Friday, January 14, 2022

Personal responsibility

 


The deadly fire that occurred at the Twin Parks North West apartments in the Bronx (New York City) resonated with me.

There were multiple reports of safety systems, like automatically closing doors, "malfunctioning".

Two weeks earlier...
The ever-lovely and compassionate Mrs ERJ and I were researching apartments for Kubota.

One of the apartments that was available was on Lansing's south-side. The office staff was tardy in coming back after lunch so Mrs ERJ and I decided to walk around the complex and look it over.

More than half of the apartments had been "Red-tagged" by the Safety Department.

Walking back to our vehicle (the office staff still out-to-lunch), we encountered the head of maintenance. I asked him about the backstory.

"The parent company that owns this complex also owns a second complex in the Lansing, Michigan area. Somebody at the other complex said something that one of the County Safety Inspectors interpreted as an insult" he said.

"Consequently, the inspectors inspected every apartment owned by our parent company and wrote us up for every infraction.

I wanted a little more resolution. "So was it chicken-shit stuff or are we talking about Black-Mold and radon?"

He looked at me like I was nuts. "Nearly every tenant either takes the batteries out of the smoke detectors or removes it from the wall and pitches it into the trash" he said.

So I can imagine that some (all) of the "malfunctioning" automatic doors were "malfunctioning" because tenants found them inconvenient when carrying groceries from the elevator into their apartments.

Perspective

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting database, none (zero) of homicides committed in New York City in 2020 were committed with a rifle, much less an "assault" rifle. The data is similar for 2019, nobody was murdered in NYC with any kind of rifle. By comparison, 19 people died in the Twin Parks North West fire due to safety equipment "malfunctions".

The data shows that plastic grocery bags, pillows and butane lighters are infinitely more dangerous than "assault" rifles in New York City.

There are many reasons to leave the big-city. One of them is that policy-makers do not have the stomach to address the issues that actually endanger people. They are trapped by their narrative.

Victimologists are trying to frame this tragedy as a flaw of Capitalism. The heating system was unreliable and tenants resorted to space-heaters to stay warm. More accurately, the tragedy was at least partly caused by "rent stabilization" which put a thumb-on-the-scale in favor of tenants thereby removing all economic incentive to improve (or maintain) critical systems.

Twin Parks North West apartments
Twin Parks North West apartments (where the fire occurred) fall into the age group of apartments that are "Rent Stabilized".

Rent Stabilized apartments have their rent set by the legislature of the State of New York. Yearly rent increases have been between 0% and 4.25% over the last twenty years.

With the ability to recover the cost of upgrades and major capital expenditures dead-headed by limits to revenue increases, the only way to increase (or maintain) profit is to throttle capital expenditures.

Many major systems (heat, air-conditioning, roofs, windows, doors) have a life-expectancy of 20-to-50 years. The economic pressure, in the absence of the ability to raise rents to recover those costs, to milk those systems for one-more-year is very intense.

Stay away from crowds
Progressives might have a vision of people living in densely packed hives in perfect harmony. 


One reason I choose to not live in a city is because humans are not bees. I am not ready to have my life depend on the fellow in the floors below me replacing the batteries when they get old or to not tape some steel washers over sensors or disconnect the spring-dashpot that automatically makes the fire-doors on their floor swing shut.

Nor am I ready to trust that managers will enforce rules. Buried somewhere in the rental agreement is language that safety equipment is not to be disabled and eviction is a potential consequence. Never happens.

The Progressive narrative is that "things" kill people, not lack of personal responsibility. Every person in big cities marinates in that kind of thinking.

12 comments:

  1. It all boils down to self. Some people can see the big picture and others think they are the big picture...

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  2. I noted that news sources say the complex was owned by and catered to East Africans, judging by the accents I heard, they were recent immigrants.

    There are numerous stories out there of insular immigrant communities being taken advantage of by their members. I wonder if that happened here?

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    Replies
    1. Africa has been described as "tribal" but that understates the reality. They are "clannish".

      Historically, there has been very little mobility in Africa and it was considered desirable to marry your first-cousin. That means that your village is not just where you live but it is your family. Family comes first.

      That means that anybody who hails from a different village is not-quite-human and is fair-game to be taken advantage of.

      It is easy to forget how blessed we are to have been born into a Western, British-based culture.

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    2. In cases of extreme diversity it may simply be impossible. Sub Saharan Africans have an average IQ of 65. The don’t get along well in higher tech societies because they can’t… they simply don’t have the intellect for it. There is a reason Africa is the way it is, and why it stays that way despite trillions in aid and loans. 13% of home grown white people are in the exact same boat. Our society is not geared to look after people like that… which is why the establishment refuses to talk about them.

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  3. Pretty horrific loss of lives from smoke inhalation that could have been minimized if the fire doors had functioned. The good thing is that the fire was contained fairly quickly. A tragedy of cascading event failures.

    Just being nitpicky - pretty sure the top photo of the firefighters is one of European firefighters working a fire on a training structure. Which is fine, I guess, but there are plenty of photos out there of American firefighters putting out fires. Grin - your blog and you da' boss!

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  4. Importand for Kubota: Renter's Insurance to cover property and personal liability. In a complex, the event doesn't have to be in your unit to cause partial or complete loss of your stuff! Just sayin'.

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    Replies
    1. Definitely! It is a very cheap safeguard both for property loss and liability.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Take a look at this from the Manhattan Contrarian:
    How Socialism Kills: A Big Building Fire In New York
    https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-1-11-how-socialism-kills-big-building-fire-in-new-york

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  7. Perhaps we need to ensure that the inhabitants are up to code.
    Before they immigrate.

    ReplyDelete

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