Pandomag.com - Garage Media and Proud!

Yes, Virginia, re your inquiry, I am all done house-sitting - dang-it! I just get settled into and am enjoying a place when I gotta leave cause the dang owners come back! It is not right! Not fair! Not equitable! Why do all my friends - well all my friends my age anyway - own lovely homes with elegant pets and lovely children while I can no longer afford to rent even a shoe-box in this dang town? I was living in a refrigerator box but had to down-size! Now I am living in a business-sized envelope! The only thing I own is my bicycle - and it's molting! Somehow I am a boomer who missed the boat - why do you see no media coverage about us? Eh? Tonight on Nightline! Busted Boatless Boomers!

See, Virginia, the apartment vacancy rate here in Seattle is less than one percent - and as there is no rent control of any sort, evil landlords or even good ones can pretty much charge whatever they want. Also, a person can be living in their apartment for years and years, and the landlord can jack up the rent 500 dollars a month if they want! At a moments notice! At their whim! With no thoughts of decency or fairness! This happened to an old girlfriend of mine. She was so traumatized she moved to Kent and married a Boeing engineer. Sad....tragic....a great loss to the city...

I am afraid the only solution for this nefarious and unfair scene is rent control - but the weenie and spineless (did I mention gutless?) City Council will never dare suggest that. It would be like mentioning communism in the '50's, 80's, or 90's....

Mayor Paul Schell, our new Mayor who is full of ideas, (or something) is a member of the landed gentry and developer of resort destinations for rich people. He also owns a chateau in France, so he well understands this terribly important issue of unaffordable housing. He talks with the help about it all the time.

Anyway, he has dealt with the problem by this initiative: he has appealed to the benevolent souls of landlords to not take advantage of a deliciously wonderful market ripe for the plucking. "I appeal to the benevolent nature and better angels of the landlords of this city to not take undue advantage of a booming rental market" said the mayor, encouraging landlords to limit rent increases to ONLY 10% of current rents. So far it is working. My landlord HAD raised my rent 33% this year, but after hearing the Mayor's heart-felt plea she reduced my rent-increase! To 30%!!! Better angels indeed! Most landlords I know, if they DO have better angels, the angels are named something like Killer, Sluggo, Bubba, or Vinny "the knife"...

I am afraid the only recourse for the 51 percent of the people in this city who are renters, is to rise up and lop off the heads of a few miscreant landlords. Put the few heads of landlords on pikes on Pike Street, as an example to ALL landlords of this city, even ones that own chateaus in France, and this town will get a LOT more livable..... fast....

Best Wishes,
-John Bob

More Hilarious Cartoons by John Ambrosavage:

Gore and Bush on Campaign Finance

A Bad Day at Work

Just Hangin' Around

Elvis and the Shrink

Mother Earth's Miranda Rights

"This Meal has been genetically altered..."

The Trouble With Pondering

Attorney Fees

When Good People Stop to Ponder

When Good Men Do Nothing