I’m a dumb idiot who needed Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria to hit in the same month to realize Kaijus in Pacific Rim were a metaphor for climate change and hurricanes and, like, the movie isn’t even subtle about it
Rocio Fuentes weighed up the cost of getting some new sofas for her new apartment in Pasadena, Texas, and decided the family budget could just about stretch to it. Just one month after moving in, Hurricane Harvey swept through and the Fuenteses were left not only with the ruined furniture but also an ongoing rental demand for a dwelling they had to flee.
“At first we didn’t think it would be that bad, but then the water came through the wall and up through the carpet,” Fuentes said. “Once we saw the water wasn’t going to stop, we left.”
Fuentes, her husband Jaime and their five children, ages ranging from seven months to 14 years, were plucked from the floodwaters by her mother, who arrived in a truck. They are now crammed into her sister’s apartment and with no insurance have little idea where they will live next. Jaime is unable to earn money because his construction job has been paused due to the flooding.
But while everything has changed for this family, they are still expected to pay for their abandoned home.
“Our landlords say we have to pay rent and late fees and every day it is going up,” Fuentes said. “We are paying rent for somewhere we can’t live in. They said ‘you aren’t the only ones in this situation’, but what are we supposed to do? We don’t have any money. We don’t have anything.”
Capitalism is evil.
Like some of the other comments in this are saying, legally a lot of landlords can’t actually charge rent in a situation like this, so if you find yourself in this situation, you do have legal recourse.
In Texas, the tenant law dictates that you have a right to demand that the landlord repair any condition that materially affects your health and safety. Under Texas law, by renting you the property, the landlord guarantees that the unit will be a fit place to live.
So if it’s dangerously flooded and unhygienic THEY have to fix it, not you, and you can break your lease with no penalty or have the landlord court ordered to repair it. Most states have laws like this, so actually the landlords here are risking lawsuits and people legally nailing them to the wall by trying to charge on units that are unfit for habitation.
These landlords are really stupid because apartments that are flooded out and growing black mold are going to be impossible to prove as healthy and safe. They’re just trying to take advantage of people not knowing their tenants’ rights to eke rent out of them for as long as they can before the tenants realize they actually can’t do that.
Guys, the first images of Irma’s level of devastation are coming out of Barbuda and it’s heartbreaking. The President of Barbuda says that 90% of the island is uninhabitable, upwards of 60% of the TOTAL population are now homeless because the hurricane destroyed virtually every building and home on the island, and that the estimated damage is valued at no less than $200 million dollars. That’s money a small island like that doesn’t have. They’re saying it’s going to take years to rebuild and Hurricane Jose is right behind Irma on the same path which means they could be hit twice. This is just one of the islands being affected.
Please, show up for the Caribbean like you did for Houston. There is no safety net for any of these islands including mine. They’ll rely entirely on foreign aid. Find local charities or global trustworthy charities (NOT the Red Cross) and make a donation asking them to aid the Caribbean. There’s whole countries being turned into rubble with no financial means to repair their infrastructures. They’re going to need help.
The next time I see one of those “millenials will be photographing the end of the world” posts I’m gonna scream because let me tell you, I just went through a natural disaster and Snapchat literally saved people’s lives. Thanks to snapchat I knew exactly what roads were flooded, what stores were open, what my HOUSE looked like (since I wasn’t there), and which shelters I could go to. People were snapping/tweeting asking to be rescued and THEY WERE. I didn’t get my news from the tv, I saw it in real time on social media and I will never not be grateful for that.
The death toll continues to rise amid concerns that disease and food insecurity could claim even more lives, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
IFRC spokesperson Antony Balmain tells TIME that the flooding has heightened the risk of diarrhea, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis and other diseases. x
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