Some examples, from the site, are movement recognition systems forcing you to perform a "humiliating dance" to enter the building, being forced to install multiple apps to maintain access to your apartment, and mandatory facial recognition to enter your apartment.
These are all real examples that are installed today! This is a disgusting violation of people's privacy.
I think it's not too surprising, this sort of post always seems to bring HN's resident landlords out to argue in favour of whatever happens to benefit them financially, and gives them more control over their tenants' lives.
It's a bit like how any topic here relating to social justice attracts hordes of far-righteous types peppering the comments with comically bad takes, before flagging the submission off the front page.
1. The technology is "dual use" and the negative examples like you described can be regulated away in general, so the benefits remain and abuse is reduced and punished when it does occur.
2. The over the top bias inherent in the site is offputting to anyone not in completely agreement with the ideology of the creators of the site, which represents a fringe of American society in my experience.
*fringe of the HN demographic
Are you implying that the US population in general is more aligned with the ideology of the submission?
You not talking to poor people is not the absence of poor people existing.
I can assure you that the views expressed by this project represent a fringe of the US population, and based on this interaction and previous ones with other individuals with a similar mindset, I sincerely hope it remains that way.
Such as...?
Think about credit reporting companies, then imagine that they are even less credible, the results even more inscrutable, and more error prone. You think Equifax is doing a great job? The tenant screening companies are doing much, much worse.
You are giving landlords more power to turn away poor and minority tenants.
Again, if the complaint were about that -- if they required you to conduct all business that way -- great! That would be a good point to lead with. But a) they don't, and b) every apartment I know with a resident portal has supported old-school interaction, so if there are counterexamples, I need to see them.
>Think about credit reporting companies, then imagine that they are even less credible, the results even more inscrutable, and more error prone.
Because credit companies aren't perfect, credit checks are evil and racist?
Not what I said at all. The companies aren't just "not perfect", they are considerably worse than that.
And yes, credit checks can be used as a form of digital redlining. They are not always used that way, but they absolutely are being used like that widely across the US.
Also:
>The companies aren't just "not perfect", they are considerably worse than that.
The difference between "not perfect" vs "much worse" doesn't seem relevant here. As long as they're not perfect, they can be used exactly the way you describe, so it doesn't seem like a good argument to use to throw (vague) shade at credit checks.
Would you mind concretely spelling out how you think landlords should operate, so I know I'm not mischaracterizing what you're criticizing? It's easy to say "X has downsides", but a substantive discussion involves weighing the pros and cons.
Landlords should set criteria for who can be a tenant (perhaps based on income/income assistance/demonstrated ability to pay the rent), and accept the first candidate who meets all the criteria they propose.
Edit: Also, in case it is relevant, I am a property owner who rents out part of their home. I've never run a background or credit check on any of my tenants.
>Also, in case it is relevant, I am a property owner who rents out part of their home. I've never run a background or credit check on any of my tenants.
So you know nothing about the tenants you rent to? They're all strangers?
You reduced the critique of the article to "How dare they screen tenants", which is a strawman that no one is proposing. I cited ways in which tenant screening is problematic (credit reporting and criminal background checks) in hopes of highlighting that it's not at all preposterous for someone to be critical of technology being used in this space.
> So you know nothing about the tenants you rent to? They're all strangers?
Sometimes. I know some people I've rented to. Others have been strangers. Ask for references, have a coffee shop conversation. I've had folks suddenly have life happen to them (and lose the ability to pay rent for a bit). It's not hard to treat folks like humans, imo.
The website -- and other commenters -- were citing "they do background checks" in itself, with no further commentary, as something inherently outrageous. What you're quoting was my (and several others') best effort identify what we thought was being criticized; this is really hard when no one will commit to a position, and when they do, it turns out their complaint is ultimately (see below) "oh, they didn't do my kind of background check, where I'd never make a wrongfully biased decision based on a coffee shop chat", which feels, to me, not morally superior.
>Sometimes. I know some people I've rented to. Others have been strangers. Ask for references, have a coffee shop conversation.
Gotcha, so you do a background check them, just not the standard, criminal/credit check, and feel like this is a morally-relevant distinction. You also base a lot of your decision about a hard-to-quantify "gut feel" from this coffee shop chat, and are sure you aren't allowing an insidious bias that you would criticize if a corporation did it (cf. "culture fit").
These things are not at all equivalent. It's a laughable false-equivalency to suggest that calling a few friends/acquaintances of someone is at all similar to investigating their personal finances, debts, criminal history, employment records, etc.
> You also base a lot of your decision about a hard-to-quantify "gut feel" from this coffee shop chat.
When I have a unit for rent, it goes to the first person interested. This coffee shop meeting isn't an interview.
These folks are going to be living in my home, this is the most egalitarian way for both parties to understand "is this situation tenable for both of us?" It's not an assessment or gate.
How else will they know they want to live with my family?
That's why I didn't say they were. I was challenging you to explain the moral difference and you haven't yet answered that. Worse, you're not pretending that your coffee shop meeting isn't an interview, and is for their benefit:
>How else will they know they want to live with my family?
It's fine if you want to argue against the standard background check, but you need to actually articulate what is objectionable about it, and have some awareness of the similarities to the screening that you consider necessary.
Background checks disproportionately impact poor and minority communities because they are more likely to be impacted by systemic poverty.
You understand that this is basically the service that the credit bureaus perform? Each creditor is a reference for the debtor, in a centralized location that is easy to access so people who are interested in determining the likelihood of repayment can quickly collect relevant references.
Please don't take this as some sort of endorsement of the behavior of the specific credit bureaus we have today, but I don't see the same massive distinction between your vetting method and running a credit/background check on an individual, other than yours being much less likely to produce an accurate assessment.
Creditors don't tell me what it's like to live with someone. You can be deeply bad at managing money but a fantastically respectful and considerate tenant.
The credit bureaus tell me nothing about the human except for some financial details that honestly shouldn't be any of my business anyways.
Many industries have found that creditworthiness is a good proxy for general responsibility, moreso than your "gut feel" I strongly suspect.
Your position is that somehow your seemingly arbitrary (and intentionally inaccurate?) assessment process is morally superior to those who actually want to obtain an accurate assessment of an individuals likelihood to honor the terms of the contract they are both entering into.
I believe, fundamentally, a landlord who makes a profit is immoral. Therefore, I'm not interested in understanding someone's financial responsibility.
I believe financial responsibility is not an adequate proxy for general responsibility for the reasons I've stated above (criminal backgrounds, poverty, lack of education, etc) that shouldn't be barriers to getting housing.
My guess is that if we are unable to agree on credit checks as unnecessarily invasive, then I really don't think we'll come to a reasonable stopping point for "landlords are fundamentally an immoral enterprise".
If you'd like to have the last word in the thread, by all means.
On the off chance you actually respond to this:
> I believe, fundamentally, a landlord who makes a profit is immoral. Therefore, I'm not interested in understanding someone's financial responsibility.
Are you not charging your tenants to occupy a portion of your home? If you are, you're profiting. If you aren't, everything else you said in this thread is misleading at best.
> I believe financial responsibility is not an adequate proxy for general responsibility for the reasons I've stated above (criminal backgrounds, poverty, lack of education, etc) that shouldn't be barriers to getting housing.
The entire risk management industry disagrees with you. I'll go with them over your half-baked beliefs.
> My guess is that if we are unable to agree on credit checks as unnecessarily invasive, then I really don't think we'll come to a reasonable stopping point for "landlords are fundamentally an immoral enterprise".
Something we agree on!
> If you'd like to have the last word in the thread, by all means.
Thanks for exposing me to a new level of cognitive dissonance, where a landlord claims that landlords are immoral and should not exist.
Because I'm guessing your lease does not include a detailed writeup of everyone who will be coming and going from your place and when.