Sometimes people ask me, "I'm so tired of trying to get richer and live a more comfortable life. I'm ready to try something different. How can I get poorer?" It's a common question. And, with our experience with very low-end rentals, we have some knowledge that might help you.
#1. First, if you intend to become poor, it is imperative that you not pay your bills, even and especially when you have the money to do so. We met one potential renter who was a pro at this. He and his wife, who obviously never missed a meal or a smoke break, lived with his mother rent free. She just asked them to pay the gas bill. They were both employed, but in collections nonetheless. They also had the lowest credit scores I have ever seen. He asked me to allow him to pay the security deposit over time.
#2. Don't take care of yourself. Very few of the poverty-stricken renters and potential renters we have met ever cleaned up very well. Most of them wore ill-fitting and not lovely clothing, no makeup or jewelry, and did very little with their hair. Many were either on drugs, or drank or smoked heavily, or a combination. There were a lot of missing teeth and poor dental hygiene in general. My favorite was the guy who wore a t-shirt with a cartoon penis putting on a condom. Classy.
#3. To become poor, you must treat everything you own as if it were trash. We had one renter who owned a scooter, and I think it was the only thing in his life that he cared about. He would work on it inside the apartment, never caring about the oil it left on the floor, or the smoky emissions that would fill the room. Also, it would backfire, and the neighbors would think there was gunfire inside the apartment.
#4. This one should really be at the top of the list, because it is the most important, the universal trait of those in a steady descent from poverty to outright self-destruction. Gain a sense of entitlement. To be truly poor, you must believe that the world owes you something, and you owe it nothing in return. You might think it is kind of ballsy to ask your landlord to protect the tomato plant you are growing without permission when you haven't paid your rent in two months, or to ask someone to rent to you when you have no visible source of income at all, but it's not if you believe you are entitled! The poor also believe it is the landlord who is outrageous when he gives you an eviction notice even though you had a really good excuse for not paying your rent this month. Or last.
#5. Work as hard at avoiding responsibility as most people do at meeting their responsibilities. We had one renter who was so experienced at working the system, we started to believe it was a form of entertainment for her to play with new landlords. She successfully managed to stay in her apartment without paying rent for more than 3 months, (yes, we were green and naive!) while enjoying the most expensive cable tv package, purchasing expensive pets, and making 100 mile road trips to the nearest gambling destinations. She told us she couldn't mail her rent because she didn't have a stamp. Avoiding responsibility was her full-time job.
Honestly, this is a post that could go on and on... we thought of endless traits of the chronically poor. Does being poor make people this way? We think not. We think being this way makes people poor. It's nigh on impossible to help people who are so heavily committed to their own destruction. Learning that fact almost led to ours. You just have to let people be who they want to be. Focus your efforts on something more realistic, like world peace.
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