Thread: Is This Housing Discrimination?

Property owner hires a broker for two rental properties consisting of ten apartments. In the previous 9 years the property owner did it all by himself and during that time not a single African American was rented an apartment nor anyone with kids or pregnant women. Property owner says to the broker:

"Watch out for blacks....err....I mean some of them are okay but not enough."

Broker ignores the directive and rents based solely on who shows up first with qualifications and correct amount of money. At one point two different apartments were rented at the same time to two different females of the same age. One is white and the other is black. Immediately after but before they moved it, the property owner saw one was black and the other was white. (he physically saw them). The black woman was a pharmacist who had been employed by the same company for seven years while the white tenant was a secretary assistant employed for only 6 months. The black woman's salary was $75,000/year and the white girl made $24,000/year. However, he told the broker to ask the black woman for:

Paybstubs
Proof of being a licensed pharmacist
Criminal Background Check
Bank Statements for the previous five years
Three references in addition to the normal two
Tax Returns
She also had to pay full security
Said he would raise her rent after 6 months

For the white tenant:

asked for no paperwork at all
never asked about a single reference
charged half of the security deposit instead of the full security he charged the black woman.

Shortly after the black woman moved in he accused her of:

getting heating oil by fraud
selling drugs (she had some visitors who were black)
running a prostitution ring (because an unknown white van was suddenly being parked in front of the house. one of the neighbors bought it after she moved it)
trying to move out without notice
being behind on rent when she gave notice to move out (months later) but refused to show how.
illegally having a satellite dish put on the roof without his permission. (he said if it was hers she would be evicted. when he found out it was done by a different tenant who is white there was no problem and he wasn't upset with him.)

Fast forward a bit and a new white tenant female moved in. He was very polite for the first five weeks until he saw she had a black boyfriend and black friends. Afterwards, a neighbor complained she was too loud one night. He threatened to kick her out and I said that was completely unreasonable and he then said it was because she had some "shady looking people" around. Four times I patiently asked what made them look shady. He couldn't give a single reason. Afterwards, the tenant was driving one of the neighbor's car and he saw this and called the tenant if she owned that car. She didn't respond because it wasn't his business. Then these events happened:

Told her to not use a tower fan heater she bought with her own money and cited "safety" but just two weeks prior he gave a different tenant in the same house a tower fan heater. The only visible difference was the color of the heaters.

An old pump for her toilet broke and needed to be replaced. Afterwards he told her how much it cost him and implied she would not get her security deposit back even though she did nothing to cause it to break.

Three different times after it was installed he demanded to go in to her apartment to "check it out" even though he was there when it was installed completely and tested. The times he requested were when he knew she would be at work.

She works early in the morning and at least four different nights he was doing work on the house right next to her apartment banging loudly between the hours of 10 pm and 1am. None of it was an emergency.

A different day he knocked on her door and told her she could not burn a small candle she purchased and was limited to using incense only.

A different tenant who had been there for over a year, always paid rent ahead of time and never received a single complaint from other tenants informed us he would be moving out. At the end of the 30 days the property owner called him and made bizarre accusations and threatened to take him to court. I don't have to say the tenant was African American do I?

There is more but I'm wondering if that is sufficient to prove discrimination?

Not sure which country or province you are in, but in some regions anti-discrimination laws do not apply if the landowner resides in the same property, and the property consists of less than 5 units.

What you do for one you do for all.

Sounds like you could make a decent argument for discrimination.

Originally Posted by Anders Hoveland

Not sure which country or province you are in, but in some regions anti-discrimination laws do not apply if the landowner resides in the same property, and the property consists of less than 5 units.

I'm in MA and the owner has more than one rental property so he is not exempt and in one house he has an illegal apartment but lives in another house on Cape Cod. (actually it's a B+B) Thanks for thinking of that but I did check.

For his B+B he actually told me when someone calls to make a reservation and they "sound" black he will tell them he is booked up. The dude is disgusting. He also has surveillance cameras at the B+B that are not disclosed to the guests and I will have to check but I'm pretty sure in MA you have to make patrons aware of the presence of cameras, especially in places like a B+B. He doesn't have them for security but just because he is a bit psychotic.

Originally Posted by Wolverine

What you do for one you do for all.

Sounds like you could make a decent argument for discrimination.

Thanks for reading because I know that isn't a short OP but I even left info out to make it short. I had a recording of him disparaging blacks in one particular city but then found out in MA you are required to have the consent of all parties before recording so even though it helped prove the discrimination I can never use it and could get in trouble myself.

I don't think he can explain everything way but wanted some input from complete strangers for a new perspective.

Is this rhetorical? If it is, then I don't think it's a very useful discussion.

If you're claiming that this is a real situation, then I would just ask how you acquired all these details.

yeah racism doesn't exist....... anyone who pretends it does is just being racist against white people.... everyone knows that

Originally Posted by grantedpanda

yeah racism doesn't exist....... anyone who pretends it does is just being racist against white people.... everyone knows that

You're kind of being sarcastically sarcastic. That's the type of disposition that can make race relations worse because people will misunderstand your point.

Originally Posted by Beast Mode

Is this rhetorical? If it is, then I don't think it's a very useful discussion.

If you're claiming that this is a real situation, then I would just ask how you acquired all these details.

How does it being real or not effect the outcome of deciding if it is racism?

Originally Posted by grantedpanda

yeah racism doesn't exist....... anyone who pretends it does is just being racist against white people.... everyone knows that

There does seem to be an unrealistic standard for determining the presence of racism in any given situation. Some people act like unless a racist admits to being a racist then everything is oKKKay.