The Letter

This is a letter I wrote to the editor of our local paper. I had all intentions of mailing it, because when I have something to say, I like to. On second thought, however, with school and everything else in my life fucking up, I thought it best not to piss off my landlady.....then WE wouldn't have a place to sleep. Anyway, here it is for all my friends to enjoy. To summarize, I wrote this letter because rent prices in the north country have sky rocketed to unfathomable heights.


Landlords: How do you sleep?

I remember a time in the not so distant past when rent prices matched income levels: when the cost of rent matched the cost of living in an area so economically deprived as the North Country. Yet, within the past year, the influx of military troops has pushed landlords over the edge. The intense craving for more money has rendered them maniacal in their greed. Our local landlords have become land tyrants. And the rest of us? Mere peasants. I am one of the lucky ones, thank God, whose rent has not risen to unpayable heights, but my quest for a place with a little more square footage will never be fulfilled. We locals simply cannot afford apartments that have shot up from 400 dollars a month to 600 or more! If the situation were not so grave, I could almost find humor in the fact that landlords are unabashedly jacking up rent in apartments that for the most part, are so far behind in upkeep that the rest of the world would consider them “ghetto-fied." The greed is really too loathsome to bear.

The federal HUD program, whose rent price allowances vary based on economy from county to county across the nation, is helpless in providing relief. So, because the cost of living here has remained in its usual pitiful state, if housing assistance deems you eligible for an apartment that costs $400 a month and your landlord raises it to $600, HUD must disqualify you unless you can find a new place in the allowable range, which at the moment is next to impossible. At this point, you’d better either start calling every family member you know to beg a space in their home, or find a suitable tree to build your cardboard castle under.

Allow me to switch into my “the glass is half full” mode and thank the landlords: thank you for “supporting our troops” as they support your savings accounts. Thank you for forcing local serfs like me to consider moving to a more economically friendly environment. And thank you for giving those poor folk who choose to stay here, so many more trees to build their cardboard homes under. That is, as long as those currogated mansions under your lush new money trees don’t hinder your landscaping too severly.

As for sleeping at night? I suppose it won’t become an issue for all you conscience barren aristocrats. With all that monetary support from the troops, acquiring a deluxe, overpriced Sealy posturpedic to support your spines (or lack thereof) shouldn’t be a problem.

Margarita Fiaschetti