call a lawyer.

This is due to the flood and the oil boom to the West of Minot. I grew up in New Town, which is at the heart of the oil boom. Farmhouses that had sat vacant for 25 years are now renting for $3000/month and up, depending on how many dudes they can shoehorn in there. There is a 500 unit apartment complex going up in a town that had a population of 1000 when I was in high school (in the 1980s)...

But it's all good if you happen to own some mineral rights. Then you're a millionaire. Otherwise, have fun paying $2000/month for a one bedroom apartment in Western North Dakota and trying to make a living at something other than roughnecking.

puffy999: diaphoresis: If you can't afford $1100 a month to live in a decent place, move to another city and/or state where you won't get screwed.

IT'S JUST THAT EASY! BOOTSTRAPS AND WHATNOT!

Bootstraps are another $500/month.

gentrification beautifies and sanitizes neighborhoods and is something all residents can appreciate

"We've done everything right," Gessner said, noting that she and her fiancee completed their education and have jobs - she is a dental hygienist and also works at a nursing home, while Aamot is an electrician.

"We're common people," she said.

Gessner, for the majority of her life, has lived in The Manor. Her mother, Cheryl Gessner, a city employee, still lives there.

The increase sucks, for sure, but why would a couple with steady jobs want to live there even with the low rent? If she's lived there most of her life and it's a dump, I would think she would want to move out and move on.

diaphoresis
Ya.. suprisingly, it is not much harder than that. I noted your sarcasm, but I mock your ignorance for not knowing how to make the move intelligently.

duh, if you can't afford where you live now just move to somewhere cheap like Nigeria or the Yukon. Don't these people understand that they don't have any right to live anywhere half-way decent? If they didn't want to be treated like moldy dog turds they should just be rich.

Chester J. Lampwick: "We've done everything right," Gessner said, noting that she and her fiancee completed their education and have jobs - she is a dental hygienist and also works at a nursing home, while Aamot is an electrician.

"We're common people," she said.

Gessner, for the majority of her life, has lived in The Manor. Her mother, Cheryl Gessner, a city employee, still lives there.

The increase sucks, for sure, but why would a couple with steady jobs want to live there even with the low rent? If she's lived there most of her life and it's a dump, I would think she would want to move out and move on.

Where to?

Oh, right. Bootstrapping by giving up their job to be able to move away, hoping that another job is available where housing is affordable...

AbbeySomeone: 2 stories, 2 br and a basement for 485.00? I realize I'm accustomed to Seattle rents, but damn - that's under market.

Not around the dakotas it isn't $400-$600 is pretty typical for a crappy apartment complex. You can get a pretty swanky apartment for $800 with lots of room. For $1100 you could live in the few exclusive apartment buildings in town (Sioux Falls). Costello operates out of Sioux Falls, they are playing along with the rip off up in Minot. Housing shortage due to the flood, govt. money being handed out. No sense of being a member of the community.

nealpolitan: This is due to the flood and the oil boom to the West of Minot. I grew up in New Town, which is at the heart of the oil boom. Farmhouses that had sat vacant for 25 years are now renting for $3000/month and up, depending on how many dudes they can shoehorn in there. There is a 500 unit apartment complex going up in a town that had a population of 1000 when I was in high school (in the 1980s)...

But it's all good if you happen to own some mineral rights. Then you're a millionaire. Otherwise, have fun paying $2000/month for a one bedroom apartment in Western North Dakota and trying to make a living at something other than roughnecking.

Pretty much. The Dakotas are pretty bad, but Western North is REALLY bad. Western South is pretty damn bad too. I made the mistake of my life moving out here and am now trying to get the hell out. No job is worth this, no job. There is literally nothing here. Everything decent is an hour away. Want to go to a Restaurant? Better make sure, if its not a chain, that it didn't close last week. Movie? Two theaters within an a few hours drive. Decent grocery store? Nope, Wal-Mart and Safeway, which is pricey and sucks. I'm from farking Ohio and home feels like a bastion of wealth and civilization compared to this two bit hell hole.

Octopi Minot?