30th Dr SE 4 2

Isabella is doing a podcast and community research project on rent labor trade agreements. She thinks it would be beneficial if renters pitched in with maintenance work and received discounted rent. Isabella interviews her sister Reese, who is in high school and currently lives with their mom. Reese agrees that doing chores as a part of the household is important and would be willing to trade her labor for discounted rent in the future. She believes it would create a sense of community and help with communication. However, she acknowledges that some people may not fulfill their commitments, leading to potential issues. Isabella hopes that this idea will be implemented by the time Reese goes to college. My name is Isabella and I'm doing my podcast on the same topic that I did my community research project on, and that is rent, and if renters would be likely to sign a rent labor trade agreement. So I'm going to be interviewing my sister in a minute or two. She's a freshman in high school. Her name is Reese, and she will be in college in about three years now, so we're going to see if she would be likely to sign that agreement and likely to participate in it as well. I am a student at Western. I work full-time. I school full-time. I try my best to do my homework on time, not always successfully, but I do what I can with the time that I have, and I have seen my landlord doing just maintenance work around my apartment building quite a bit. I didn't realize that he was my landlord until later because I thought he was just a handyman that worked around my building, and so once I found out he was also my landlord, I was thinking, wow, he could save a lot of time if we all just pitched in, and maybe we could even get discounted rent if we were to all pitch in and he didn't have to do everything. Simple tasks like weed eating, lawn mowing, fixing light fixtures, snaking drains, just pretty simple stuff that I'm sure somebody in my building could be doing. I'm not saying that I should be doing electrical work, but I can mow a pretty good lawn, and so we're just going to chat with my sister and see if she likes any of the ideas that I have come up with. All right, so Reese, you're in high school right now, living with our mom, right? Yep. And do you pay any sort of rent or anything? Nope. Do you pay for, well, I guess you don't drive yet, but I guess you will pay for gas at some point. Mm-hmm. And you're working, kind of right now, right? You're working for a neighbor up the street. Yep. So tell me, yeah, how do you manage school and working? It's a little tricky, but I manage to do my schoolwork at the job because it's a nice, chill, relaxing moment to be able to study. Yeah, and do you do chores at home? Mm-hmm, yeah. Do you get paid an allowance for doing chores? No. Can you elaborate on that? Why not? We feel like being a part of the household, if you're a family, chores is part of that. You put in the effort, and it's just a nice thing to do. If my mom's paying, then the least we can do is help clean the house. Yeah, so all working together to maintain the house. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Would you say that you're going to, like, when you go off to college, do you plan on dorming or having an apartment? Like, do you know? I'm not quite sure yet. It depends on if, like, I have friends that are going to the same college as me. Maybe I'll dorm, or maybe I'll even have, like, an apartment with them. I'm not quite sure yet. Okay. Does the thought of paying for a dorm or an apartment or a house, if you guys were to get, like, a house and all have a bedroom, does the idea of that stress you out? Not yet. Do you think that it's going to once you get up there? Because you've seen me and my struggles throughout these past couple months that I've been at school, and rent's tricky, school's tricky, like, all that stuff. Do you think that that's going to be a stressful factor for you? Yeah, I think it'll definitely be a stressful factor in, like, two-ish years when I'm a senior. Yeah, when you actually have to, like, really think about this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, I had written a paper on something kind of similar to doing, like, household chores, and it's basically household chores for your building that you're living at. And so that looks like mowing the lawn, icing the streets if it's snowy out, shoveling snow, painting things that need to be repainted, and then, in turn, then discounting rent. And then for any, like, bigger jobs, such as icing the roads that have, like, a safety factor to them, there would be, like, classes taught, like, monthly or weekly or whenever, like, there are enough people signed up. Or even, like, the landlord themselves can just teach that person when they get a moment so that things are being done correctly. Is something like that of trading your labor for discounted rent something that you would be willing to do, or do you think that that's something that, like, would just add too much to your plate? That would be something I would definitely do. I feel like it would help out myself and others to have discounted rent and, like, icing the roads, like you said, or mowing the lawn, just, like, kind of making things look nice and safer. Yeah. Do you think that it would help you get to know your neighbors better by, like, all taking a class together or all weed eating or weeding or painting the apartment building, like, things like that? Do you think that would create more of a sense of community? Yeah, definitely. And it'll, like, it'll help with communication and, like, for future, if you need, like, help or if you need, like, a small set community that would be at your apartment complex, your dorm, so wherever you're living, it'd be nice to have that around. Yeah. What do you think some downfalls of this would be? Maybe if you, like, can't do what you committed to doing or something or, like, something changes, like, that could, like, people could think you're dishonest or kind of, like, taking advantage of the perks of that. Right. Like, having the privilege of being able to do that. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Perfect. Yeah. Okay, perfect. I appreciate your time. And I guess we'll see when you go to college. Maybe this will be put in place and you'll have discounted rent. Hopefully.