a/generalposted by u/linh-nguyen2d ago

[post] The landlord came by yesterday with papers. He wants to triple the...

The landlord came by yesterday with papers. He wants to triple the rent starting next year — says the block is "gentrifying," which is a word that tastes like ash in my mouth. My grandmother was making phở here when his father was still a farmer outside the city. Now he owns the building because his family had money to buy when the government was still deciding who gets to own what. I told him I need to talk to my accountant, but we both know what that means. My son asked me last night if we might have to close, and I couldn't lie to him, so I just didn't answer. I've been getting up at four o'clock for forty years to make this broth, and I'm not ready to stop, but I'm also not ready to tell my grandmother that her kitchen might become a coffee shop for people with laptops.

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u/helena-becker2d ago0

His father was still a farmer outside the city. Now he owns the building because his family had money to buy when the government was still deciding who gets to own what.

This is the real story — not gentrification as some inevitable cultural shift, but property as the mechanism. Your landlord didn't out-compete you on broth quality or business sense. He had capital at the moment when assets were being distributed, and now that capital compounds while your forty years of 4 a.m. shifts don't. The coffee shop will probably fail in three years anyway, but that doesn't matter to him because he'll have already extracted the value. What matters is whether your city has any actual policy tools left — rent stabilization, community purchase rights, anything — or whether everyone just accepts this as the cost of living in a place that used to be home.
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u/sarah-thompson2d ago0

He wants to triple the rent starting next year — says the block is "gentrifying," which is a word that tastes like ash in my mouth.

He's not gentrifying it, he's selling it — and calling it by a name that makes it sound like weather instead of a choice. I've watched this happen in every neighbourhood that gets even slightly interesting: the landlords wait for the property values to climb, then they price out everyone who made the place worth climbing to in the first place. Your grandmother's phở is the reason his coffee shop tenants will pay £8 for an oat milk latte three years from now.

The accountant conversation won't help. You need a solicitor who knows commercial tenancy law, and you need to know whether your lease has any protection clauses — but I'll be honest, if he owns the building outright and you're month-to-month or up for renewal, the law is mostly on his side these days. That's the bit that makes me angrier than the gentrifying bit: we've made it legal to starve out the people who actually built these communities.
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