Free the Chump

Cats and Dogs add Smoke-Free too, Craigslist

2008-03-09T16:58:00.002-04:00

If you agree, the American Lung Association of Oregon has created a site and letter for you to request Craigslist's help in making their housing listings smoke-free.

Imagine smoke-free housing at the click of a button, that's visionary.

Take Action tell Craigslist you want smoke free housing

48 years ago the Surgeon General reported that Smoking Kills

2008-01-20T22:07:00.000-05:00

Where were you?

Surgeon General's Report,
January 11, 1964

The Growing Militancy of the Nation's Smokers,
January 15, 1984.

Boss Terminates Non-Smoking Employees
January 11, 2008

"Smokers have always been our best employees. Non-smokers interfere with corporate peace. "Our non-smoking employees were actually convinced that they had the right to smoke-free zones. They just complained all the time about smoking, and I don't like grumbles."--" Jensen was quoted by MSNBC

Google Reviews Tobacco Companies comment as Smokin' news

2008-01-16T03:46:00.000-05:00

Philip Morris passes Google News review on an empty comment link

What does it take to figure out that the decrease in smoking is a Cover?

2008-01-13T23:49:00.000-05:00

for decrease in sales of taxable cigarettes?

"The tobacco industry nearly doubled the amount of money it spends on advertising, from $6.7 billion in 1998 to $13.1 billion in 2005."--Money Times

"decline in smoking directly tied to the size of tax increase"--Smoking declines as taxes increase - USATODAY.com

The interpretation of the tax data/smoker decrease is what blows the mind. Its tax data/number of cigarettes sold on the taxable market decrease but nobody objects. Bloggers aren't scandalized, the buzz never came out of the beehive? Why?

Point blank the ruling media, owners of bloggers in the top tier of the media's mind, supports the tobacco companies. The health industry, the taxing governments, the political campaigns, all benefit from people smoking and media reporting that smokers have decreased as a result of the taxes.

Opensecrets.org has the tobacco companies election contributions for 2008 below:

Election Cycle: 2008
Rank 60
Total Contributions $1,488,323
Contributions from individuals $583,895
Contributions from PACs $904,428
Soft Money Contributions N/A
Democrats $566,485
Republicans $921,838
% to Dems 38%
% to Republicans 62%

Tobacco:
Top 20 Presidential Candidates
Election Cycle 2008

Rank	Candidate	Amount
1	Giuliani, Rudolph W (R)	$76,400
2	Dodd, Christopher J (D)	$45,900
3	Clinton, Hillary (D)	$36,600
4	Romney, Mitt (R)	$32,400
5	Obama, Barack (D)	$8,885
6	McCain, John (R)	$5,600
7	Biden, Joseph R Jr (D)	$4,000
8	Thompson, Fred (R)	$1,250
9	Richardson, Bill (D)	$1,000
10	Vilsack, Thomas J (D)	$500

They need to interpret that if you increase taxes you decrease smoking. And, they know its not true. If you increase taxes you'll increase the black market and the nontaxable cigarette, however you want to think of it.

The real deal is that if you walk on the streets of New York City, anywhere and any time, you'll find dozens of smokers per cross street and avenue; hiding under the awning of prevalent construction, out in the open cowering in front of office buildings, out in front of the bars, restaurants (their windows and open doors). That's the real-time facts and my friends, they don't have landlines, they have cell phones and they don't come from Staten Island, no indeed they don't.

And what of the longstanding law about no smoking in buildings. I worked in a Wall Street law firm last year, where the partner smoked nonstop in his huge office. He left his door open all the time. I asked his secretary about that. I told her it was bothering me. She said you can't do anything about it.

And about sitting in just about any office building in New York City, they might as well smoke. Because the tobacco from the open doors and windows, the holes in the building, bring the smoke right full blast into the ventilation systems and cigarette smoke is pumped out daily to its occupants. Ah who cares cry the lease owners. Their clients are the cigarette companies. Good thing for the insurance company, because their staff is out sick all the time. They don't smoke, they tell their doctor who tells them to stop smoking.

Truly walking down the streets of New York City is as if suddenly you were caught in the middle of a fire swallowing circus act. The smokers puff like a train to the side, back and front of you. They fling their hands up and down with the lit cigarette. They throw the cigarette without even looking.

On the decline in smoking prevalence 2002-2006, New York City increased the excise tax on cigarettes from $.08 to $1.50 per pack, the State excise tax increase from $1.11 to $1.50, resulting in a 32% increase in the retail price, the highest combined cit/state tax in the United States at the time.--CDC

Is the Cigarette your Master?

2008-01-01T10:33:00.000-05:00

Taking up more and more of your time?

Everywhere in Manhattan the Tobacco Vaders take their addicts out for a walk and work break every hour on the hour and sometimes before (even dogs taking a pee don't have it so good).

A woman outside of a bar window totally serves her cigarette, she can't withdraw her mouth from it, she is trying. She is desperately addicted to her cigarette. It is her master.

A man, doggedly walking right behind me on the street, totally ruins my hair and coat with his non-stop smoking. It feels as if I am walking ahead of a steam engine train.

I stop for the red light. A guy totally puffs his cigarette all over my beautiful face. It is one of the most beautiful faces in New York City. I look at him. I tell him he has done so. To no avail, Tobacco Vader is in charge of his hand and mouth.

In Manhattan of New York City, all up and down 42nd street, in front of all Grand Central entrance/exits, Penn Station, Port Authority Bus Terminal, Ferry stops, bus stops and even inside of the subway station tunnels and tollbooths, in front of all the bars and restaurants, in front of the doors and to the sides of all office buildings, in all the very dark recesses of the myriad of construction fronts, people are smoking furiously, 24 hours a day.

Notice the media never shows you the real pictures of the streets of New York City. Then the statistics whose only backing is cigarettes not sold in the legal market would be seen for what they are, a lie. "Oh well, don't worry it’s just a small white lie among all the other lies being thrown about in New York City" echoes the Tobacco Vader.

Tourists know what they are experiencing. They weren't born yesterday. That is, if they aren't the ones doing the smoking. You hear them talk about how horrendous and awful it is. This holiday season there were not so many tourists to New York City as last year. Yep, you have one chance and look what you did. You overcrowded everyone and you smoked all over them. Bad Dog!

I say to myself if you give up you'll be another young woman who dies of a cigarette health related problem. The city won't even blink an eye. Don't give up; it’s you who are loved. So to those who think they can't do anything about all the cigarette smoking that Mayor Bloomberg tells the rest of the nation he's stopped, just read me. Don't let the City kill you! Get constructively angry! Free the chump! You are loved.

When the city moved the smokers out of the bar nonsmokers lost their rights

2007-12-30T21:48:00.000-05:00

A bald man with a white poodle sits on the stairs of a New York City apartment drinking a beer and enjoying a cigarette.

He doesn't have a bar to go to, so he makes his own.

Sooner or a later a neighbor has a problem with this scenario. Smoke is all in her apartment. She complains to the landlord, building owner, rental agent. They say they can do nothing.

She keeps researching. She finds the New York City Smoke Free complaint online form. She fills it out. She doesn't get a response. A few days later with no response she fills out another one. By weekend she has filled out three online forms and received no response.

She does some more online research. She tries 311. They tell her that they can't help her with residential smoking. She insists that they can and she quotes a newspaper article from 15 years ago to them. They say no. So she asks which department handles smoking. She asks if she can complain about that department's failure to respond to her online forms.

About two weeks later she receives a phone call from the Tobacco Unit. It promises little help but takes up over 30 minutes of her time. They ask her to spend even more time to call 311 and persist to the supervisor level.

Yeah, can you believe it, they want her to do all this work. She essentially is doing 311 and Tobacco Unit's work by debugging their 311 and online form responses. And what does she get in return?

About seven months later after over 100 online and 311 complaints, paper signs to call 311 for smoking are scotch taped on the walls of the building, one per floor. However, the signs are not obeyed.

She even writes the Fire Department, the Environment Department and the Buildings Department about the lack of a "no smoking" sign in the elevator. And after three months there is still no "no smoking" sign in the elevator of that coop building. On 12/3/07 the elevator is signed off as inspected and passed without a "no smoking" sign. The very broken elevator that flushes the cigarette smoke through the building and is so loud that the locksmith asked "are you sure that elevator isn't doing the breaking in, that is loud!" She says to him that's the least of this place.

Over the holidays every inch of her apartment has been like a live cigarette smoke and she has told the managing director. The last eight days she has been sick with tobacco poisoning and has lost her temporary job. She has no insurance. She now keeps the window up. Does she have to choose between pneumonia and someone climbing in off the street over tobacco poisoning? She writes an email to her managing director. She gets no response. She has no one to call because in New York City if the cigarette smoking happens inside your apartment it is not regulated by New York City.

She has from the beginning done all the caulking, filling of holes, weather-stripping door, air cleaners, to no avail. She is now throwing up her guts all the time; she can't keep anything down and has fever. She is spitting up blood. All of the responsible parties had seven months to correct the situation. They stood by and did nothing. This lady has pulmonary and lung disease. She told her broker before the deal about this fact. She has informed her landlord, building manager and agent of this condition since May of 2007. It is a federal housing violation of human rights to discriminate against the handicapped. As a person with this condition she has a handicap. She tells 311 this. They say she has to get her landlord to take care of it or take them to court. The city doesn't handle smoking in residents.

The landlord has stated to tenant that there is nothing she can do. If she wants to move out she has to give 30 days’ notice.

So sayeth the landlord and the City:

Reality is the woman can move out immediately as a constructive eviction. When the landlord comes around for the rent (or if the lady just wants to dash off a note of notice before moving) and subsequently sues for it, the lady can countersue because the apartment was not habitable. She can also sue for all of her rent back for the beginning of the time of the problem. It seems the easiest way to get back the broker's fee, the $950+locks and gates, and the deposit back.

Problem is there are no worthwhile apartments on the market. Also why should she have to move? What did she do?

The second legal move is the best. Sue the City, the landlord, the building owner, the broker for negligence, long suffering in a forced eviction, a federal human rights violation.

Because when it comes to push and shove really didn't Mr. Bloomberg just shove the smoker from the bar back to their neighbor's home?

For Mr. Bloomberg this all works out just dandy. He can go to the bar and have his drink smoke free. He goes home to his townhouse where he shares no walls with smokers.

But what about the rest of us, where do we stand in the muck of lies that New York City bestows as its Presidential Mantra.

You Dim My Life, You take away my hope

2007-12-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

I watched these two Japanese visitors light up their cigs today on 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York City. They took a puff and then tossed without looking.

A most unpleasant inner harmony dissonance stirred within about their carelessness, their pervasive stink and how they terrorize my walk in the street with their threat of flying burning cigs.

My hand is scarred since 1973 from a cigarette smoker on the street who felt so entitled of the whole street she swung her lit cigarette full arm's length back and like the hit and run driver she was, glanced and walked on.

Nothing has changed in the city. Oh except me. Not the sweet young thing anymore. Now I have inner harmony disruptions too frequent for my comfort.

Even if you believe that anyone should have the right to wave and throw a cigarette as they walk up and down a congested sidewalk, maybe the lack of "green" values will appeal to you. Look at the length of that cigarette, a total waste.

My message to those who smoke all over me as I wait for a stop light, try to get out of the subway station tunnel, and I try to walk to work: You Dim My Life, You take away my hope.

I hope he's seen the Government Naked...

2006-03-15T00:03:00.000-05:00

I am up in the cigarette smoke somewhere within the structures of this huge prewar building since yesterday. We don't know what to do, we've tried everything. Have we failed?

To the rescue came "I've Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked, and They've Got Nothing on You!"

This is a book by Jake Steinfeld on the "business secrets from the ultimate street-smart entrepreneur."

Bubble me up some magic, this is the answer to the please stop smoking on me - anti-chump manifesto.

I've got to treat the government like its my business. This book will help, its got street smarts.

For instance...

"go to failure and beyond..."

I've failed to get the right apartment for my clean air life for way too many years.

Jake says 'failure isn't fatal. Live it. Learn it. Leave it in the dust!"

Under 'up in smoke' :

"Can failure knock the wind out of you? Sure. Should it absolutely kick your
buttismo? No. Don't be a wimp! Some things aren't going to work out. It
happens....Every great entrepreneur has experienced failure. None of them have
been failures!"

wow that's a bite for my anti-chump diet. Thanks Jake!

I hope you now see, what Trendy sees. The Government is just as naked as anyone Jake has seen. They are an entrepreneur wannabe when it comes to tobacco control. They've taken a wrong turn with all these rules and wimpy quit smoking programs. The focus is not the number of people who have quit smoking, its the number who are still smoking. The government has to really reach out and offer rebates on programs that work such as the Tobacco Treatment Services for Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Weekend to Quit or Berkshires.

As I was trying to locate the next weekend to quit (when? call them and ask), I found the following from trytostop.org.

"Due to budget cuts, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health no longer has funding to support tobacco treatment programs in the community. The following programs continue to operate, although each program has had to make changes to the range of services provided and the fee structure. Please call each program directly for more information. "

People in Massachusetts you have to write your representatives. Ask Why?

For all people in the United States here is the link to find out who and where your representatives are. Write them and ask them to help locate free quit smoking services that are as good as the Weekend to Quit or Berkshires. Don't allow the government just to pass off nicotine-drugs to people or leave people stranded. Stand up and be counted as a non-smoker. Its your i-Life!!

You get a merit badge if you get someone to quit smoking.

As far as taxed, no, not all tobacco products are...

2006-03-10T23:29:00.000-05:00

As far as addictive and bad for your health, yes all products with nicotine or nicotine substitutes are...

Any tobacco prevention ad that may have been on this site is not being promoted by me. I am trying to block the urls in the adsense control. If this effort to be in sense with the content becomes too much I just won't use google for ads. I like their analytics. Other affiliates ad programs have analytics along with the choice of who you will market. Its the better way, I am finding.

Ok. Stepping off my smug and smarmy, I must admit the contrast of these stop smoking products point out the flaws in the 'quit smoking campaign'. If you make a buck off of someone's misfortune, I don't think you can truly help them, no matter how incredibly well meaning your intention is.

I believe that governments should give cost free, the best help to those who are addicted to nicotine. That the government should find ways to reach out to the smoker. Ways that don't take away dignity and freedom. Quite a lot of people become nicotine addicted as children. Their parents somehow leave their cigarettes available or smoke on the child.

Sometimes we can learn from other's lives. There are five children in my family. Ooh, you can bet not one smoked under that roof. One of my brothers married a smoker. They have children who I doubt will ever smoke. My brother is gifted with the finesse of strictness with large sides of love. He's incredibly brilliant, so why a smoker? Love can also bring you smoke. Another brother's ex raised two of his boys. She smokes. One of the boys is so fastidious I am sure he told his mom exactly where she could put her smoke. The other boy is, nicely put, adventurous. He smokes and has a pocketful of addictions. One of my sisters, the last child, smoked, quit, smoked and finally quit for the child she was expecting. Rest assured there was never liquor or tobacco in our house. She picked it up in junior high school. She hasn't smoked since the last quit, that was eight years ago. So there you have it, a big mixed bag, another reason why, in the game of nicotine, there are no rules. Its one freakin' hard game to play. Hey I am even playing it due to the fact that I live with a city that never stops smoking.

I've been dumpster diving for cigarette butts today. Found these, maybe you would like to read / listen to them?

tax coupons and no tax Kool Cigarette and cigarette Tax Backlash and
Studies Show Bidis And Smoking Products Are No Safer Than Conventional Cigarettes
Kids and Beadies
Indian Chic
A New Passage to India

Tagged! Free the Chump, Addicts, Chump Change

When Headlines are Addictive

2006-03-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

Smoking In U.S. Declines Sharply
subtitle: Cigarette Sales At a 54-Year Low
The above title is just one of the many headlines flooding my email today after Reuters wired in the news past last midnight, past 'Quit Smoking Day'.

The facts offered in the story are that today's population is twice the size of 1951's. Yet, the basis for the headline is that today's cigarette sales are at a 54-year low. We assume those sales are in the United States. Worldwide tobacco sales are up. Taxes and prices for tobacco in the United States are 2 to 3 times the cost of the product outside of the U.S. The importance of figures for cigarette smuggling and internet sales of cigarettes were trivialized for this report.

I am one for smoking declining in the U.S. if its true. Is it?

There are so many unanswered questions about the Department of Justice's RICO trial with the tobacco companies. Why the reduction of the suggested $130 billion to $10 billion for development of a National Cessation Program?

Did two from ole miss take tobacco road down?

The primate to the left is from China. Her keepers say they'll try to find her a romantic interest to replace the cigs. Meanwhile no more news of quit smoking developments for Charlie in South Africa. His patrons gave him cigarettes, he's hooked.

There are so many links to the above-stories under humour. Ok. So I have this fantasy that the smokers in my building are just science project chimpanzees harboured by chumps who party them up with black russian cigs and dry martinis at midnight. It makes it easier for me to come up with a solution. You know like when their cleaning lady puts the darling on the landing grab it.

Anyway yesterday's Quit Smoking Day is no joke. International Women's day got more news coverage.

Some say on science while others say junk science. I still say do the right thing let people have clean air to breathe. The programs to stop smoking are free. What are you waiting for?

good enough reason to quit smoking?

In NYC offers free help so you might start here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/smoke/smoke2-cess1.shtml

Street Art - Wooster Collective - a political appeal to quit

In Europe here is a program that is free: http://www.click2quit.co.uk/

Tagged!
Free the Chump, Addicts, Chump Change

The Anti-Chump Manifesto - Day #1

2006-03-08T23:34:00.000-05:00

So I've got the anti-chump manifesto worked out.

My roommate started working on our anti-chump manifesto today. She's good. She can take those drug addicts that hang around the schools and spin them so they don't even know who they are and why they are there. They say Huh? from across the river in South Park, Canada.

Today she surveyed the gang of chumps. The gang matron says they smoke in the kitchen with the window up. She pointed up to the people across from us with a disapproving wink, "both apartments," she whispered.

Already one of the apartments she pointed to is well known for tipping off the super that they aren't guilty for the cigarette butts in the hallway. They point to our door with a disapproving wink. And next door, the poor lady that houses two chumps said, "I'll help you" with a wink.

Do you see how unsimple this is? This fight for our lives requires an anti-chump manifesto.

Day #1
Website acquired. Design plan. We will sista up with a holla back system when people in this building smoke in the hallways and other public spaces. So get out your camera cell phones, its time to bust the chump party. When you smell smoke go look out the door with cell phone cameras. Smile you are on report-to-the-landlord camera.

The working hypothesis is that the guys living with the poor lady go up to the stairs, open the window (because they hate the stink of their cigarettes) and smoke for hours. That's how the cigarette smoke is getting in the apartment. That's what all the righteous, disapproving winks stated. I've witnessed it myself.

Anyway I showed my roommate how big our problem was. My window looks out into the courtyard. This is Nicotine Alley and there are a h*** of alot of windows open with puff, puff chimps hanging out.

Believe it or not this is not what I have to do all day. I actually have a life that needs attending to. Like I said, in the City, rats and chumps can make you or break you.

..You too can bust a Chump and his party!! buy your spy camera at Think Geek.

see also:
chump change in California

Real Search Engines Don't Eat Links

If your grandma asks...Do It ...Free the Chump...

The Anti-Chump Manifesto

Free the Chump

Chump Change in California

2006-03-07T23:37:00.000-05:00

Both the State of California and New York got A's for Smokefree Air in the annual American Lung Association State of Tobacco Control: 2005 . Both states got "F" for Tobacco Prevention and Control Spending.

How do you get the one without the other?

California set up a ten year plan for reducing cigarette smoking. They don't brag that they exceeded their goals like some cities do (with nothing really to show for it). Instead after ten years they set more goals and better ways to do things. At least they have coalitions (like Breath-ala) that talk about non-smoker rights rather than kissing the rhumbus of the chumpus.

"The Federal Housing Act of 1988 provides special rights to disabled individuals including those who have breathing problems, and requires that "reasonable accommodations" be made in rules, policies, practices, or services to afford equal opportunity in the use and enjoyment of a dwelling unit, including public and common use areas. The maximum penalties for a first violation are $10,000 in addition to compensation for damages and injunctive relief. (Section 810 & 812/24 CFR 103 & 104)"

and ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a cancer causing agent, similar to asbestos or radon, with no safe level of exposure. Contrary to what many people think, ETS, also called secondhand smoke, is impossible to contain within walls. Smoke travels and drifts. It does not stay in the apartment, condo, or co-op of the person who is smoking. from authority in California...

In January 27, 2006 the State of California labeled Cigarette Smoke a Toxic: "putting tobacco fumes in the same category as diesel exhaust, arsenic and benzene because of its link to breast cancer...young women exposed to secondhand smoke increase their risk of developing breast cancer between 68 percent and 120 percent"

John Howard, M.D. Chief of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (CAL OSHA): "Tobacco smoke travels from its point of generation in a building to all other areas of the building. It has been shown to move through light fixtures, through ceiling crawl spaces, and into and out of doorways." "Once exposed, building occupants are at risk for the irritant, allergic, acute and chronic cardiopulmonary and carcinogenic adverse health effects which are known to be associated with environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure."

So what gives with all this? When you are trying to find out how you might bring some good your way, your government websites are all cheese-y. EPA site and New York site don't even bother they are catering to the Chump.

The American Lung Association of California's main focus is to educate about the harm of smoking. They were unsuccessful in their bid for 2003 legislation to ban smoking in cars containing young children. The Association may attempt to legislate nonsmoking floors in apartment building and regulations requiring separate ventilation systems for smoking and nonsmoking apartments.

My roommate has been getting some of this cigarette smoke in her room. She's been coughing all weekend. She has lived here 9 years. I asked her if she ever had a lung checkup, she has not. Ever since I moved here she has had a cough.

The loft I left for this one was additionally gross because one of the roommates, the one with the month old beer in the bottles, smoked non-stop outside the apartment. He would go right outside the door leaving it open and smoke in the hallway. That's so we could have the lovely aroma wafting back in. I asked him to take it outside. So did one of my roommates. He kept saying oh, I forgot. He would leave our door unlocked so he could go have a smoke and not have to take his keys. So considerate, considering the neighborhood. It was only 4 tiny steps up to the roof. It wasn't asking too, too much to take it outside.

He had a master's degree in theatre and taught at a university. We should have taken the time to Eugene O'Neil-ize our please don't smoke on us lingo. He woke up every morning hacking. He said that hacking was a productive cough. Addicts are real characters. Oh, the stories I could tell. They have all their excuses and they don't care for anything but themselves. That's why they are chumps.

Back to the grass that did not turn out greener. We looked into the legalities. We found the chumps are a gang of at least ten. They rent out three apartments and have been living in the building for 20 years. Also they are below us to the other side. New York City and State law does not protect non-smokers at all at home. If the non-smoker has been living there the longest it doesn't matter. The smoker has the rights, the non-smoker doesn't.

Now does this all make sense. I never had a health problem before I moved into this building. I look about 30 years younger than my age, which I think is an indication of good health. Within six months I am in the ER room spitting up blood with a diagnosis of lung and pulmonary disease. Does this all make sense?

Today a man that works in the New Jersey casinos has written an email about his lung cancer diagnosis.

"Having never smoked cigarettes or used any tobacco products, this [lung cancer diagnosis] came as quite a shock. It seemed pretty clear that this was the result of being exposed to secondhand smoke."

You see all the characters that hang out on the casino floor don't like the new New Jersey law of no smoking in bars. So if a bar is on the casino floor or right next to it what do you think happens? It goes smoking.

If you live in New Jersey write a letter in support of smokefree casinos in NJ, go to www.smokefree.net/NJ

NYC Chumps or NYC Rats, how much are you willing to pay

2006-02-27T23:40:00.000-05:00

In Williamsburg Proper...they call East of East Williamsburg...Bushwick...

I was reminiscing about last year and the quality in unholiness of greater Manhattan.

One can imagine I might love where I live today, despite CHUMP, after Bushwick. I have really great roommates and a room with a door and no rats. The building shakes when they run the trains through too fast (which is frequently) on the "1" elevated 125th adjacent to us. This several times an hour, into the wee hours, event also brings down the internet, both wired and wireless. The shaking is the most unsettling because we are on the top. There is the chump downstairs with cig cartons and dry martinis. We have tons of parties here. I like it. Columbia and Barnard and Manhattan School of Music are just a few minutes walk up the street. The Cotton Club and Riverside Church (highest point above sea level in Manhattan and the largest carillon in the world donated by John D. Rockefeller) are just around the corner. I might be opening my studio to the Harlem Open Studio Tour in May 2006 this year if I can get the chump matter resolved. I hope so, it sucks to have to move.

Previously, I lived in the part of Bushwick known to craiglisters as east, east Williamsburg for about a year. There were alot of nice things about it. $300 a month for rent. A factory full of musicians and art students and artists. 24-hour parties, you want to party? you are invited.

At times life there would get scary. The guy who put the flyers on the building about a girl who was intriguing. We all thought it was sort of romantic. The flyers kept changing every day. With enough flyer facts I realized the girl was me. Yipes. Then there was the detergent drawing in the laundry closet (see above). Yipes, that was my detergent. Finally, the guy on the way to work that wanted to hurt me.

I still think the worst was the rats. When I found out they were crawling over me at night I managed to move out. It took me a month to find the place I live in now.

Rats [<<--npr link] are interesting. So are Chumps. They can make or break you in this city. The Brooklyn rat is distinguished with 'no other kind of boro, city or country rat exists like this', 'the rat with the wrong attitude'. This wrong attitude rat (W.A.R.) uniquely keeps its roommates as prisoners each night as it parties hardy on anything that is not attached. "Should the roommate mumble, could you please turn out the light?" Once I came home for a surprise lunch to a better part of Brooklyn, Park Slope, to my lovely, little, love nest. I caught the Brooklyn rat or did the rat catch me? The Brooklyn rat was snacking on electrical wires at the refrigerator. "What are you doing here, go back to work! "

o0ops backtrack, I think that electrical wire business was at my Hell's Kitchen apartment in Manhattan. ...those rats in Park Slope were hanging out in the drummer's room. Another story... There have been so many rats in so many places.

I really am talking about a rat. Not a mouse, for mice you have to pay $5,000 a month, not the measly $2,000 a month I pay. You have to pay upwards by the month, if you want to move up in the varmint world. Everyone wants mice. Its hard to get an apartment that has mice. They are all taken. My friend had nice mice at her Montana apartment years ago. She explained, "They are very tiny, they come through the walls. "

So far, there are no rats or mice here, its middle-class rent, you don't get any interesting characters with that kind of rent, except the Chump. So much good and so much bad. The push and pull of living in the City.

See Also:

If Your Grandma asks...do it...Free the Chump
When the City meets Urban
Tagged!
Bushwick, Chumps, Rats, New York City, Harlem

Inside the Story of a Hunt there is Smoke

2006-02-27T23:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's New York Times, "The Hunt" has a story about a couple seeking a bigger apartment, all the ups and downs.

In the middle of the story was an offer of an apartment being vacated because of a smoker's smoke. The vacator is an attorney. She withheld the rent. The landlord took her to housing court. She won with an offer to vacate the apartment in two months and the rent would be forgiven.

Housing court records prevent people from getting apartments
I still don't know what the non-smoker won in this case. If you are taken to housing court there is a record of that case. That record lasts a very long time. This record is a searchable for landlords in the City. They don't care what you were in for, you were there. "You won't be getting an apartment anywhere in the city with housing court on your record", said a Newport representative for a very big landlord. Landlords get away with tons of broken laws in this City because the people do not have the money, the time (they'll lose their job) and they don't want the record. The record will hurt their job background checks, their landlord checks. In a city that goes to sleep when it comes to age discrimination, go figure.

Your smoke leaves me unsanitary
In my case, the cigarette smoking is so bad that my hands, hair and self smell like nicotine when I wake up in the morning. My quilt is grey with ashes. I might as well be their ashtray. My clothes smell like cigarette smoke. I don't want people at work discriminating against me because I smell like a smoker.

No health problems diagnosed before moving into this apartment
When I moved into this apartment I never had been inside an ER room or a hospital patient.
I was diagnosed with lung and pulmonary disease due to the ER room visit. So I've got a paper. That's how this society works papers of prejudice. In this case this paper might work out for me.

Was the Chump here before me?
I don't really know. New York City forbids the salesperson, landlord to ask or answer on the question of cigarette smoking. Clearly if I knew it was a second-hand smoking apartment I would not have moved in.

Dear Chump, its nothing personal
I've never met the chump below. Its nothing personal against the poor, poor monkey. Anyway I doubt I'd be able to understand 'chimp' talk. I don't have addictions other than thinking I can write a blog that might make a difference. I am totally addicted to that.

The Attitude of the Smoker
Many years ago, a smoker flung their arm full back behind them with the burning pacifier and caught my hand in the fire. My hand was holding my purse. That smoker didn't even stop, they looked at my bleeding hand and went on. Now there is a shocker, a smoker who doesn't pay attention to what's in their hand. I was shocked. I have a scar on my hand today from that experience. Talk about being branded.

Warrant of Habitability
New York City's warranty of habitability has huge loopholes in it by not defining livable, safe and sanitary. In the New York Times article it was hard to discern if the woman had won a case. It read like the landlord and the tenant had settled. Settlement is often the first attempt in a housing court case.

"WARRANTY OF HABITABILITY
Tenants are entitled to a livable, safe and sanitary apartment. Lease provisions inconsistent with this right are illegal. Failure to provide heat or hot water on a regular basis, or to rid an apartment of insect infestation are examples of a violation of this warranty. Public areas of the building are also covered by the warranty of habitability. The warranty of habitability also applies to cooperative apartments, but not to condominiums. Any uninhabitable condition caused by the tenant or persons under his direction or control does not constitute a breach of the warranty of habitability. In such a case, it is the responsibility of the tenant to remedy the condition. (Real Property Law §235-b) "

New York Case Fagen v Axelrod at 298.559
"Moreover, smoking is no more of a fundamental right than shooting-up or snorting heroin or cocaine. Fagen v. Axelrod, 146 Misc.2d at 297, 550 N.Y.S.2d at 559. If people do have a general "right of privacy" to smoke the New York legislation merely requires them to exercise it where it does not harm others. "There is no differentiation between classes of citizens by this law. Those who smoke have never in law been recognized as a distinct class." Fagen v. Axelrod at 298, 559."

Covenant of Quiet Enjoyment
"COVENANT OF QUIET ENJOYMENT
The right of quiet enjoyment addresses the tenant's right to freedom from serious intrusions with his tenancy "such as acts or omissions that impair the character and value of the leased premises".23 Landlords may be held responsible for the actions of third parties beyond their control.24
Clauses in the standard lease give the landlord the right to curb the smoking tenant's violations related to ETS incursions. The provisions relate to "Disturbance, Illegal Use"25 and "Other Regulations".26 A landlord's failure to enforce the provisions gives the non-smoking tenant the right to sue the landlord for violation of the right to quiet enjoyment.27"

"Basic to all leases is the implied covenant of quiet enjoyment. This covenant ensure the tenant that his possession will not be disturbed by someone with a superior legal title to the land including the landlord. See Restatement 2d § 4.1-4.3 (http://www.ali.org/ali/proplt.htm). A breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment may be actual or constructive. A constructive eviction occurs when the landlord causes the premises to become uninhabitable. "--Cornell law school
"
Why don't you get an air cleaner, sweetie

Many a person will offer an ozone purifier or air cleaner. These techie toys do not clean the air, or the dust, they make it smell better. Also ozone purifiers can hurt your lungs. Sharper Image sued Consumer Reports see the cases for Consumer Reports' publication about Consumer Reports' experience with their Sharper Image product.
EPA has a report on ozone generators.
The landlord in Poughkeepsie would not let his long standing tenant have use of an ozone generator. Only when he had to lease out an apartment did he use it. He also did not care about the tenants above who would receive the harmful ozone emissions.

Tagged!
quit smoking please, secondhand smoke, pulmonary disease, new york city housing court, pacifiers, chimp talk, chump

If your Grandma asks...Do It..Free the Chump..

2006-02-26T23:42:00.000-05:00

When grandma asks you to stop smoking...you do it.

At CNN.com there was a signup for CNN's special New You Resolution , January 2006. One of the participants who made the cut resolved to try to quit smoking, to date she's down to two cigarettes a day. Her grandmother asked her to stop smoking. see also CNN for more of the program, "New You Resolution":

• Watch: Lobbyist takes cancer class to scare off cigarettes

• Watch: Pairs try to give up cigarettes, potato chips.

Gosh, I sure hate to have to take my landlord to court because of the smoker down below. Really, two layers of tatami mats and yoga mats in between and they are all grey/browned with cigarette smoke from the night before. Every day I vacuum them off and let them stand. Its been going on for well over a year. Talk about Puff the bad, bad dragon. I've made copies of the papers wherein the hospital diagnoses heart and pulmonary disease.

You see I've suffered, indeed, for the chumps of this world. Previously I lived for five years in a loft in Poughkeepsie, NY. In the sixth year six adjacent and party walling apartments were leased to weed and cigarette smoking chumps. I think that's what started my sickness. Anyway when I politely asked the landlord, he haughtily quoted the law and rights of the cigarette smoker. I went to said landlord's office to take back a new lease. His office was full of smoking fiends. hmm.

I have this sort of fantasy that the smoker who lives below me is this chimpanzee with big ears being held captive by some overzealous pre-med student at Columbia U supplying black russian cig cartons and dry martinis at midnight. If I could only find a way to free the chimpanzee, would the Chump still find a way to feed his acquired addiction? I wonder about this chump currently below ...does he/she/they/it have a grandmother?

On a sadder note, some non-smoking couple found their dream apartment in a New York City co-op that disallowed smoking. Talk about dream apartment. However, this couple did not like the rights issue involved. They withheld an offer. Wow! a survey of people in New York City indicated that 69% of the people surveyed would love to enjoy a smoke-free apartment building and 50% (assumedly of those 69%) would pay for the privilege. Choose me! source: nymetro, February 2006 issue, "no pets, no parties, no smoking".

Does NYC love New Yorkers?

BOT's "Wonder if its Possible?" questionnaire

Tagged!
no smoking, please, cigarettes are for chumps

Its too bad we have such bad chumps in this country. So bad they have to be legislated and even then they break the law. Whatever happened to just doing the right thing? Free the Chump! It has nothing to do with rights. Its doing the right thing. You need to join Nicotine Anonymous and stand up and say that you are a Nicotine-Addict and follow the 12-steps.

Free the Chump, Addicts, Chump Change