CLEAN YOUR OWN DAMN TOILET 
The rent ain’t so bad — just $350 a month for a 600-sq.-ft. single-bedroom house steps from Heights Blvd. and I-10. But you’ll be renting this place “as-is,” and these pics are here to help you figure out what that means. [HAR, via Swamplot inbox]
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Does it also come with the fella on the couch in the Kool Aid t-shirt with the crazed chihuahua under his arm? The dryer in the living room/kitchen is a nice touch.
I’d prefer one with the previous occupants removed.
Does the man in picture 2 come with the lease? Does he help with chores? Does he pay for his own internet use?
Suggestion: Raise the rent or just raize the house.
Wow, now even slumlords have agents. Awesome.
HAR says the address is 336. So how come the house has “340” written in poop on the door?
hmm yeah, a bleak place.
That 6th pic (second to last): “Awesome, scraggely hand-painted numerals near the mailbox on your door-frame!
Rent Now!”
It should rent for $340, to match the street address.
Why is there no photo of the listing agent?……
“bubu: Wow, now even slumlords have agents. Awesome”
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This place is a great deal for someone with limited funds that doesn’t mind doing a bit of cleaning. You can cry ‘slumlord’ all you want, but what you are really suggesting is they pretty up the place and rent it for much more.
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That might make you feel better, but it sucks for people that may want to take advantage of something that can be rented for so cheap.
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There are tons of upgraded innerloop properties that rent for $$$ that leave lower income people that work or are students in this area priced out of the market. I bet a lot of those people would trade upgraded bathrooms and new hardwood flooring for a ‘slum’ they could actually afford.
When I see this agent’s listings come up I hate to admit it but I always check them out.
He specializes in deeply distressed properties, and his presentation is unsparing. Shots peering into open toilets and up at ceiling fans are a recurring theme, as well as cans of bug spray, home altars, and terrifying mattresses.
Like KPFT’s Prison Show, at first it is easy to snicker, but then the human reality sneaks in.
This guy’s listing photos should be curated into a show called The Chaos of Despair
Reminds me of “Coming To America.”
“We seek meager accomodations.”
“Oh, you will like this place. It’s REAL f@cked up!”
Let’s not pretend that these slumlords are doing anyone any favors.
But, but, but its in THE HEIGHTS!!!! You have to preserve this piece of Houston’s history. Its small and run down. What more could one ask for? Keep the greedy developers away from this gem of a house.
Having been a student with my housing budget coming from my own earnings back when, and later a first time home owner wanting to live in a nicer neighborhood than I could otherwise afford, I have to agree with Cody. Even now on a somewhat overrated street I have rental property on either side of me, and my batting average for insane neighbors with them is indistinguishable from the owner occupants.
Someone in the Heights has to shop at Walmart.
Lets not pretend that everyone can afford to live in a property that’s upgraded to your standards. If this guy wants to lease out a dirty dump for $350 rather than fix it up and rent it for $600, that’s his (and the renters) right.
Uh-huh. I am sure every single one of these slumlords keeps their properties slummy out of a great humanitarian mission for the greater good of the greatest kind. Puh-lease. Also, what exactly are my standards? Please feel free to go into as much detail as possible. Let’s do make this about me. Finally, you are correct that it is well within the rights of these slumlords to keep their property as crappy as they want, so long as such crappy property meets the bare minimums required by City, State and County codes. Again, let us not pretend these slum lords are doing anybody any favors.
I’ve seen way worse and lived in places that weren’t much better. $200 worth of things like a toilet seat and shower curtain, plus a week’s worth of cleaning for an hour a day would probably make this place look perfectly fine though not fancy or lavish.
I just moved my son into a rental property on Guadalupe in Austin, about 1/2 the size of this.(But cleaner)It’s all Bob Cratchit can afford.($550/mo.)
Mel: I very much doubt, and would never claim, that landlords with crappy places that rent for cheap do it for a “humanitarian mission”, great or otherwise. It’s likely due to their being burned out, lazy, or just not having the funds to upgrade… So they just rent it for cheap as is. But the result is a cheap place that, if rented, obviously houses someone that is willing to take a crappy place in exchange for a low price.
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A lot of people need as low priced housing as possible, even if that housing isn’t up to our (or the all powerful governments) standards.
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Personally when I buy I place I do fix them up and raise the rents but Im sure I upset a lot of existing tenants that would rather me leave the place alone and the rent low. That’s just my personal business model. But I’m sure the people that now can’t afford it move right on over to a “slum” that is in their budget. That’s between the and the landlord. Not between you or the city.
Toilet seat $19,
600 SF Rental for 58 cents a foot rent,
inside the loop, priceless.
Mel: Let’s not pretend that these slumlords are doing anyone any favors.
Why should they? This is a business deal, not a charity. I come from a long line of folks who accepted less-than-perfect to save money.
In my just-graduated days, I might have jumped at this place – wow, $350? So close to downtown? With a lot of elbow grease, some paint, and ingenuity,it could be made quite habitable.
The landlord is not responsible for the dirty bathtub, ugly draperies, general untidiness – the tenant is. Check out his/her car.