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Notice: Subsidized Housing Is Now Our Nanny
Sometime during the day on September 11, 2017, the following was posted on the public bulletin board in each of the four renovated buildings of the Little Jon Apartments, located at 1150-1156 Grand Drive, apts 1-32, Bigfork, MT. The font is size 20, so there are five pages tacked up. There is a note on the manager’s office door that she will be gone until September 18. Normal hours for the manager are from 10 am to 2 pm, Monday – Friday. There is a maintenance man from about 8 am to noon, also Monday-Friday.
There is no letterhead on the letter-size papers, there is no date, and there are no signatures. So the tenants do not know who wrote it or who posted it.
NOTICE
~ Anyone on this property with a weapon of any kind such as a knife will be escorted off this property by the Sheriffs Dept. Every tenant is responsible for their visitors. So, if you have guest coming to your apt. carrying a weapon YOU will be in jeopardy of losing your housing for violating the Lease and the Rule and Regulation. This is unacceptable behavior and will not be tolerated here. If you don’t like the rules then by all means fill out a vacate form and go where the rules are more lax. Also, being half dressed is not acceptable. Put a shirt on, pull up the shorts or hang out somewhere else. No one is impressed.
~ Everyone needs to SLOW down when driving in or out of this parking lot. We have disabled, elderly, and service animals that are at risk when people fly in and out here with their music blaring or texting while driving. If you hit someone “I am sorry” doesn’t cut it! And you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Have respect for others.
I will be cracking down on these violations, count on it.
~Any drug dealing here will be prosecuted. Is risking your housing over a felony worth it?
~I have had many complaints over kids being loud at night. Parents let’s get a handle on this.
Please make a spare set of keys because no one is available to come here to unlock your door. Once you are handed your keys (actually only one key) at move in, it now becomes your responsibility to have them with you, not ours. You will have to call a Lock Smith.
We have an abandoned stolen car on our Property. Please contact the Sheriffs dept. with any info.
We also have 3 stolen bikes on the property. This is a shame!
We have a Land Rover in the parking lot that needs to be registered with the office. I need the owner to put in writing whose it is and who they are visiting. It hasn’t moved in weeks. Please put in my Office drop box. It will be towed if I don’t hear from you asap.
~As a courtesy, try not to do laundry after 8 as the machines are loud and the residents are trying to relax for the evening. (Rules posted in laundry room state, “first wash at 8 a.m last wash at 8 pm, last dry at 9 pm)
~I am disappointed at the lack of respect some here have for others. We will be Monitoring the activity in the evenings when most of these occurrences happen. Everyone deserves to have a quiet haven. Let’s respect each other.
Thank you (smiley face)
In my opinion, my first amendment rights to protect myself are being violated as MT has a stand your ground law. May as well hang a sign at the entrance that “this is a gun free zone, none of the tenants can protect themselves, so have at them.”
Being told what clothing we can and cannot wear is also an insult. One tenant was standing on his patio in an Irish Kilt and the manager criticized him for not being properly dressed. This is a non-smoking complex, so one tenant was standing 20′ away from his building without his shirt, in the back of the property out of sight and was chastised. Apparently nobody is allowed to lay on their lawns to sunbathe either. We do no know who was banishing a large knife, but many of us carry pocket knives; I have one on my key chain. I don’t know how to go forward with this notice, but I am in a rage.
My first inclination is to get the Scottish bagpipers to stand along the road in front of the property wearing their kilts, and only what G-d graced them with upon their birth underneath.
Published in General
By restricting the ability of the tenants to defend themselves, the Management is assuming full responsibility. Repeat, full responsibility. Failure to so provide will enable the residents or their heirs and assigns to launch lawsuits the likes of which Management has obviously not yet fully considered. And, as you say, they’ve declared the environs a “defense-free” zone. Big Fork just might be law-abiding enough to make such a strategy viable, but not many other places are, and “relying on the kindness of strangers” as a security stance stinks on ice.
I seem to recall that many states have laws regarding legal weapons in apartments, and your landlord could get into serious trouble if he tried to enforce that bit of nonsense.
I’d think about posting a countersign saying unless someone takes responsiblity for the 5 pages, it is to be ignored. It could just be another tenant for all you know.
No time to look it up, but I recall there was a court ruling that a person’s rights are protected by the Constitution even in government housing.
So how do you chop onions?
Do tire irons and canes count as weapons?
so stupid. Even if you ignore the clear constitutional issues.
Thank you fellows, I copied and pasted what you said without your names or that it came from Ricochet, printed it out and just pinned it on top of the original notices in each building, as well as dropping one in the manager’s drop box. Also just discovered that there are forms for “notices to quit” under the original notice. In effect she is saying that if you don’t like my rules, get out.
I have to go into town this morning for some medical tests, and think I will stop by the USDA office that is in charge of the public housing projects. Find out exactly what they can and cannot say in their rental agreements. None of the above nonsense is in my current rental agreement, but am due to sign a new one in October effective Nov 1.
Already had a bit of this last Nov at Thanksgiving when Kaylett came to get me for dinner. Another tenant body blocked blocked me from getting into her truck, another person ran up to her truck, opened the driver’s door and grabbed her arm. Kaylett did not know the person and her reaction was to pick up her gun from the console, and aim it at the stupid woman. Kaylett had to tell the woman 3 times to release her and leave before she did. Big to do with management, but the sheriff thoroughly investigated the situation and cleared Kaylett of any and all possible wrong doing. Kaylett not only has cc permits for about 15 states, she is also an ex-deputy sheriff from NM.
Also just found out that the person banishing a machete was a teenager, not living on this property, and was chased away. So how in hell are we responsible for that?
I would verify this before yelling at management. These days, there are plenty of griefers who just like to get people angry. It could be a prank.
But it could indeed be a manager with no foresight.
I found this on the interwebs:
And this law review article is riddled with statements saying the law isn’t clear (but it was written in 2010, so the law may have changed since):
The law review article is very thorough and says the question is not yet settled. My advice would be to hire a few dozen lawyers of the highest caliber and file suit. Except someone in section 8 housing can’t afford that. I would strongly advise not asking the ACLU or the NRA, since neither has been very friendly to expanding gun laws in court (the ACLU hates the word “gun” and the NRA only likes to beg for money to pay off politicians in the legislative arena). If you really want to take this to court, find an organization like Gun Owners of America and see if they want to help. Otherwise, you will be dealing with a landlord with a possibility of the law being on his side and who wants to kick you out.
My best advice is to find a way to escape section 8 housing, if possible.
This was a sensational case in Rockland, Maine, a few years ago. The first news accounts of the story talk about how great it was that this disabled man, Harvey Lembo, got a gun and used it to protect himself. Everyone was excited. The story even goes this far to quote a gun rights supporter favorably:
As an aside, in New Jersey, there was a woman who was being stalked by her abusive and threatening husband. She applied for a gun and was made to wait. Her husband killed her while she was waiting for permission to have a gun. Few stories have ever made me angry as that one. A person has a right to live. Period. No one should need permission to defend herself.
Back to Mr. Lembo.
The housing complex in which he lived did not allow firearms, it turned out.
But Mr. Lembo won the case.
It sounds like it is a state issue.
I wonder what the laws are in Montana.
This is happening Montana? In California or New York, I could believe it, but Montana?
I fear all is lost.
Contact SAF.
Except they don’t much like guns.
The difference between a conservative and a libertarian: The conservative is more concerned by the restrictions imposed on those in subsidized housing than they are about the fact of subsidized housing.
;-)
I kid! I kid!
I kid, because I love.
As of last November it was not against the law to own, or have a gun in public housing. The Sheriff Dept, set the management straight on that issue. BTW, this isn’t section 8, it is Rural and Urban development housing. A scam for people with money to buy up apt complexes every 20 years, refurbish them and then collect tax credits, and subsidies for the following 20 years. Then they will sell for mega bucks and the next group takes over, and does the same thing.
Will do if necessary. Going to try reason first since they have already been told. Just got back from the hospital after a load of CT scans, so am going to take a nap. Back later.
Good one. But the fact is we have subsidized housing, so we do need some real politik and address that. The problem if we don’t is that eventually everyone will have government provided health care and government provided housing, and government provided employment. The democrats really, truly believe that we can achieve the “ideal” of communism without the bloodshed and enslavement of the Soviets. The west European concept of communism was set back, in their minds, by the Russians jumping the gun. They are attempting to put that error to right by all the Pelosi/Clinton/Obama policies. They will continue to push for that, and experience has shown that they will achieve much of their aims. If we don’t act to protect what little of our freedoms remain, we will be doomed.
Meanwhile, in Okay, Oklahoma …
Whoever wrote that should be slapped.
This reminds me why I declined living in public subsidized housing when I moved up here “To the Right of Nowhere” 20 years ago. I don’t miss it one bit…
So you were under the impression that in all of Montana (population 1 million) there were no busybodies at all?
The busybodies seem to be the CA baby boomers who are retiring and moving to MT, driving up the cost of housing.
Which is precisely why I support imposing long lists of arbitrary and punitive regulations on those who live in subsidized housing.
You know, sorta like a Dickensian workhouse.
Except when they destroy the market and any hope you might have of affording a home, those arbitrary and punitive regulations will make you a serf.
The worst evil of socialism is not the theft of money, but the way it convinces people that they have the right to meddle in your business and enslave you.
Boy, I hate to be the bad guy here, but if we believe in free markets and property rights, this apartment owner is completely within his or her rights. Furthermore, looking at the list, most of those issues do not seem particularly unreasonable. The one clearly imprecise description regarded knives, and that can easily be clarified. Obviously, she does not mean that small utility penknives and food prep paring knives are verboten. Those more commonly seen as weapons- hunting, switchblade, etc., carried with a person in a sheath/scabbard rather than being clear utility devices are what is intended to be described, but that can be verified.
As I infer here, these apartments are not government-owned, they are simply private rental units for which management has agreed to accept Section 8 vouchers. The owner has the right to set any rules he or she wants- no loud noises after 10 PM, no loud noise before 8 AM, no junk strewn in the halls, management keeps a key and has the reasonable right to enter, these are all standard property management principles; I’d be surprised if most of them are not also memorialized in statutes- including the right to ban guns on the premises.
A specific statute trumps a generalized right, and in Heller, SCOTUS specifically noted that states have the right to regulate guns, just not prohibit ownership of them. In Minnesota, the gun carry law explicitly permits owners of public access areas (restaurants, churches, shopping malls, etc.) to post notices that guns are not allowed on the premises, and there is exactly zero concern that that law has any constitutional question marks. Someone can’t prohibit ownership of guns; he can say that you can’t bring them onto his property.
And the topics there- speed in the parking lots, abandoned vehicles, time for laundry hours, etc., actually seem like points that might make the apartment complex a nicer place to live- where people are considerate of the rights of others.
So, I would ask them for clarification of the knives policy (it’s pretty hard for any tenant to cook without a knife), but beyond that, the owner has his own property rights, and those who don’t like the rules are free to seek out a different place with different rules that still accepts Section 8 vouchers.
I’m afraid that “Nannyhood” comes along with anything that is subsidized by the tax payer. Constitutional gun issues aside, it is a normal part of human behavior to expect people to abide by the “giver’s” own standards and expectations when doling out free money.
I wish you well in your dealings with management.
At some point yesterday, after I had posted this, and posted my reply in all the building someone, took the notices down. Could have been late afternoon or this morning. When I went down to check my mail about noon, all the notices in all the buildings were gone. The manager has not returned to the office so don’t know who took them. The maintenance man may have notified the management company in Kalispell, and was told to remove them. He wasn’t here for me to ask.
Well, somebody is onto it, and Kaylett has been busy filling out rental applications in other places for me today. <grin> They probably consider me a trouble maker. Well, hells bells, I was tossed into an orphanage at age 7 for being “incorrigible” so it seems I haven’t changed much in the last 72 years.
I am going to quibble about this statement. I am almost 80 years old and I have worked almost all my life, started paying into Social Security at age 16, started paying into Medicate the same year it went into effect. I raised 2 children without child support, also raised 2 grandchildren without child support from either parent. When my mother became ill with Alzheimer’s I paid for 2 years for a care taker for her, then took an early retirement because she was past having a caretaker. I owned my own home at the time but couldn’t keep up my home and my mother’s home on my salary, so my home was repossessed, the government got it, and made out like a bandit from the mortgage insurance. My mother lived for 2 more years and I was caring for 2 grandchildren at the same time. They were not on welfare, and the tax payers were not supporting my mother.
I am not receiving “free money” I earned every dime of it, in addition I pay a full 1/3 of my income, retirement and SS for rent, in addition to utilities, most of my own medical expenses because I don’t like what medicare offers. I don’t mind abiding by the rules of government housing, I do mind abiding by the rules made up by an employee of an agency being paid by taxpayer’s money. That is a petty bureaucrat feeling powerful making people “obey” her rules.
This morning I am sorry for the rant, just grouchy that I am old and infirm, can’t earn, a living anymore, and resent being told that because I need a little help with rent I have to shut up and not complain and do as I am told. I agree that young and able bodied people should at least be able to prove they are looking for employment to receive government assistance.
Then there is an opposite to all this. A beautiful young girl, with an i.q. of about 70, falling between the cracks, whose parents could care less, the girl is a diabetic, and I did everything I could to get her some assistance, even to getting her a pro bono attorney but after 3 years gave up, and now she gets assistance and medical help because she got pregnant, no more able to care for that baby than the man in the moon. but at least her insulin is now free.