The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-01-21
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
BE YOUR OWN RENT PRoFTTEER
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, d. C.

! Washington, d. C.
BE YOUR OWN RENT PRoFTTEER-
New York. Jan. 16.-When your
/ struggle with the rent profiteer be-
comes exasperating, become a rent
profiteer yourself.
This is the clever alternative which
hundreds of New Workers are now
adopting in order to procure for them
to which they have been accustomed,
but which are now beyond the means
OF moderate incomes. In other words.
groups of harried home-seekers in all
sections of the city are pooling their
savings and building or buying their
own apartment houses. living in the
choicest suites and renting the others
| at good profit.
1t is a most profitable investment.
In building your own apartment house
you can have anything you want. You
can have the most attractive kind OF
windows. fireplaces. large rooms. the
most up-to-date baths. the most arts
tic lighting fixtures, an electric refrig-
Grating plant. dumb but expert wait
ers, and even balconies and stairs. If
you want to have pleasant afternoon
some time just get some blue prints
| and go over all the marvellous things
that are available for apartment
houses. And the incest thing about 1t
| fences at a comparatively low cost by
making your tenants pay for them.
OF course. you must have some cap
ital to put into the enterprise your
self. but it does not necessarily have
| to be much. You can borrow the
money with which to do most of the
building. and also make your tenants
pay for that.
Not long ago, for example. some
| 1 "a ~.
ment house held an indignation meet
ing to protest against the nefarious
| ways of the management. For one
thing. the management was stingy
with its coal, and for another It pro-
vided the most cratic and naughty
sort of an elevator service. The ele
vator moved only after 10 o'clock in
( the morning and before 10 o'clck at
night; moreover. it moved only for the
! tenants in person-guests of the ten
| ants were compelled to use the stairs.
/ II simply cannot stand it any
| longer declared the wife of success
full advertising man. who believed she
had heart trouble and was therefore
outraged at having to walk the three
| flights of stairs to her apartment four
nights in succession.
But what can we do?'' demanded
n lady osteopath, who was losing
| patients on account OF the independ-
ence of the elevator.
I'D like to be manager Of this place
| wife of the advertising manager
darkly. That elevator boy"
We'll. why don't you take over the
management? interrupted her hus-
band. You have nothing else to do"
! why don't we all take over the
management" suggested plump and
prosperous-looking broker who was
known to nave influential connections
in Wall street.
| The tenants had never thought of it
before, but now they perceived it to
| be great inspiration. Each had a
small sum of capital to invest. and the
| broker assured them that the rest of
the money could be raised in Wall
street. There's nothing phoney about
a proposition of this Kind he said.
''It'll be easy" Which subsequently
proved to be the case.
| Two months later, the members of
this indignation meeting had become
the landlords of the premises; were
living in all the apartments with best
| exposures. and were renting the other
| five suites at an increased rate of rent.
| They had to pay rent. too, but only
| enough to cover the interest en- the
mortgage. Adding to this the per
cent interest they would have received
from investing their capital elsewhere,
they were still getting their homes at
a lower cost than If they had been
paying private landlords. The ex-
penses of operating the building were
met entirely by the rents of the new
tenants, who were unlucky enough to
be left out of the corporation.
This is only one of many recent in
| stances which show that the moder-
ately well-off and the wealthy do not
enjoy being victims of profiteerine
| any more than do the poor. Those
who live in eleven-rooms and five
baths suites do not care to pay ex-
orbitant prices for them any more
three room bathless tenements. The
only difference is that they do not
have to do it. They have discovered
this thrifty means of circumventing it,
| The latest scheme for a co-opera-
tively-owned apartment house, which
| is still in the form of blue-prints is
MOT some model dwelling for working
people, but regal palace. with all the
elaborate appointments of royalty 1t
is to be a sixteen-story structure
erected on one of tQe most valua Bile
sites in the city, with a large restau-
rant on the ground floor, which is to
be conducted by a prominent restaura-
teur and is to furnish service to all
the individual apartments in the build
ing. For the families who prefer
home cooking, there will be all of the
latest labor-saving devices to help per-
form the work when the servant prob
lem refuses to be solved-even by the
management. For it is announced
that the management is to provide the
chief cooks and bottle washers of each
menage. altho the blue prints show
that the dishwashing will be done
mostly by electricity. Refrigeration
will also be accomplished by electric
ity. so thAt the tenants will not be
| tTOnblPd iorai
knocks of icemen at their doors. In
fact, they will not be bothered with
, the business of keeping house at all
They will have all the ease and com
Observation-Disclosures
SThe George n