The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Sunday, February 10, 2002

“I want to own nothing, but control everything.”

I'm back at Condo Conner, updating the journal here (since we don't have connectivity at the Facility in the Middle of Nowhere yet) and I read the latest certified letter to Spring (since she hasn't actually had a chance to see it yet). She then mentioned that in each letter, it refered to an “apartment” and not a “condominium.”

I went back and checked, and while it wasn't all three letters, it was listed as an apartment on the two letters about the non-existant dog we have here.

I'm beginning to see what might be happening here.

Last year a very vocal minority of owners here tried to get the Board to pass a regulation outlawing the renting of properties. There was a return volley by the opposition and the resulting vote reaffirmed that the owners could still rent their properties.

We (Spring, Rob and I) think that there may be a new board in place, due to the increase in Condo Commando activity.

I'm beginning to suspect that the Vice President of the Board is a member of the anti-renting faction and for units that are suspected as being rented are under more scrutiny than units who's owners live in them. The result: slowly drive out renters and owners who rent.

Or that this is, in fact, a clear sign that while we (in the collective, condo-owners-all-over sense) may think we own property (or more acurately, a volume of space) what with the mortgages and various association fees, we are in fact, nothing more than glorified renters who paid for the priviledge of living here (in fact, I'm beginning to think that the whole concept of private ownership is outmoded, since the insanely rich don't even own stuff—they either lease it, or “own” it through trusts or foundations that they in fact control. Heck, in some states when you buy property, unless you get the “mineral rights” (for an appreciable larger amount of money) you only own the “surface” of the land—and that's if you can actually buy mineral rights).

By the way, the title to this entry is a quote from John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

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