fear

True. Back when I rented it was a good situation because my rent was dirt cheap and I was able to save money. Seems those days are long gone with rentals sometimes being double or triple what a mortgage payment would be.

Renting isn't the greatest decision, either. You're throwing money at a landlord and gaining zero equity. People often do it because it's that or homelessness. These systems are in place to take advantage of people who aren't the best decision makers. Just because they can be taken advantage of... should they be? Or should we be better than this and revamp how we house people so that it isn't a massive scam with the opportunity for extra side scams like we see here?

If the landlord wasn't a massive dick, they both could have benefited from this situation. She'd have the renovated bathroom she wanted, and the landlord knew his property was being taken care of without even needing to lift a finger. Instead he got greedy, and rather than blame the greedy jerk people want to jump on the "stupid" victim. Except it's not her fault her landlord was a prick.

I'm not arguing this point. Even though I disagree with how she chose to spend her money, I can still acknowledge that it's not her fault the landlord took advantage of her and kicked her out to charge higher rent to the next person.

Except shaming obesity doesn't solve that problem, either. You're kind of proving my point here without even realizing it.

A proper comparison here would be more like a leased vehicle than a rental car. It's not the "stupidest thing ever" for this tenant to believe she would be living there for 1 or more years and wouldn't suddenly be evicted. Your exaggeration only benefits predators, and your pity is hardly a reward to anyone.

Everyone is so busy insulting the tenant doing the upgrades when it's the landlord who behaved badly. If all we do is collectively blame victims when they get taken advantage of, society will crumble. This woman wasn't stupid, she just didn't have her guard up in preparation for the massive asshole who had power over her. There's a difference.

When you are trusting, you're called stupid. When you trust no one, you're called unreasonably cynical. They're two sides of the same victim blaming coin. Start blaming the actual problem: predators.

People who have good reasoning skills can see it for what it is, so we need to collectively get into the habit of calling out disingenuous manipulation and put a stop to it. Rather than focusing on refuting each specific point, draw attention to the most ridiculous points, refute one or two, then stop engaging entirely because it is self-defeating.

The fact that this man is still given televised platforms after everything is unreal. All that does is give the illusion that there is substance to his manipulation. He needs to be shunned to his echo chamber and the world needs to move on.