Would I buy one? No!
One of the other things we saw on our walk today were the apartments up the street which are currently being touted as affordable, luxury condos for sale.
Just a few years ago, this apartment place was full of people, it's been pretty much empty for some time now, and the reason is the owners defaulted on like 10 years of property taxes and filed bankruptcy.
Some new people took it over and are trying to change them into condos to sell.
Well, they painted the outside of the buildings, installed a new swimming pool that no one has been allowed to use for 2 years, and planted flowers and trees.
They made the outside of these units look fabulous.
Driving by you'd think wow, very nice.
But take a look inside.
That's just one of the many empty units that squatters are living in now.
Just inside the window out of view was a leather couch with a blanket neatly folded on the end.
There was a pile of clothes neatly folded, and the trash can contains new food trash items.
Squatters are living in all those units.
We saw them peeking out from the corners of walls.
It's winter here, and cold on the streets at night, and hey, if there are empty apartments with rooms you can hide in with carpeting, a toilet to use, and even shower, the homeless are taking advantage of it.
The only things they don't have are electricity, cable and landline phone.
The apartments keep the main water on for all the units, even the empty ones, so people are living in there, sleeping on old couches, taking showers and even washing dishes they have.
We spotted about 10 units with living stuff in them, proof squatters are in there, and just biding their time until construction gets around to remodeling the unit they are in.
There are about 175 empty units right now.
Comments
Ugh. Gross.
I would NEVER buy a condo, even a nice one. The problem is, you may own the unit, but you have to pay condo fees every month as well. And for that, rules out the wazoo. No pets, you can only plant this or that on your property, you can't have patio furniture, a BBQ grill, etc. Mike used to own a condo, and got rid of it because it had more rules than renting does. Hell, if I wanted rules, I'd just keep renting.
Nobody wants to buy these things, not with all of these rules. When we do buy something, it will be a free-standing house, no covenants, no homeowner's association rules, no nothing. I refuse to have anyone tell me what I can or can't do with my own property.
Posted by: Christine | November 22, 2007 11:22 PM
It's a sad comment on society and homelessness.
Posted by: terry | November 23, 2007 1:12 PM