🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Alex_Currier-0603951622000001@slip-2-73.ots.utexas.edu>,
Alex_Currier@attpls.net (Alex Currier) wrote:

>That is pure bullshit. Nowhere in the Constitution does it specify that
>you have to be a PROPERTY OWNER to have rights. You are absolutely wrong. 
>
>[...]
>
>And that's what we have a problem with. The leases should be rewritten
>because they strip a persons basic rights (rights guaranteed by the
>Constitution) to privacy and are therefore unfair.

The rights guaranteed by the Constitution (in particular, protection from
illegal search and seizure guaranteed by the 4th Amendment and the
unmentioned right to privacy which is read into the Constitution by virtue
of the 4th and 9th Amendments), are protections against the actions of
government toward the citizens, not against the actions of citizens toward
each other.  Your constitutional rights are not being trampled here
because it isn't the government entering your apartment without your
permission.  The landlord owns the land, so he gets to say under what
conditions the renter may use the land.  If one of those conditions is
that the landlord or his agents may enter any of the units without
permission of the renters, so be it.  It's his land, so he can do with it
what he wants within the limits of the law, and right now there is no law
prohibiting such clauses in lease contracts.  You may not like that, but
that's the way it is.

For the record, I think that entry-without-renter's-permission stuff is a
pretty lousy policy and I don't blame anyone for not liking it.  But
claims of denial of Constitutional rights don't hold water.  You'd be
better off going to the legislature and getting some laws passed that do a
better job of protecting the interests of the renter.  Or maybe you could
go after the landlords on an anti-trust basis.  I'm no lawyer and I don't
know much about anti-trust law, but from what I've heard here about that
TAA standard lease (which isn't much, and I've never rented anything that
used one), it sounds to me like some kind of collusion among the landlords
to suppress competition in this area.  "Let's all adopt a lease contract
that lets us enter rented units without permission of the renter.  It is
in our best interest to do so, and if we all do it then they'll have no
where else to turn."  I'm probably just blowing smoke here, but if they
tried to fix prices the same way then they really would be in hot water if
someone could prove it in court.

                                ++Don Nash

Internet: D.Nash@utexas.edu     The University of Texas System
THEnet:   THENIC::DON           Office of Telcommunication Services