All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

After taking some distance from my original posts, here are my thoughts: 

I'm not the kind of person who gets stuck in a dogma and never lets go; I consider new information and will sometimes change my opinion.  While I have not changed my opinion about about the specific use of the word "guys" in the sentence, “And even if rents are hit hard, I think that the guys like us here on BiggerPockets . . . ” I could have responded differently after Scott apologized.  

While I still disagree with a lot of the comments on this thread, I'll admit that, at this moment in history with how the culture (political and otherwise) has been marginalizing women, I felt triggered by the use of gender-biased language from a man in a position of high power, and those emotions continued even after @Scott Trench apologized.  So to Scott, I apologize for keeping the discussion going after you apologized and changed your original blog post.  I appreciate that you engaged with me civilly and kept your cool, and I understand why Josh made you President of BP.  

I also apologize to the BP community for any role I played in perpetuating anger.  From Scientific American:   

There's been a vitriol snowball on this thread, as is the tendency when outrage collides with instant gratification and the relative anonymity of the internet.  But -- aside from some rare instances where anger can be productive (e.g. civil rights movement, women's suffrage, etc.) -- on the internet, anger typically begets more anger.  

From The Guardian:

This thread has devolved into a virtual stoning.  From the New York Times:

Almost everyone, especially the women, who said things like, "I use 'guys' all the time to refer to women and you're being over-sensitive etc." either didn't read my full comments or didn't understand them.  For those people who read my full comments and believe they understood -- but who still disagree -- that's a different cultural blindness that I'm not going to comment about here anymore.  Needless to say, after taking the time to clarify my meaning, and still getting attacked, I don't think that the people who criticized me heard me at all.  

From Scientific American:

I don't believe anyone who commented here is a bad person, and we might have some things in common if we met in person. But forums like this make it too easy to gang up on someone. I still don't understand why though. I don't understand why anyone who attacked me here felt the need to, or what it could have possibly earned them. The only thing I can kinda-sorta understand are the women who disagreed with me, because there is safety and privilege when a marginalized group aligns with a powerful one. Heck, I would have been one of those women just a few short years ago, until I really started to question our language and culture and how it perpetuates dehumanization without us even realizing it. (Incidentally, the only women of color who replied to my original post did so via DM or email, in support.)

Incidentally, and to clear up the use of the English language: I am a cis white female. For those who commented about this, the term "cis white male" isn't an insult (unless you believe that being born a white male is a bad thing); it just is. Pointing out that someone is a cis white male highlights the likely fact that that individual is and always has a ton of power and privilege, and that he likely doesn't know what it's like to move through the world as anything else. Just like I don't know what it's like to move through the world as anything but a cis white female. (But my recent experience on BP has given me empathy for people in other marginalized groups, which is a good thing.)

I'm not surprised at how this thread turned out.  Humans are predictable animals.  And my guess is that people attracted to entrepreneurship and real estate investing tend to be "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" kinds of people, which, if left unchecked, could veer towards victim-blaming.  I take responsibility for my part in perpetuating emotions on this thread, AND, some people commenting here have become a little Lord of the Flies-y.

One man said that he didn't want BP to become political.  But the personal is political.  The reality is: power, wealth, ideas around gender, privilege, etc. are all political -- especially when you're not in the dominant group.  There are elements of all of these on BP, just as in our daily lives.

The reactions by many people on this thread (and of the people who voted on those reactions) gave me an opportunity to deeply consider the subject line of this thread.  I used to be a Pro member here.  Now I'm a Plus member but I just canceled that automatic credit card renewal.  I almost disabled my account, but I wanted to first publicly apologize to Scott and BP for my role in perpetuating anger on this thread before doing so.  Thank you everyone for giving me lots of information to consider.  

The responses (and those who "liked" those responses) here have given BP users some useful information about those people, about where we are as a culture, and about how far we still have to go.  It will be interesting to see how people react to these comments through the lens of history in 5 years, when people search for "female podcast guests" or "women podcast guests."

Scott understood where I was coming from.  He heard me when I said, I realized he didn't use exclusionary language on purpose.  He understood why I mentioned it nonetheless, and responded appropriately.  Thank you @Scott Trench, @Johnna F., @Anthony Wick, and @Jason D. for actually listening and considering the words of this woman.

I wrote, "In any case, for men to respond in any way that's not, "I'm listening; I hear your point; I agree [or] I'm taking it into consideration" only serves to prove my point even further." 

That is--we're socialized to subordinate women and girls:

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to not take women and girls seriously:

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to deny women and girl's realities: 

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[I can only guess what these two people said to deny my reality.]

and to ignore women and girls [unless they have a specific utility to us] (examples below of commenters ignoring and/or twisting my original words):

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Even women are socialized to do this. 

I don't expect this to make any difference, because as we've seen during the supreme court testimony last week, no amount of expertise or actual knowledge makes any difference when it comes from the mouth of a woman.  But... for those who continue to ignore how the word "guys" can be used differently, and why it makes a difference: 

"What do you guys want for dinner?"  

People, myself included, use this in English all the time because we have no good second person plural pronoun.  

"We guys don't understand logic."

This is a gendered sentence that excludes some people (non-guys).  It's not, "we don't understand logic," or "we women don't understand logic."  This version of "guys" has a specific and different meaning from, "hey you guys!"  It's this second version of "guys" that was used in Scott's original article until he changed it to "people" after I mentioned it.  

For whatever it's worth (and I'm assuming next to nothing for many of those who have commented here), my undergraduate degree is in philosophy from the University of California, and my minors were French and German.  No one here is going to out-logic or out-language me.  

But logic and reason clearly don't matter to a lot of folks who are too stuck in the status quo, too mired in their same old ways of thinking--most likely because they personally benefit from the privilege of being in a dominant group--that the more a woman presents logic and reason, the more they will rally against and attack her.  

And so it is.  

Today is a Saturday.  I'm taking my dog to the house I'm renovating so I can install light fixtures, replace circuit breakers, run PEX, and install finish plumbing.  This is a house I redesigned from the studs with the help of my Master of Architecture.  But what are credentials and credibility but words that just get in the way?  

You do you.  I'll do me.  

One place to start would be insisting that both members of investing couples are on the interview, rather than just the man.  (For example you recently had a great interview with Neal Collins—but he’s half a couple with my amazing friend Alissa, who is just as involved with their real estate investing. In fact, I recommended to Mindy last year that Alissa be on the podcast. But then it ended up being just Neal for some reason.)

I often hear from interviewees that their spouses are integral to their business or success. Not only would it be helpful for listeners to learn about what that spouse is doing, in her own words, but it would also paint a more complete picture of the reality of your guests’ real estate success. Not hearing from half of a partnership is a huge deal! It sends the message that the partner’s contribution isn’t important, when we all know that neither individual could have accomplished what they have without the other. 

Even if the partner is less involved in the daily real estate minutiae, whatever they are doing is facilitating the real estate investing. No one lives in a vacuum, and it would be encouraging for your single listeners to learn, for example, that the reason one partner can work 12 hours a day on real estate is because the other partner is taking care of all the meals and laundry and bill paying. Some people beat themselves up for not accomplishing as much as quickly as your podcast guests, but knowing the full context in which “they” accomplished what they did paints a more realistic picture. 

It’s also way more interesting to hear stories from couples and learn about how they overcame disagreements or what they needed to agree on, and how they navigate their relationship when real estate stuff gets stressful. Because once you’ve heard enough “how I went from 2 to 100 units in 3 years at age 23” stories, they get boring and stop being as helpful. 

There are so many partnerships in real estate, and lots of them are with women. Let’s hear the voices of those women!  

Once that ball starts rolling, I bet you’d be surprised at how much easier it becomes to notice, find and attract many other women making unique and podcast-worthy contributions to real estate investing. You might have to ask more questions of potential women guests to find out how skilled and smart and experienced and creative they are, because we typically won’t volunteer that type of information unless specifically asked about it. Be curious. Ask questions and take a genuine interest in learning about the women on BP and elsewhere, and you might be surprised at how many amazing stories are already sitting right under your nose. 

This is the same excuse that SNL used when they were criticized for not hiring more women of color on the show.  "There aren't enough funny black women!"  Which of course is completely false.  They just didn't look hard enough.  

I talked with @Mindy Jensen when she was in Portland about the dearth of women on the BP podcast.  She told me that she has a hard time finding them, that she tries, and that the issue is experience.  That the women who ask to be on the podcast aren't experienced enough.  That the podcast seeks to interview investors with at least 10 doors.  

While I appreciate the efforts of Mindy and others at BP to recruit women to the podcast, it's clearly not enough, because there ARE a lot of women real estate investors out there.  It's a multi-pronged issue, but one of the problems is very likely because women are trying to keep a million balls in the air, and doing a podcast interview would likely be at the low end of their priority list, compared to feeding the kids, doing laundry for 4 people, walking the dog, working a day job, managing tenants, making decisions about investments, paying bills at home, unloading the dishwasher, getting the kids to school, driving the kids to their after school activities, and on top of that, being expected to look fabulous and take time to put on makeup and do their hair and make daily wardrobe decisions and then on top of that, somehow manage to get some self-care in?  

Add to that that women aren't socialized for self-promotion (partly because most of us have bigger fish to fry than fluffing up our egos), so we're not clamoring to get on the mic.  If anything, I'm sure many women are perfectly happy behind the scenes, getting sh*t done.  

If BP were truly committed to increasing the number of women on the podcast, they will need to give serious consideration to all of this ^ and dig a little deeper to find the superwomen who somehow have time and inclination to do all this ^ and also, a BP interview.  

Erin, did you read the original article?  Did you read my last post here?  There's a difference between using "guys" as a second person plural pronoun and using it as a label, e.g. "the guys in this room are dumb."  

It used to be "a natural way of writing" and "a linguistic habit" to refer to indigenous people as "savages" and African Americans as "Negros."  What you and some other people here might think of as "natural" because "that's just how people have always said it" could contain bias that could be damaging the culture as a whole and hurting more vulnerable individuals in particular.  

If you grow up in a room where everything--the walls, the floor, the furniture, etc.--is red and you never leave that room your whole life, you will have zero concept of "red."  The same is true for men, boys, women, and girls who are socialized in a gender-biased culture.  Women are almost as guilty of gender-bias as men, as your post illustrates.  

If we can't see it, we can't change it.  And it's the "little" things like excluding women from our language that cumulatively serve to exclude women from corner offices, political leadership, and the United States Supreme Court, to name some examples.  

"The unexamined life is not worth living."  ~ Socrates

Thank you @Scott Trench!  This is the type of response I'd expected from you because I know from listening to the podcast that you're a smart guy and critical thinker who's always looking for better ways of doing things.  

There is a difference between saying, "hey you guys, let's go see a movie!" and "guys like us on BiggerPockets."  I say "you guys" to groups of people who are mixed genders or even to just women (because in English, we don't have a good second person plural pronoun as in other languages, e.g. vous, ihr, ustedes, etc. unless you're from the U.S. South, y'all).  "Guys like us" isn't a pronoun; it's just a noun--a label--and it excludes half of the population of Earth.  

To the men who have publicly disagreed with me about how exclusionary language feels to me/to women, why don't you try substituting "ladies" everywhere people use the word "guys," and maybe you'll start to understand how many women feel.  

In any case, for men to respond in any way that's not, "I'm listening; I hear your point; I agree [or] I'm taking it into consideration" only serves to prove my point even further.  That is--we're socialized to subordinate women and girls, to not take women and girls seriously, to deny women and girl's realities, and to ignore women and girls [unless they have a specific utility to us].  Even women are socialized to do this.  

It's time that other men wake up, take a cue from Scott, and start listening--if not because it's the Right thing to do, then because women are now the majority of undergraduate and graduate students and will soon--no joke--rule the world.  

A recent BP blog article by Scott Trench had the phrase “. . . guys like us here on BiggerPockets . . . “ 

I commented about the gendered language, because if people don’t realize they’re doing it, it can never change.  

Scott, the author, didn’t reply, but sure enough, a cis white guy did. I got “put in my place” in a paternalistic, mocking way—or at least, that’s what the guy was trying to do, it appeared.

Without any response from Scott, who’s both the author and CEO of BP, but given the apparent ambivalence over exclusionary language, I’m taking Scott at his original word. Maybe he really did mean “guys?” Maybe women weren’t the target audience at all?  Is BP just for guys? 

Given the treatment of Christine Blasey Ford last week, I wasn’t going to ignore gender-biased language from a leader in the BP community, even if it was inadvertent, and even though it’s hard to speak truth to power. 

So I wonder, is BP just for guys? Did I buy a membership in the wrong club?

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/commercial-multifamily-market-trigger-recession/

Maybe if you’re a guy, “comfort” would be enough to get you to stay, but as a woman who has felt threatened herself, I would never try to convince someone to stay in a dangerous situation. She shouldn’t have to press charges etc, especially if she can just leave. 

Her agreement is weekly and she’s free to go. My concern is the potential future liability of the neighbors, both in terms of damage to my property and also if future tenants move out as a result. It’s a good neighborhood, and no one should have to tolerate that behavior. 

I am a mandatory reporter and have already had to call child protective services on them in the past. The neighbor is on probation for drunk driving and has a record of battery.

My tenant informed me today that she’s moving out because she doesn’t feel safe anymore. The neighbor tenant shot large fireworks from his yard directly over into/above my property, and when she walked over to ask him to stop, before she said anything, he threw fireworks over his fence directly at her.

She called cops, report was taken, cops left, then neighbor came down my property’s driveway and threatened my tenant. She left to sleep at a friend’s house, and when she returned in the morning, her front door was broken into and evidence of fireworks was left in my yard on the grass. (She rents land and lives in her own tiny house on wheels.)

Now she’s too afraid to live there and is moving out. Cop said that neighbor’s threatening is grounds for 24 hour eviction. Neighbor is on probation for drunk driving and has a record of battery. The landlord says his tenant has always been courteous and friendly and doesn’t believe that his tenant threatened my tenant and doesn’t seem to want to evict.

I’m concerned about potential future losses (both income and property damage) and want neighbor tenant evicted.

What can I do? Damage happened to my tenant’s property (her tiny house on wheels) but it could have started a fire. I also am suffering income losses as a result. What could I do that would compel the landlord to evict? 

In Portland habitable space is 7' tall ceilings minimum, with some exceptions for HVAC and attics, etc.  Whether it's a rental or not, the rules for "habitable space" are the same.  Each city has its own code.  Like Jay and others have mentioned, the biggest thing about renting a basement space is proper egress, which in Portland is 5.7 square feet of clear opening.  There are also rules about how far grade can be before you need to have a ladder in the window well.  Typically this egress is going to be in the form of a casement window and/or door.  If you choose a slider or double hung, it's going to be a big window.  

The reasons for the 5.7 sqft are so that firefighters can come IN with all their gear, not necessarily so people can get their skinny selves out by themselves.  The idea is, if someone passes out from smoke inhalation or something, they can be rescued.  

For a rental, where this is especially important is liability and insurance. I once had a (Section 8, no less) tenant whose adult daughter was [covertly] living in the basement. There was no legal egress. When I found out that she was living there, rather than report my tenant to HomeForward, I instead told my tenants that I would be doing some renovations, adding egress windows and window wells. They gave their 30 day notice at that point, because that would have converted my 2 bedroom unit into a 4 bedroom unit, thus forcing them to pay the difference in HUD's fair market rents out of their own pockets. They weren't dumb and could see the writing on the wall as soon as I said I was putting in windows.

Anywho, to circle back to the original question, your client might want to look up the building code in Milwaukie to find out what the ceiling height minimum is for habitable space.  If the space is not to code and something happens to create a liability, your client could be on the hook if insurance refuses to pay, especially if insurance can show that he knew that people were occupying the space in a way that it wasn't intended to be occupied (e.g. sleeping in storage space).