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   Taina (dianor@strangeobject.space)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:07:29 JST Taina

   The way responsibility gets blurred behind "digital solutions" is yet another disease of the current neoliberal system.

   We are moving. We are renters because we are poor. In Finland you have to give a months notice to leave the contract and this has to be given during the previous month with a whole month in between as notice, so often people end up paying for two apartments for a month and the other just sits empty.

   Back in the day you could often negotiate this with the landlord. We for example only get the new place in the middle of the month so we could not let this one go soooner or we would have been without housing for the beginning of July. So we figured it would be reasonable to end the contract to the 15th of June as the landlord will need to renowate this place too.

   But the answer is no. Because on their bullshit automated website you can only let the contract go in a way where it always ends at the end of a month and the only answer you get is "it is what it is". 1/2

   • pettter repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:07:27 JST pettter

     in reply to

     @dianor It's ironic how much neoliberals love to say "it's the only alternative" and "there's nothing we can do" considering they claim to be all about flexibility and entrepreneurship.

   • Embed this notice
     Taina (dianor@strangeobject.space)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:07:28 JST Taina

     in reply to

     There are absolutely no humans we can call to talk about this. There is no actual people who could decide that "yes, would be smart so we could renowate it and rent it out in July already." There is just a digital solution.

     And the thing is that this system has always been shit for poor people. Many end up in rent debt because of this, I have in the past. Only reason we can now move is that I finally got a well paying summer job. It has to be very good to pay for this kind of thing.

     My previous work or my partners never got us out of here so we have been locked in this overprized housing for 9 years now. It needed a very special set of circumstances to allow us to leave. And it is still going to be very tight. The two rents will eat my first paychecks almost entirely.

     At the end of the day we the poors pay more. The "solutions" always result in this.

     This is the "nothing we can do" industrial complex in action. 2/2

     #DigitalSolutions #LandlordsAreLeeches #capitalism

   • Embed this notice
     pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:22:23 JST pettter

     in reply to

     @dianor Yeah it's very similar in Sweden though at least sometimes you can get lucky and get the timings to match, since it's not uncommon to have at least several months of notice for many apartments.

   • Embed this notice
     Taina (dianor@strangeobject.space)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:22:25 JST Taina

     in reply to

     • pettter

     @pettter Isn't it just? And funny how if it were the other way around and they could squeeze even more money out of people the flexibility would absolutely be there.

     This whole Finnish rent thing only protects landlords. Nobody poor can let their current housing go before they know and have a new contract singed. These almost never align as empty housing comes to the market at the end of a month. Add to it this faceless corporate "no room to negotiate" system and this is the end result. It works very well for the capitalist.

   • Embed this notice
     pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:29:27 JST pettter

     in reply to

     @dianor uh yeah if I'm leaving the keys to let the landlords renovate I'm also not paying rent, that's for damn sure.

   • Embed this notice
     Taina (dianor@strangeobject.space)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:29:28 JST Taina

     in reply to

     • pettter

     @pettter Here I am absolutely sure they would be very happy to still collect the keyes on the 15th and start renowating this place as long as we have paid the rent for the whole month. I am sure that would not be a problem at all.

     I however will be turning this living room to a very expensive furniture painting area for the latter part of the month and keeping the keys all the way to the moving day. But I know many would not.

     In the Finnish discourse landlords are seen as a very positive part of the system, sadly. Even the social security system is in some ways built around protecting them by ensuring rent payments first. This can be called protecting people from being homeless, but it isn't just that.

   • Embed this notice
     pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:31:06 JST pettter

     in reply to

     @dianor I've moved apartments in my hometown a whole bunch of times, and I think I've only needed to pay double rent for a whole month maybe once? We paid for half a month once, but that was specifically to let us have some time for moving and cleaning and stuff so we didn't have to do all of that in like one day.

   • Embed this notice
     Taina (dianor@strangeobject.space)'s status on Friday, 12-May-2023 20:31:07 JST Taina

     in reply to

     • pettter

     @pettter Yeah you have to be very lucky for this to happen.