Martin Amis says that it is bollocks that truth is stranger than fiction. When – he says – did you last awake from troubled dreams having turned into a human-sized cockroach? I read Gary Shteyngart’s novel Super Sad Love Story shortly after it came out, in 2010. I do not remember anything about it, except that (i) it is hilariously, snarf-your-orange-juice funny, (ii) it involves, inter alios, a recent Russian immigrant to the United States, (iii) it takes place partly in New York and partly in Russia, and (iv) bad sex plays a big role in the plot and in the main character’s yearning inner life. But you could say that about any Gary Shteyngart book. I also recall that the story takes place in the near future. There is a snarky reference to an “early twenty-first century pyramid scheme that bankrupted several wealthy Jewish Americans”, and everyone wears a little machine called their äpparät around their neck, with which they record all data about their lives and communicate with the world.
Since I do not remember much else about the book, this morning I consulted a crowd-sourced encyclopedia whose origins stretch back to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Here is the Hive’s summary of the plot:
The son of a Russian immigrant protagonist Leonard (Lenny) Abramov, a middle-aged, middle class, otherwise unremarkable man whose mentality is still in the past century, falls madly in love with Eunice Park, a young Korean-
American from New Jersey struggling with materialism and the pressures of her traditional Korean family. The chapters alternate between profuse diary entries from the old-fashioned Lenny and Eunice’s biting e-mail correspondence on her “GlobalTeens” account.
In the background of what appears to be a love story that oscillates between superficiality and despair, a grim political situation unravels. America is on the brink of economic collapse, threatened by its Chinese creditors. In the twilight nation, the only three industries left are Media, Credit, and Retail. In the meantime, the totalitarian Bipartisan Party government’s main mission is to encourage and promote consumerism while eliminating political dissidents, under US President Cortez. Abramov is a member of the Creative Class, who sells long-term life extension to high net worth individuals in Italy. Italy is the only and last country in Europe that has any meaningful dealings with the USA. The United States invaded Venezuela at some point. In the story, to describe the change in relative positions, six million Chinese Yuan is equal to 50 million USD. The current USA is fixed in a cult of youth based on the oversaturated “GlobalTeens” social media site, which has the phrase “Less words = more fun!!!”. The USA is called an “unstable, barely governable country presenting grave risk to the international system of corporate governance and exchange mechanisms” by a member of the Chinese Central Bank.
Abramov, acting as the POV character, explains the future of the USA in the wake of the sudden collapse of the Bipartisan government, in a political event called “The Rupture”
After I read that, I decided to re-read the book. In 2010 the story was farce. In 2021, it promises to be something closer to tragedy. It certainly looks less like fiction than it did ten years ago.
But here’s the thing. With all due respect to Mr. Amis, I think he is talking bollocks. I may write fiction some day. Maybe I write bodice-rippers right now, under an assumed name. And maybe those bodice-rippers are very, uh, strange. But I could never do justice to the mobile home park industry in a fictional world. I am a mean-spirited bastard, but I am not that mean.
Here are two texts/emails that I recently received from tenants in my park in northern New York:
I was 3 months behind on my car payment, national grid, phone bill and every other bill and I had to get some of those items paid. I also had to get a home security system because someone has been snooping around my house at 1am. So I had to take care of those items first because those are things that dss will not help with.
I will go in to dss again today and try to be seen today because this is ridiculous. I’ve applied with them three times since I lost my job in October there’s no reason they “don’t know about my case”. I will do my best to get it pushed along.
If they do not get anything to you before I start my new job, I’ll be able to start making payments myself in February. I am sorry that I keep delaying this but my children’s well-being and safety are my first priority.
Yes I have but that’s not my profession and I have an interview later this month just waiting on date.
The first is from Fatima, the single mother whose husband recently tried to kill himself with a Sawzall in front of the kids. I have been working with her to help her keep her head above water, but this has gotten out of control. She is now thirty-five hundred dollars short, and has no plans to get caught up. I have told her that I will accept any payment plan, so long as it is reasonable and measurable, and so long as she sticks to it – but all I have gotten so far is, “I will pay you when I can”. “I will pay you on Tuesday for a burger today” is measurable and includes enough information to hold the speaker to account. “Later” is quite different, and not sufficient.
Fatima lost her job late last year because of her husband, Leo. Until December, she worked at a home for at-risk children in town. Then, Leo started calling the office at 5:00 sharp, every day, shouting, “Where the hell is she?” She and Leo have five kids – three of their own, two daughters of Fatima’s brother, who she is taking care of – and each time one of the kids needed to go to a doctor’s appointment, or a parent-teacher conference, Fatima had to take up the slack. It got to the point where she could not take care of the five kids and do her job, so they got rid of her. Then, Leo left. So – she is jobless and single, with five kids. That is a shitty situation, but she does have public resources available to her.
The email concerned her stimulus payment.[1] Earlier in the week, she had told me that she would apply the $1,200 that she was due to receive under the stimulus bill to her balance. The email was an explanation for why she had not done that. When she got the money, she had used it to pay her car lender and her cable bill. After they had been paid off, there was nothing left over for me.
The eviction moratorium makes the claims of the cable company, the electric utility, the phone company and the auto finance company de facto prior to mine. That is because, if Fatima doesn’t make car payments, the finance company will repo her car. If she doesn’t pay her phone bill, she loses phone service (the electric company, by contrast, will not cut off her service if she does not pay them. They are subject to their own COVID moratorium). I, on the other hand, have to pound sand if she stiffs me. Sad but true – in normal times, the only remedy I have if a tenant does not comply with their lease is eviction. I hate that, but absent a sorely-needed paradigm shift, that’s the remedy that I have to use. But under the eviction moratorium, I don’t have that remedy any more.
Here are some public resources that people like Fatima have in addition to stimulus payments:
- Unemployment Benefits The new stimulus bill increases unemployment benefits by $300 per week. This is in addition to state and local benefits. An additional $1,200 per month would more than cover Fatima’s rent;
- DSS The county Department of Social Services covers rent payments for at-risk residents on an ad-hoc basis. In fact, Fatima received full coverage for some months in 2019. However, she lost this when she took Leo back near the beginning of 2020; and,
- Rental Assistance New York instituted an albeit imperfect COVID rental assistance program in June. Details and an application can be found here. Coverage is incomplete, but funds are still available for renters who qualify.
The secret sauce that is missing from all of these is teeth. Absent either a carrot or a stick, tenants do not have enough of an incentive to avail themselves of public resources. I offered to help Fatima with a DSS rental relief application. She told me to call her case worker, a woman named Mrs. Boulanger, at Hebron County DSS. I called Mrs. Boulanger. Mrs. Boulanger told me she had never heard of Fatima. I called Fatima to report that. She said that, yes, Mrs. Boulanger had been assigned to her. Mrs. Boulanger denied that again. I told Fatima to apply for the New York State rental relief program (I would be happy to apply on her behalf, but that’s not possible under the current program). She did not apply. I have not heard anything about the enhanced unemployment benefits. Since I can not apply to these programs on her behalf, and since she will not suffer negative consequences if she does not apply, all I can do is ask nicely and wait until next Tuesday – or whenever – for her to start the applications.
One of the best things about the rent relief in the new stimulus bill is that the application process can be controlled by property owners (with the consent of tenants, of course – double-billing is not allowed). But the plan has to be implemented by the states, and state governments are underfunded, under-resourced, and subject to their own political agendas.
In the meantime, Fatima is trying to make ends meet alone with five kids, and I am pounding sand.
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The second text came from Mr. Bennett. He is a well-mannered, middle-aged Black guy from Pennsylvania. He moved to the North Country last year to be near his son. I used to refer to him as “the doctor”, because he works as an administrator in nursing homes. After a few months, he corrected me. He is an administrator, not a doctor.
Here’s some background to that text. On November 16, I reminded him that he had not paid November lot rent:
Mr. Bennett – Kaufmann here. You have a balance of $373.50. Please let me know at your earliest convenience when you will pay it. Thank you.
He told me that he was waiting for an answer regarding his unemployment insurance:
I am waiting for call from unemployment to find out why my claim has taken nearly 3 months to process that’s why I didn’t answer I will let you know as soon as I find out
I gave the usual advice for people dealing with bureaucrats. Never assume that people will do what they say. Don’t be a jerk, but be persistent. Follow up periodically and leave a paper trail. He told me that he would receive a retroactive payment in the second week of December. On December 14, I texted him again:
I understand that your unemployment benefits were due to arrive today. Please pay your balance of $731.12 today. Thank you.
Sorry sir I was lied to by dol when I talked to two different reps Becky and Mike yuey both told me they were verifying my wages from Pa but didn’t do it until the 4th now they are waiting on that and my claim wont be paid until PA uploads that infor it is frustrating for me as for you because it should have been done in October. I am not stalling just trapped by incompetent bureaucracy I will pay as soon as possible and I am working on other ways to get you paid sir
We continued texting desultorily back-and-forth for a few weeks. The bureaucrats in New York did not speak with the bureaucrats in Pennsylvania. His file was lost. He would receive his stimulus payment by check rather than by ACH because his bank account was closed due to a job-related scam. He had started a job as an independent contractor and would not be paid until January 8. That payment would not be available, after all, because the NY and PA bureaucrats were not speaking with each other. On January 8, I googled “help wanted – Hebron, NY”, and came up with a long list of postings in the retail and food-service sector. None were lucrative or enjoyable, but all would allow a worker to pay three hundred fifty bucks a month lot rent. So, I sent a text suggesting that he work, while the local governments sort out his unemployment benefits:
Have you considered looking for a job? I understand that Walmart, Chipotle, Home Depot, Mac Tools, Spectrum, Lowes, 7-Eleven, Walgreens, Sam’s Club and Foot Locker are all hiring in Hebron
Yes I have but that’s not my profession and I have an interview later this month just waiting on date
Not a satisfactory response. An interview is not a job offer – and an interview on no particular date is like a marriage proposal to nobody in particular. I sometimes tell tenants that they should consider themselves to be my boss. I provide them with a service, they pay me. How would they like it if their boss didn’t pay them at the end of the month? But Mr. Bennett and I are way past that. I texted back once:
Have you considered working at a job outside your chosen profession until something within your field opens up? That would be a way for you to fulfill your commitments while the bureaucrats get their shit together.
I have done so but I cant wear a mask for 8 hours a day due to health and I am working on other options but even if I was hired tomorrow that wont put 1000 dollars in my pocketin two while my profession would and as ther boss I don’t have wear a mask continuously for 8 hours we are in the same position because of New York government response to the pandemic that’s the excuse I get from nydol
Then, I drafted a preliminary letter for a money suit and researched collection attorneys in town. Texting any more without a remedy will just piss us both off. I can get my dopamine fix from pounding that sand. And I had a super sad story to tell about a guy who couldn’t pay his lot rent. I didn’t even have to make it up – the guy wrote it for me.
[1] Under the recently-passed stimulus bill, every qualifying adult American gets $600 for themselves, plus $600 for each child claimed as a dependent on their 2019 tax return. https://dirtlease.com/the-stimulus-bill/ That means that Fatima should get $2,400 if she did not claim her nieces as dependents on her 2019 tax return, or $3,600, if she did. Earlier that week, she had told me that this amount would be reduced to $1,200 because the nieces were not claimed as dependents in 2019, and Leo would get half of the $2,400 payment.