Landlord hikes make me think--what do they get in return for rent control? Either they're forced to, or there's something on the back end that makes it worth while, right? My company is now squeezing every legal cent out of me now that they've announced rent control, but the bulk of the increases were certainly not controlled.

If they'd increased rent like I expected after the remodel of the shared areas, I'd have had to move out. But now my rent is $xxx1.05 (I serious don't remember the first three digits--seems I can recall three digits, and now that the last three are ridic, those are the ones that stick) and it's not the $300 odd raises from before.

And then, if I move out, they can set a higher level and start again with the next folks, right?

Usually, yeah. In NYC, "rent stabilization" put a cap on the annual increase and a different formulation for how much the landlord could raise the rent in between tenants.

So very relevant.

Landlord hikes make me think--what do they get in return for rent control? Either they're forced to, or there's something on the back end that makes it worth while, right?

Rent control might ensure more stable long-term tenants with more pride of place, resulting in fewer months of rent payments lost to moves and less extensive repair/reno costs when moves do occur. I think some combo of that and my landlord knowing my mom has kept my rent the same since I moved in (knock wood).

Is everywhere in NYC stabilised, Jesse?

a different formulation for how much the landlord could raise the rent in between tenants

I did not know that. I thought that was free money. I think I will do some research after work.

When I was there, it only applied to apartments under $2K, so not nicer or larger apartments. And the between-tenants increase was to pay for sprucing up the place, new appliances, etc. I always assumed that the landlord counted (for example) the cost of painting the apartment to be what it would cost to hire painters, and then just had the super do it.

Spoiler: It will cost them nothing, since I'm sure they will charge the next person even more than I am paying....

In some places, once they get a new tenant they can't charge you more for the lease. If that makes sense--so if they require three months notice, but have someone move in a month after you give notice, they can't charge you those extra two months.

I'll be living in the apartment for the three months! I am thinking about a strategy to counter, because apartments have not sat empty while I've lived there. This summer they've been renovating as people moved out, so I just don't think there are any damages to be mitigated by this extra money I'm going to pay them. It's just too bad it's so clear in the lease that I signed! I may just ask if it could be reduced regardless.

Oh, I thought you wanted to move sooner than 3 months!

Worth asking, all they can say is no and you're no worse off.

Unrelated: does anyone else read Slate? It might just be that I'm on a netbook, but DAMN their redesign is AWFUL. I like to scroll down and see all the new stories, and I can't see half of what they've got, the way it is now.

So I'm working on timesheets. That is what I've come to. But doing them during work hours is new, especially since I don't know how to book my timesheet filling time.

This sort of thing came up in a meeting this morning.

The NIH will pay you to do research, but they will not pay you to write the grants necessary to get them to pay you to do research.

That's ok if you are in a traditional university. Usually grants only pay the 30% of your salary over the summer. NIH assumes that you write the grants during the school year. But if you are in a medical school or research institute you need to cover all of your salary with grants, and to do that you need to spend most of your time writing grants. Which you can't get paid to do. Because that is not what NIH is paying you to do.

Catch 22.

So the solution is for the med school to pay, say, 2% of the researcher's salary, and for everyone to pretend that the researcher is spending that fifty minutes per week writing eight or ten grants a year. When in fact, they are spending 50 hours a week working on grants. There is an agreement from both sides just not to talk about it. Because the whole system would fall apart if you talked about it.