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if we're going to gentrify Kingston
Wednesday, March 2 2016
I did a little cutting and restacking at my big green Chestnut Oak salvage just up the Chamomile from the Stick Trail and then went to gather firewood for more immediate use. I returned to the east slope of the high bluff just south of the Chamomile and climbed up its steep slope nearly to the top to reach a line of standing skeletonized Chestnut Oaks that I had been ignoring due to the difficulty of reaching them. I cut one down, but it wasn't easy; it was already hung up in another tree and to get it down required repeatedly dragging its base out from under it and cutting chunks off from the bottom until it was small enough to push over directly. Once it was down, though, it was a fairly simple matter to cut it up and toss pieces down to a more gentle part of the slope, where I could assemble my backpack load. Today's haul came to 106.75 pounds.
Soon after I returned with the wood, Gretchen and I drove into Uptown Kingston to look at a possible real estate investment on St. James Street. It was a big yellow Victorian house divided into four apartments priced at a surprisingly-reasonable $239,000. We haven't been looking at such properties, because they will require a large mortgage to purchase, but with an income stream from four tenants, we would have a good base load income for times (such as now) when neither of us are earning much money. The question for today was, why is the St. James house so cheap?
When we arrived, we could see part of the reason. While the house has a new roof and mostly-flawless yellow aluminum siding, the white soffits are pealing, show minor signs of rot, and in a couple places there are holes big enough for Pileated Woodpeckers to nest in. We stood out in front of the house for a bit with Karen (our new realtor) going over the numbers. Because the systems aren't segregated, the landlord pays for all utilities, which is a major expense. And there's also the issue of real esate taxes, which are set at an absurd $17,000/year. Clearly this number is wrong and should be "grieved" (as our realtor put it) in order for it to become a reliable source of cash flow.
Once joined by the seller's realtor, we entered the western front door to the house, which provides access to the two apartments on that side. On entering the dreary hallway, we were immediately greeted by the unpleasant (and anachronistic) smell of stale cigarettes. It had been many years since I'd smelled this smell so strongly, and it reminded me of a distant past when America was a rather different place. The tenant was one of three in this building taking advantage of Section 8 housing relief. As we left, I heard her cough, and that terrible sound seemed to foretell her imminent doom.
The first apartment we checked out was on the bottom of the west side. An older woman and her two cats had just moved in, and many of her belongings were still in boxes. She was missing a lot of teeth, was only only marginally verbal, and was the source of much of the nostalgia-inducing miasma in this half of the building. There was nothing particularly special about her apartment; it was in okay shape, though the kitchen was dreary. Thorough a backdoor, we went out into a small backyard whose fence needed fixing and looked up at the massive back wall of the house. Some windows had been replaced and there were more soffits needing attention, but overall it looked acceptable. We also went down into the basement, where I marveled at thick exterior walls of mortared bluestone and interior walls (particularly separating two halves of the basement from each other) made of brick.
Next we went upstairs and, after much knocking, were let in my Michæl, the tenant. Again we were greeted by a rush of unpleasant, this one containing a strong boozy component. It was a little after 2:00pm on a Wednesday, and Michæl was already so drunk that he was having trouble walking straight. It's unusual to see such people out on the streets in the middle of the day, but when you show up at their house, they have nowhere to hide. he seller's realtor had given him warning we'd be coming, but that hadn't been enough for him to alter his routine. She had also done the work of finding tenants for this house, and was dismayed by the state of the house: the brown smears on the wall, the moldy bread in the kitchen, the grease spatters near the stove, and he bare mattress that served as a bed. She also observed that Michæl had changed so much in just the last year so as to become unrecognizable. While Michæl and his buddy hung out with their tall cans of beer and tiny cheap cigars in the sunny southmost room of the apartment, we had a look around. It was grimy, and the walls had holes in need of fixing. But with a modest effort, it could be a big beautiful apartment. We also went upstairs and had a look at the attic, where we found blankets, more empty 24 ounce beer cans, and a pair of panties. There was so much headroom up there that one could add yet another room there to make Michæl's apartment into a luxury one, the kind he could never afford even with the help of Section 8 support.
We could only get into one of the apartments on the east side of the house. It was the upstairs one. The place had a much better smell, though the dreary kitchen and floor coverings would have to be changed out if we want to attract better rental rates.
As we drove home from St. James, Gretchen and I joked about how ruthless we would have to be with the existing tenants, impoverished and unwell though they be. "If we're going to gentrify Kingston, those folks will have to go," I said. But we might not even have to evict them; the two we saw already looked to be on death's door. Ideally we wouldn't have to don a Trumpian "Make America Great Again" hat and be yet another pair of asshole landlords. In any case, if we actually buy the house, the task of dealing with the tenants will be Gretchen's. Mine will be to fix the things that are broken and ugly. She's such a bleeding heart that she'd find a way for them not to end up living in cardboard boxes.
This evening, Gretchen and I met up with friends at the Stockade Tavern in Uptown. The friends were Jeff & Alana from Saugerties amd Jeff's friend Peter (whom Jeff brought to a summer party at our house two and a half years ago) and Peter's wife (whom we'd never met). On that occasion, Peter had seemed almost incoherent. But today he was very articulate, talking at length about the political situation in Burma and Thailand, the beauty of Bridal Veil Falls in the Platte Clove gorge, and the way Barberry provides a habitat suitable for Lyme-carrying ticks.
My drinks tonight consisted of two Ballast Point Sculpins from the bottle (they were better than expected) and a tangy cocktail made with bourbon, bitters, and something citrusy. Meanwhile Gretchen and Alana drank a kind of warm punch, Peter drank wine, Jeff drank an icy cocktail, and Peter's wife (who is British) drank something containing tequila.
While we were there, Sarah the Vegan randomly showed up with her new boyfriend Jerome. They sat at the bar and acted like teenage lovebirds the whole time we were there.
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