i want to see a mayoral candidate run on building more subsidized housing. that is the number one concern in this city, right now - and anybody paying attention knows it.

that is the issue i'll be focusing on, agitating for and voting around.

i know we have this kind of backwards concept of this in canada, because we're culturally used to sending our best students to american schools. or, even, just to a different city - we "go away to college", and that means we're good students, when we do.

but, most countries in the world actually want to retain their best students, not send them away to a different country. china doesn't want to send it's best students to yale, although it loses some of them. rather, it wants to get rid of the worst students, by sending them to canada. we could maybe learn something from that.

but, at the same time, we're also the "new world" - we're the colony. and, that's what colonies have always been used as - a way to release excess population.

it's just a necessary mental shift - the chinese and indians don't send us their best and brightest, they do everything they can to hold on to them. isn't that rational, actually? what they send us is their overflow...as the british did before them...

i mean, you have to understand that a lot of these kids are actually coming from countries where they have free tuition for kids that belong in the university system.

when i say that they can't get in anywhere else, understand that the first place they got rejected from is their country's own education systems; if the systems in china or india or wherever else they're coming from thought these were quality students, they would have retained them in their home countries, and sent them to school for as long as they wanted to go for free.

when you see a kid coming in from these countries, that's the first thing to understand: their own government rejected them, first.

so, they end up at a diploma mill at the centre of the heartland's industrial decay, because they can't get in anywhere else. which is, whatever. i don't care on the face of it.

but, they're fucking up the rental market by sitting on all of the low income housing, and even warping supply to fit their demand.

can i get my ruling soon, please?

i think it's becoming obvious that i'm getting out of here.

here's an idea: we should legislate a minimum entrance requirement for international students.

and, it should be pretty high, too. like, 90.

i'd even support legislating a minimum entrance requirement for domestic students, to at least 80%.

if you can't get 80% in high school, you should really try the college. you're just wasting your time, anyways.

and, if you're a university teaching mostly B or C students, you should really be demoted to a college.

they should set up offices on mill street.

but, the university here drives the economy....

honestly.

i just checked and the entrance requirements are like 70%.

so, you're going to send your kid to a different continent to attend a school where the entrance requirement is to just be an average student?

i know that the third world puts a lot of emphasis on education. but, this is desperation.

no wonder i see these ads for two or three students per room. yikes.

it's not that it has a bad reputation.

it's that it's completely unspoken of at all.

i spent the first 33 years of my live in ottawa, 13 of them at carleton, and i had never heard of the university of windsor until i moved here.

i'd heard of western.
i'd heard of mcmaster.
i'd heard of waterloo.
i'd even heard of brock.
but, the university of windsor is something that i did not know existed. at all.

toronto is a big, successful city with a strong economy and overwhelming wealth.

windsor is a decaying suburb of a dying industrial centre, with an economy driven by a third rate university attended largely by international students that couldn't get in anywhere else and that is probably even worse than the local college.

it's an absurd comparison.

if you're from out of town and want to buy property in windsor to rent, you should look at prices and profit margins in detroit, not prices and profit margins in toronto.

i mean, i avoided moving to toronto for a reason. it's expensive.

and, this is not just language: windsor will not support a rental market priced similarly to toronto, your property will sit empty. or you'll rent to a group. and you'll have to adjust, eventually.

i think that the misconception a lot of people have is this idea that windsor is "just outside toronto".

windsor is in the greater detroit area, which is a 5-6 hour drive to toronto.

it's closer to cleveland, and maybe even closer to chicago.

it's a suburb of detroit; it's not in any obscure way a part of toronto.

this is a bubble, and it's set to burst, but i now only have two months to wait it out. ugh.

watch it burst the day after i sign.

i suspect good things will happen in the first week of september, it's just scary to imagine waiting that long.

i'm not sure the math adds up, anyways.

let's say you rent to a student 10 months a year and jack the price up in between. if you start at 700, and jack it up $50 a year, then after three years, you'd get

700*10 = 7000.
750*10 = 7500.
800*10 = 8000.
===============
22500

now let's say you rent to me at 700 for the whole year, and can increase by inflation:

700*12 = 8400
700*1.015*12 = 8526
700*(1.015)^2*12 = 8654
================
25580

so, you'd actually make $3000 more over those years.

10*3(700 + x) > 25500 ====> x > 150.

& that's an unreasonable expectation.

but, i'll wait until the end of august to make the case.

i was thinking august 1st would be a good moving date because it would help me get in before the influx of students, over the summer - and i was fully aware from the start that i'd be competing with students for spots. that's why i picked this date....i didn't want to deal with the problems around september 1st...

what i'm learning is that there's a lot of people that have set up basement apartments, explicitly hoping for students. a lot of them are overcharging.

what i'm learning is that there's as lot of furnished rooms available in badly cut-up housing, and these people are explicitly looking for students, as well. these people are overcharging.

& what i'm also learning is that even people with normal apartments are prioritizing students over non-students. & these people are overcharging, too.

it's easy to understand why, after a moment's thought: renting to students means they're going to move out in ten months, and you can jack the rent up for next year. or, at least, that's what people are thinking..

yet, it's abundantly clear to me that these people are getting greedy, and the fact that they're overcharging in the presence of an oversupply of student housing is just going to leave them with empty units.

i want to avoid the professionals...these people are scum bags...

but, given that the whole city wants to rent to students, to the point they don't call non-students back, it seems like october might be the better choice than august.

that's what i'm learning.

i guess we'll see.

but, i'm going to wait until the end of august before i started pitching to mom in the suburbs about renting that basement suit unfurnished.

and, what alt-right neo-nazi theorist am i getting these crazy ideas from?

karl marx.

and, are canadian workers next?

you betcha!

workers in europe should get ready for class war like they've never seen it before.

that was the real point of this...

hey, don't like your job? that's fine - that nice muslim refugee over there with a grade three education is eager to work for half your wages.

you don't think this is all a coincidence, do you?

for me, what it means is that i might be looking at a lot of units that are opening up for what is essentially the same reason as this one, and that i need to be extra cautious about the potential of just moving in parallel.

it seems like renting to a pothead creates a deadzone in the units around it that can only be sustainably filled by other potheads.

so, what i would suspect you'll see begin to happen is that these units will begin to form blocks, and expand to take over entire buildings.

the conclusion is undeniably that a single pothead can irreversibly ruin an entire building very quickly.

but, a pattern may be developing: all the empty rental units in what is currently a tight market are in close proximity to marijuana users, it seems.

it makes it seem like everybody smokes pot.

but, we know that's not true...

when this unit opens up, it will fit that pattern.

maybe, the truth is that nobody wants to live near dirty potheads.

is this quitting smoking thing worth it?

i dunno.

but, i'm hardly going to go back to it, now.

yeah. that unit was basically the same thing as this one. slightly smaller bedroom, slightly bigger kitchen, but the same floor space.

same old flooring that doesn't keep anything out...

and, i could smell the pothead below me, walking by the door.

the only substantive difference is that it is $50 more expensive....

i asked the tenant if he could smell the smoke, and at first he said "sometimes", but then backtracked immediately.

listen...

if you're a property manager, or a tenant, and somebody asks you about smoke, please be honest. if you tell me there's no smoke, and there is, i'm going to sue the fuck out of you. it's not sneaky. it's not smart. it's not a save. it's false advertising, and i'll make you pay for it.

non-smokers do not want to live with smokers.

deal with it.

i took an application, but i'm viewing it as a last resort, and expect it to actually begone fairly quickly - if i was a smoker, i'd be all over it. but, then again, if i smoked, i wouldn't need to move in the first place...

i'm really not apprehensive about calling myself middle-aged at all.

i've been keenly aware for my whole life that i have noting in common with my own age group. and, i think i've demonstrated clearly enough that putting me in close proximity with young people is just going to lead to conflict.

i'd love to move to a seniors home, if they'd have me.

again: i am not a young person looking for a wild atmosphere.

i am a middle-aged transwoman looking for a clean, safe & healthy environment.

july's done.

i'll wait until tonight before i get a start on august.

i've got a few showings in the next few days, but i'm not really excited about any of them. i expect the building i'm going to see this afternoon to be full of drugs, for example. but at least i'll be able to cross it off...

i've been completely straight edge (except coffee.) since memorial day, fwiw - which is not particularly unusual for me, even if it's not reflective of recent habits. i have a history of staying sober for months at a time. so, have i officially grown out of intoxicants? i guess we'll see. probably not. but, i plan on staying completely smoke & alcohol free until i move, at least.

that should make it easier to identify smoky apartments, i hope.

i'm going to be extremely picky. i have to be. i don't want to do this again. but, if i end up in the same situation, i will do it again, too.