Month: November 2009

Roommates- Not just for the recession

In Saturday’s Washington Post section about people taking on roommates because of the economic downturn, I kept thinking of that 18th & 19th century stock character of the widow or couple taking in borders like the Micawbers for David Coperfield. In early 20th century pulp fiction you have the murder mystery of a dead husband with the wife and the hot young male border as suspects. It is unfortunate that it takes an economic downturn for some folks to see having roommates or boarders as a positive.
For the most part I’ve always had roommates. When I bought my house, yet after I got it in decent shape to share, I took in roommates. I could afford to live without roommates, but the extra cash doesn’t hurt, and I am sharing resources. Because I am the homeowner and it is a roommate situation I can be picky about who gets to live with me. Finding a roommate can take weeks or a couple of months depending on the season. I’ve charged between $500 and $750 a month, depending on the state of the house, season, length of stay, included utilities, etc. I’ve gotten roommates from Craigslist, personal leads, and the Washington City Paper.
Roommates can be great, not just for the money. Depending on who I’ve had, I learned about other countries and cultures, experienced the way others view the world, picked up some cooking & drink tips, and had someone around the house so I’m not talking to myself all the time.
Now if you are thinking of renting out your extra room I have a few pointers.

1. Ignore scammers. These are the long winding nonsensical emails you’ll get from foreign supermodels or freelancers with no set employment in DC or lawyers writing on behalf of their daughters/nieces. Even if they are the only responses you get all week, ignore them. They are a waste of your time.

2. Seriously interview and check references. This person will be living in your home and will have keys to it. I usually like to talk to at least one ex-roommate to find out how they are with cleaning, how responsible they are, etc.

3. Have a contract. I had a roommate agreement. The reason being is I wanted to clarify what my and what my roommate’s responsibilities were, with cleaning, utilities, smoking, guests, and lost keys. You can find examples here, here, and here (PDF).

4. Sometimes nobody is better than anybody. Try not to be desperate to get just anybody in. If you seriously can’t afford the rent on your own, a deadbeat roommate just makes the situation worse.

Gentrification Reducing Downward Mobility?

I really wish the findings of a Pew Trust report (PDF) regarding economic mobility was a little clearer. The best I could figure, before they threw in the math equation, which totally lost me, is that when a neighborhood decreases poverty a child’s chance of heading downward as he/she grows up decreases. Yeah, there are a lot of negatives, unfortunately it isn’t clear when you make the sentence positive that there is the data to back it up. A positive sentence would be that when a neighborhood becomes richer, or parents move into a neighborhood with less than 10-20% poverty, their children will grow up to become successful adults who make more money than their parents. What was clear was a child growing up in a poorer neighborhood where poverty was 20% or more is more likely to become poorer.
I was reading the report trying to figure out if gentrification, or the lessening of the rate of poverty in a neighborhood, had any positive for poor children who remain in the neighborhood. The best I can figure from the report is that it doesn’t hurt. Apparently there weren’t enough families in the study group who moved from poor neighborhoods to neighborhoods with less than 10% poverty whose children became upwardly mobile adults.

Gay Dancing in Columbia Heights

Columbia Heights Goes Gay!

The Wonderland Ballroom Returns to its Roots with Launch of new monthly eccentric/alternative gay Dance party!

The Wonderland Ballroom, the dancing/drinking oasis for Columbia Height’s hipster sub-culture, launches new monthly gay dance party, Pink Sock, the third Wednesday of every month. Starting Wednesday, November 18th, Pink Sock marks a return to the bar’s roots as it once served as an African-American gay bar in the early 70s.

This time around, Boston-native DJ RAD (Twitter: @ForeverRAD) will be MC’ing an orgy for the eyes and ears, as he pumps out the hottest ass-shaking jams from the most innovative and avante garde performance artists from the 70s-disco era, 80s-new wave, 90-house & hip-hop, to the freshest electro music of today. We’re talking everything from Grace Jones to Prince, Madonna to Lady Gaga, Miss Kittin to MSTRKRFT. To further stimulate and entrance you, there will be accompanying visualizations and home-made music videos that are sure to delight and disturb.

EVENT DETAILS:

Pink Sock @ The Wonderland Ballroom

The Third Wednesday of Every month

Launches Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

1101 Kenyon St, NW (11th & Kenyon)

Doors open @9:00pm

Free (As Always!)

$5 Pink Sock Shot & PBR Special

FOR MORE INFO:
www.pinksockdc.com
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=163209779565
Twitter: @PinkSockDC

Ten Days of Truxtun- The End

Day 10. I’ve been trying to figure out at what point Tom Truxtun went from Captain Truxtun to Commodore Truxtun. Apparently some time between 1800-1801, when he took command of the President and before he quit the US Navy all together because of some ranking spat, that wasn’t entirely Truxtun’s fault. In 1801 the fake war with France ended and there wasn’t much of a need for a wartime naval force. And it appears through some letters sent in 1802 about a meeting with the Secretary of the Navy, because he caught a cold failed to dine with the Secretary, who apparently wasn’t that keen on him in the 1st place, who then failed to provide Truxtun with the requested personnel needed. It seems that Truxtun decided if he was going to get no respect he may as well quit. So he did and from 1803-1822 lived life as a gentleman living off of prize money won in earlier years. He had a farm, a couple for a while, but settled at Wood Lawn, a farm not far from Philadelphia. He served as a High Sheriff from 1816-1819. In 1822 he died, his wife a year later.

Ten Days of Truxtun:
Day 1- The Name-The Hood
Day 2- Slavery
Day 3- Commodore’s background
Day 4- What I did During the American Revolution
Day 5- Continuing the Revolutionary War
Day 6- Going for broke
Day 7- In the Navy
Day 8- Not the British Navy
Day 9- Fake French War

Resources- Commodore Thomas Truxtun 1755-1822 by Eugene S. Ferguson. The free Library of Philadelphia, 1947.
Truxtun of the Constellation: The Life of Commodor Thomas Truxtun, US Navy, 1755-1822, by Eugene S. Ferguson. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Great Weekend


Block clean up
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

I want to thank BACA, Anita Bonds our ANC and my neighbor Brian for making for an awesome block treebox planting. BACA (regular meeting is tonight at 7 @ Mt. Sinai) provided a tree, Anita provided the plants, dirt and mulch and Brian was just amazing. Bri organized the residents, going door to door (if you didn’t get the message you weren’t home) a week or so before, talking to neighbors about the treeboxes in front of their homes, getting commitments from neighbors for particular tasks (supervising, digging, etc), and picking up the donated material from Bonds and BACA. The result was a fun work filled morning where new neighbors got to meet each other and older neighbors, kids running around, plants getting planted, treeboxes getting built (Thanks John!) and the block being totally awesome.
More pictures of efforts all over north TC at the BACA blog.

We did get trick or treaters but not as many as last year. I don’t know if it was due to rain, or it being a weekend night or what. We started off with the big gang of 15-20, kids and their parents. They all had barreled out of one parent’s house and slowly made their way down the block. Then a few small clusters of families and I swear one drive by… parents in an SUV who saw some candy action, dropped the kids off, got candy and drove off. I shut down about 10 mins to 9PM, when some neighborhood teens who sorta made an effort came by. When I get teens it’s time to quit.