8 October 2022

Image caption,

Andy Johnson says he is fully booked as demand for chimney sweeps soars

A chimney sweep says he has never been busier as rising energy bills turn people towards other ways to heat their homes.

Andy Johnson, who works in Herefordshire, is fully booked until the end of November, he says.

As the National Grid warns of potential blackouts, Mr Johnson adds he has had messages from customers who say their fires may be their only heating option.

The Guild of Master Chimney Sweeps says it is the same across the country.

“This is the busy season anyway for a chimney sweep but this year in particular it’s really busy,” said Mr Johnson.

“I’m having a lot of new customers that are thinking of opening up the stoves and having it reused. I can’t even answer my phone in the daytime it’s that busy.”

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Fire services have warned people to take precautions when using stoves and wood-burners

Mr Johnson said he had received a request from a woman asking him to sweep her chimney “in case it becomes my only form of heat this winter”.

“I try my best to get round everybody but the demand is too much,” he said.

Lawson Wight, chair of the Guild of Master Chimney Sweeps, said there was a huge demand for sweeps across the country but urged caution when using fireplaces that had been out of use for a while.

It followed a warning from a number of fire services about how to safely use alternative heating methods.

“We absolutely understand that saving money on bills will be the priority for many,” a West Midlands Fire Service spokesperson said.

“We’re concerned that some people might take risks to save money, potentially putting themselves and their loved ones in danger.”

The service advised people to ensure they used the correct fuel for wood-burning stoves and open fires and to regularly have their chimneys swept.

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Bears want to see Montez Sweat’s snap count rise moving forward originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

When a team blows a 12-point lead with less than five minutes to play, the game is going to be scrutinized. When the team that blew the 12-point lead has a history of letting wins slip away, the scrutiny will intensify. So, as people have dug into the Bears’ 31-26 loss against the Lions in Week 11 people have started to question why some of the team’s best players weren’t on the field in the biggest moments. Among those, new pass rusher Montez Sweat, who only played 39 of 62 snaps on defense.

“You certainly want to see that rise,” said head coach Matt Eberflus on Wednesday. “You always want to see that rise, and it’s been rising… It’s gonna continue to rise.”

Sweat is no stranger to playing high snap counts. With the Commanders this year he averaged 47.1 snaps per game.

“Generally, I want to be there every play, but the body and the heart doesn’t really work like that,” Sweat said.

Eberflus cited the team’s fast-paced and high intensity practices as a reason why it’s taken Sweat some time to prepare for a more robust workload with the Bears, but acknowledged the team needs him on the field for critical moments like third downs and two-minute drills. Eberflus said getting players like Sweat onto the field is sometimes easier said than done.

“The drives matter. Is it a 15-play drive? Is it an eight-play drive? It’s always great when we go three-and-out. That’s easy. But yeah, you just look at the drives.”

Eberflus also noted that the flow of the game was different against the Lions. Instead of a typical back and forth affair that leads to a one big defensive drive and one big offensive drive, the Bears had to run their two-minute defense twice in a row.

On one of those drives, Sweat came out to catch his breath for a few plays. But the Lions started playing a hurry-up offense, so the Bears didn’t get a chance to sub Sweat back into the game. Eberflus also isn’t in the business of telling players they need to go back on the field if they check themselves out of the game for a quick rest.

“These are pro athletes and they’ve played a lot of football, so you leave it to him,” Eberflus said. “When he’s exhausted and needs to take a play or two, you let him, then get back in there as fast as you can. When there’s a stoppage in play, get back in there. I think that’s always been best practice. Some guys stay out and they just want to stay out there and you can clearly see they’re tired and their effectiveness goes down. You want to keep your rushers fresh and that’s just the whole mode of doing that.”

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Many people use social media sites and apps regularly. Apps like Facebook make it easier to stay in touch with friends and family. But when using these digital platforms, it’s essential to be aware of potential scams so you don’t put yourself at risk of losing your hard-earned money.

Unfortunately, online fraudsters constantly find new ways to exploit people for their own gain. If you’re not careful, you could fall for a costly scam that drains your bank account. Here are some of the ways scammers are targeting users who belong to Facebook community groups.

Fake posts about lost or injured pets

One of the more common ways that scammers are trying to trick people is by making fake posts about lost or injured pets. The poster will include photos and details about the pretend pet to tug at the heartstrings of Facebook users and get them to share the post with their network.

But once the post gets more traction after being reshared, the poster will edit the original post. They will update the post with entirely different content and will include scammy text and suspicious links in hopes that users will be tricked into parting ways with their money.

These posts have become more frequent in recent months and often appear in local groups. Before you share posts about lost or injured pets on social media, take a few extra moments to determine if the post is legitimate or not. The last thing you want to do is spread misinformation that causes well-meaning social media users to get scammed.

As an animal lover, I’ve previously shared posts like these, assuming they were real. I now know to do more thorough research before sharing them. This scam is a good reminder that not everything we see online is factual. It’s always best to double-check before sharing anything.

Posts from users pretending to be contractors

Unsurprisingly, many people look to community groups on social media for contractor recommendations. Whether they need a new roof, their walls painted, or a plumbing fix, getting recommendations from other neighbors can be a great way to avoid problem businesses.

In addition to community members sharing their recommendations, some business owners promote their services in these groups. Before messaging a potential contractor or clicking on a link, ensure it was posted by a legitimate professional — otherwise, you may get scammed.

I’ve noticed more posts from Facebook users pretending to be general contractors. These posts usually include a personal story about how they recently took steps to start a business and that they’re looking for new customers to give them a try. But the users aren’t legitimate contractors.

Usually, the posts are lengthy and include a phone number from an area code that is not local. I’ve also noticed they’re from users who joined within the last few days. Luckily, I’ve seen them get deleted quickly by group moderators. But I still want to warn others so they don’t get conned.

The last thing you want to do is end up with a fraudulent credit card charge due to falling for an online scam. When using social media platforms like Facebook, it’s necessary to practice extra caution. Fraudsters are developing new and elaborate ways to trick users like you. If you’re not careful, your personal finances could be impacted.

Review all posts carefully before sharing them with others. If you’re considering hiring someone on social media, review their profile to ensure they’re an actual human. Be wary if the user doesn’t have a profile photo, it’s a brand-new account, or their messages seem scammy. Above all else, remember to trust your gut, especially when you’re online.

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ANTIOCH, Calif. (AP) — Kim Carlson’s apartment has flooded with human feces multiple times, the plumbing never fixed in the low-income housing complex she calls home in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Antioch.

Her property manager is verbally abusive and calls her 9-year-old grandson, who has autism, a slur word, she said. Her heater was busted for a month this winter and the dishwasher has mold growing under it. But the final straw came in May: a $500 rent increase, bringing the rent on the two-bedroom to $1,854 a month.

Carlson and other tenants hit with similarly high increases converged on Antioch’s City Hall for marathon hearings, pleading for protection. In September, the City Council on a 3-2 vote approved a 3% cap on annual increases.

Carlson, who is disabled and under treatment for lymphoma cancer, starts to weep imagining what her life could be like.

“Just normality, just freedom, just being able to walk outside and breathe and not have to walk outside and wonder what is going to happen next,” said Carlson, 54, who lives with her daughter and two grandsons at the Delta Pines apartment complex. “You know, for the kids to feel safe. My babies don’t feel safe.”

Despite a landmark renter protection law approved by California legislators in 2019, tenants across the country’s most populous state are taking to ballot boxes and city councils to demand even more safeguards. They want to crack down on tenant harassment, shoddy living conditions and unresponsive landlords that are usually faceless corporations.

Elected officials, for their part, appear more willing than in years past to regulate what is a private contract between landlord and tenant. In addition to Antioch, city councils in Bell Gardens, Pomona, Oxnard and Oakland all lowered maximum rent increases this year as inflation hit a 40-year high. Other city councils put the issue on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director for the advocacy group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, says local officials can no longer pretend supply and demand works when so many families are facing homelessness. In June, 1.3 million California households reported being behind on rent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The situation in working-class Antioch — where more than half the population is Black or Latino — illustrates how tenuous even a win for tenants can be.

The two council members who voted in favor of rent stabilization are up for re-election Tuesday, with one of them, Tamisha Torres-Walker, facing a former council member she narrowly beat two years ago. The local newspaper endorsed Joy Motts and called Torres-Walker, who was homeless as a young adult, polarizing.

Mayor Lamar Thorpe, who provided the third vote, faces sexual harassment allegations by two women, which he denies. They are part of a progressive Black majority.

If either member loses her seat, the rent ordinance could be repealed.

The two council members who voted no are both in the real estate industry, and not up for re-election.

A once largely white suburb, Antioch has become more politically liberal as Black, Latino and low-income residents forced out of San Francisco and Oakland moved in. Advocates tried for years to mobilize tenants, but it took the shockingly high rent-hike notices and the expiration of a statewide eviction moratorium in June to get movement.

Outraged tenants jammed into council chambers describing refrigerators pieced from spare parts and washing machines that reeked of rotten eggs. They spoke of skipping meals, working multiple jobs and living in constant terror of becoming homeless, sleeping in their car and washing their children with bottled water.

“We saw a lot of fear, a lot of desperation,” said Rhea Laughlin, an organizer with First 5 Contra Costa, a county initiative that focuses on early childhood. But, she said, she also saw people summon the courage “to go before council, to rally, to march, to speak to the press and be exposed in a way that I think tenants were too afraid to do before, but now really felt they had little to lose.”

Teresa Farias, 36, said she was terrified to speak in public but she was even more afraid that she, her husband and their three children, ages 3 to 14, would have to leave their home. When the family received a $361 rent increase notice in May, she called the East County Regional Group, a parent advocacy organization supported by First 5. They told her to start knocking on doors and talk to her neighbors.

“I really don’t know where my strength came from, to be able to speak in public, to be able to speak in front of the City Council … to ask them to help us with this issue,” she said in Spanish outside her home at the Casa Blanca apartments.

California’s tenant protection law limits rent increases to a maximum 10% a year. But many types of housing are exempt, including low-income complexes funded by government tax credits and increasingly owned by corporations, limited liability companies or limited partnerships.

The tenants who flooded City Council meetings drew largely from four affordable-housing complexes, including sister properties Delta Pines and Casa Blanca, where an estimated 150 households received large rent increases in May. The properties are linked to Shaoul Levy, founder of real estate investment firm Levy Affiliated in Santa Monica.

The rent increases never took effect, rescinded by the landlord as the City Council moved toward approving rent stabilization. Levy did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Council member Michael Barbanica, who owns a real estate and property management company, called the rent hikes outrageous, but said the city could have worked with the district attorney’s office to prosecute price-gouging corporate landlords.

Instead, the rent cap penalizes all local landlords, some of whom are now planning to sell, he said.

“They’re not the ones doing 30-40-50% increases,” Barbanica said, “yet they were caught in the crossfire.”

But, Carlson said, the city needs to pass even more tenant protections. The apartment complex is infested with roaches and her neighbors are too scared to speak up, she said.

Her apartment has flooded at least seven times in the eight years she’s lived there, she said, flipping through cellphone photos of her toilet and bathtub filled with dark yellow-brown water. In October 2020, she slipped from water pouring down from the upstairs apartment and dislocated her hip.

She has never been compensated, including all the gifts lost when the apartment flooded with water on Christmas Eve 2017. Two months later, in February 2018, feces and urine bubbled from the tub and toilets.

“We got two five-gallon buckets and a bag of plastic bags brought to us and we had to (urinate and defecate) in those buckets for five days because the toilets were blown off the floor,” Carlson said.

The toilets still gurgle, indicating blockage. That’s when she shuts off the water and waits for plumbers to clear the backup.

Tenant organizer Devin Williams grew up in Antioch after his parents moved out of San Francisco in 2003, part of a migration of Black residents leaving city centers for cheaper homes in safer suburbs. The 32-year-old is devastated that the same opportunity is not available to tenants like Carlson now.

“People have a responsibility to make sure people have habitable living conditions,” he said. “And their lives are just being exploited because people want to make money.”

The post California tenants stand up, demand hire caps from metropolis halls appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

More office tenants looking to lease in Downtown San Francisco have bargains on the brain, according to a third-quarter Colliers report. After more than a year of hearing about the “flight to quality,” it seems there’s still some allure in an old-fashioned low-priced deal. 

Colliers noted a 14 percent quarterly decrease in effective annualized rents, from nearly $70 in the second quarter to just over $60 per square foot in the third quarter. A lack of “premium” transactions, which had dominated the previous quarters, and a rise in subleases, which averaged only $44 per square foot, were credited for the downward shift.

Derek Daniels, Colliers’ regional director of research, said he started noticing the bargain-hunting trend in the second quarter but it became even more noticeable when compiling the data for the third quarter report. Many tenants are still shelling out top-of-market rents for amenity-filled buildings with views, turnkey space and desirable locations near transit, restaurants and shops, he said. But an increasing number are cost-motivated and looking to take short-term, less expensive deals while they determine what they’re looking for in a more permanent place. 

“There’s always going to be an appetite from tenants who are less cost-conscious and willing to sign on a long-term basis and will pay, and those rents are still holding up,” he said. “I think the big story is that more of the cheaper deals are out there these days.” 

It’s a trend that could benefit tenants and owners during the current uncertain economic climate, he added. 

“There’s enough quality space at flexible terms for tenants to sublease on a shorter-term basis,” he said. “Conversely, landlords are willing to do a lower cost transaction with the potential to re-assess when the market turns around.”

The vacancy rate continued to climb and the absorption rate was down again in the quarter, with the North and South Financial District leading the way in negative net absorption. The latter reported nearly 700,000 square feet of negative net absorption, compared with 530,000 square feet north of Market.  

Jackson Square was a bright spot with positive net absorption in the quarter, according to the report. The North Waterfront a few blocks away has also been popular, Daniels said. 

“Every office building and every company is competing with the couch to get their people back in the office,” he said. “People want to go where it’s safe, where they have a place to eat lunch and go out after work. And I think you get all that in the North Waterfront and Jackson Square.”

According to Colliers, Snap’s sign-on for more than 30,000 square feet in Levi’s Plaza was the biggest direct lease of the quarter and exemplified both the trend of companies preferring the North Waterfront area — Snapchat’s parent company formerly had its SF office in SoMa — as well as looking beyond trophy space to a Class B low-rise building. 

Two AI companies took even more space, but only as a sublease — Hayden.AI signed for more than 40,000 square feet near South Park and Adept AI will sublease 35,000 square feet in Potrero Hill near the Design District, a neighborhood being billed as “Area AI.” Daniels said AI companies and other startups could be looking for temporary spaces now as they await future VC funding.

Daniels said tenants are wary of buildings that might have distressed ownership and will be more likely to seek a new lease after they change hands, drawn as much by stable ownership as the attractive rents those new owners will be able to offer given the lower cost basis. 

Now that a few big office sales — such as 350 California Street , 550 California Street and 60 Spear Street — have gone through, he expects more to follow. And while vacancy is likely to continue to rise in the short term, the health of the market appears to be slowly but surely improving.  

“We finally saw some closely watched sales close. We’re starting to see these lower-cost lease transactions signed and we’re seeing an uptick in tenant touring activity,” he said. “This is all part of the process of moving our market through this cycle.”

Read more

The post Cut price Workplace Rents on the Rise in San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Unhoused people in San Francisco are entering homeless shelters at the best rate on record, but at the same time, the number of encampments is at its highest total since 2020.

During the first six months of 2023, more people entered homeless shelters through the city’s outreach operations than during any other six-month span since the beginning of 2021, when a city dashboard started tracking “encampment resolutions.” 

The city’s Department of Emergency Management credited investments in permanent supportive housing for why the city has had better success at getting people off the streets this year.

But alongside the increase in shelter entries, the number of encampments has climbed to its highest total since October 2020.

It’s unclear what caused the surge of tents, and some say the data point doesn’t accurately reflect changes in the number of homeless people. 

However, both the increase in shelter entries and the recent surge in encampments occurred following the issuance of a federal injunction that limited the city’s ability to forcibly move homeless encampments starting late last year.

MSC Homeless Shelter on Fifth Street in San Francisco is one of the city’s largest such centers. | Source: Justin Katigbak for The Standard

A Controversial Ruling

In December, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu issued a preliminary injunction—a rare type of ruling made before any decision in a case is reached—in response to a lawsuit from the Coalition on Homelessness, an advocacy group that alleged San Francisco had violated federal precedent by displacing homeless encampments without offering shelter. 

The injunction, lauded by homeless advocates and lamented by some city leaders, prohibited the city from enforcing or threatening to enforce certain laws that prohibit people from sitting, lying down or lodging in public places. City workers can still ask people to temporarily move to clean the sidewalks, and other public right-of-way laws are still applicable.

Local leaders fired back against the ruling, contending it hindered their ability to move people from the city’s streets. City Attorney David Chiu’s office said in an appeal that the ruling’s language was overly broad and seemingly prohibited the city from moving a single homeless person unless there were enough beds for everyone. 

Director of Street Response Coordination Sam Dodge said in Chiu’s appeal in April that the number of people refusing services had increased due to Ryu’s ruling. 

But Dodge’s claim hasn’t come to bear in the city’s outreach data, which shows a record-high 975 people entering shelters while a record-low 49% of people reportedly refused services during outreach operations in the first six months of this year. 

Sam Dodge is the Director of Street Response Coordination with the Department of Emergency Management. | Source: San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

‘Actual Shelter to Offer’

The year started off with historic rainfall that prompted the city to open several emergency shelter facilities. A 250-person shelter, touted by some as a potential model for future homeless shelters in the city, also opened in early February. 

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director for the Coalition on Homelessness, said the increase in shelter entries demonstrates that people haven’t historically “declined” offers of shelter at the rate the city suggests.

“They’re more successful placing people in shelter when they have actual shelter to offer people,” Friedenbach said. “That’s why the sweeps are totally unsuccessful: Because they’re moving people, but they have nowhere to go, so they move right back.”

The second-highest number of people entered shelters in the first six months of 2021, with 963 people taking shelter offers. A greater chunk of people during that period allegedly refused services, at 59%. 

In the six months prior to the injunction, from July to December 2022, 749 people entered shelters and 65% of people allegedly declined services. 

But as more people have entered shelter and housing through outreach operations this year, the number of tents rose to 609 in July. The number of encampments hovered between 492 and 548 in 2022 and has so far hovered between 571 and 609 this year.

San Francisco Police Department Officer Irvin Huerta speaks to a person in a tent during a homeless encampment resolution on Minna Street on Sept. 14, 2023. | Source: RJ Mickelson/The Standard

Lawmakers Claw for More Beds

More than 4,000 people sleep on the city’s streets on any given night, while the city maintains just over 3,000 shelter beds between 90% and 95% capacity to make room for emergency admissions from hospitals and jails. The city’s shelter waitlist has grown to over 500 people long as the city struggles to connect with applicants by the time their reservation is ready. 

Several city lawmakers have spun up proposals to quickly build more shelters to meet the demand, but thus far, no formal plan has publicly materialized. In the meantime, the city has argued it should be allowed to enforce anti-camping laws against people who refuse offers of shelter.

A panel of judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the coalition’s attorneys have both indicated the city can proceed with penalizing people who aren’t “involuntarily” homeless, but the court refused to officially amend the injunction.

The City Attorney’s Office has yet to provide new guidance for the city’s outreach teams, and a trial date is scheduled for April 15, 2024.

The post San Francisco Homeless Encampments Are on the Rise appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Kim Carlson’s apartment has flooded with human feces multiple times, the plumbing never fixed in the low-income housing complex she calls home in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Antioch.

Her property manager is verbally abusive and calls her 9-year-old grandson, who has autism, a slur word, she said. Her heater was busted for a month this winter and the dishwasher has mold growing under it. But the final straw came in May: a $500 rent increase, bringing the rent on the two-bedroom to $1,854 a month.

Carlson and other tenants hit with similarly high increases converged on Antioch’s City Hall for marathon hearings, pleading for protection. In September, the City Council on a 3-2 vote approved a 3% cap on annual increases.

Carlson, who is disabled and under treatment for lymphoma cancer, starts to weep imagining what her life could be like.

“Just normality, just freedom, just being able to walk outside and breathe and not have to walk outside and wonder what is going to happen next,” said Carlson, 54, who lives with her daughter and two grandsons at the Delta Pines apartment complex. “You know, for the kids to feel safe. My babies don’t feel safe.”

Despite a landmark renter protection law approved by California legislators in 2019, tenants across the country’s most populous state are taking to ballot boxes and city councils to demand even more safeguards. They want to crack down on tenant harassment, shoddy living conditions and unresponsive landlords that are usually faceless corporations.

Elected officials, for their part, appear more willing than in years past to regulate what is a private contract between landlord and tenant. In addition to Antioch, city councils in Bell Gardens, Pomona, Oxnard and Oakland all lowered maximum rent increases this year as inflation hit a 40-year high. Other city councils put the issue on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director for the advocacy group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, says local officials can no longer pretend supply and demand works when so many families are facing homelessness. In June, 1.3 million California households reported being behind on rent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The situation in working-class Antioch — where more than half the population is Black or Latino — illustrates how tenuous even a win for tenants can be.

The two council members who voted in favor of rent stabilization are up for re-election Tuesday, with one of them, Tamisha Torres-Walker, facing a former council member she narrowly beat two years ago. The local newspaper endorsed Joy Motts and called Torres-Walker, who was homeless as a young adult, polarizing.

Mayor Lamar Thorpe, who provided the third vote, faces sexual harassment allegations by two women, which he denies. They are part of a progressive Black majority.

If either member loses her seat, the rent ordinance could be repealed.

The two council members who voted no are both in the real estate industry, and not up for re-election.

A once largely white suburb, Antioch has become more politically liberal as Black, Latino and low-income residents forced out of San Francisco and Oakland moved in. Advocates tried for years to mobilize tenants, but it took the shockingly high rent-hike notices and the expiration of a statewide eviction moratorium in June to get movement.

Outraged tenants jammed into council chambers describing refrigerators pieced from spare parts and washing machines that reeked of rotten eggs. They spoke of skipping meals, working multiple jobs and living in constant terror of becoming homeless, sleeping in their car and washing their children with bottled water.

“We saw a lot of fear, a lot of desperation,” said Rhea Laughlin, an organizer with First 5 Contra Costa, a county initiative that focuses on early childhood. But, she said, she also saw people summon the courage “to go before council, to rally, to march, to speak to the press and be exposed in a way that I think tenants were too afraid to do before, but now really felt they had little to lose.”

Teresa Farias, 36, said she was terrified to speak in public but she was even more afraid that she, her husband and their three children, ages 3 to 14, would have to leave their home. When the family received a $361 rent increase notice in May, she called the East County Regional Group, a parent advocacy organization supported by First 5. They told her to start knocking on doors and talk to her neighbors.

“I really don’t know where my strength came from, to be able to speak in public, to be able to speak in front of the City Council … to ask them to help us with this issue,” she said in Spanish outside her home at the Casa Blanca apartments.

California’s tenant protection law limits rent increases to a maximum 10% a year. But many types of housing are exempt, including low-income complexes funded by government tax credits and increasingly owned by corporations, limited liability companies or limited partnerships.

The tenants who flooded City Council meetings drew largely from four affordable-housing complexes, including sister properties Delta Pines and Casa Blanca, where an estimated 150 households received large rent increases in May. The properties are linked to Shaoul Levy, founder of real estate investment firm Levy Affiliated in Santa Monica.

The rent increases never took effect, rescinded by the landlord as the City Council moved toward approving rent stabilization. Levy did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Council member Michael Barbanica, who owns a real estate and property management company, called the rent hikes outrageous, but said the city could have worked with the district attorney’s office to prosecute price-gouging corporate landlords.

Instead, the rent cap penalizes all local landlords, some of whom are now planning to sell, he said.

“They’re not the ones doing 30-40-50% increases,” Barbanica said, “yet they were caught in the crossfire.”

But, Carlson said, the city needs to pass even more tenant protections. The apartment complex is infested with roaches and her neighbors are too scared to speak up, she said.

Her apartment has flooded at least seven times in the eight years she’s lived there, she said, flipping through cellphone photos of her toilet and bathtub filled with dark yellow-brown water. In October 2020, she slipped from water pouring down from the upstairs apartment and dislocated her hip.

She has never been compensated, including all the gifts lost when the apartment flooded with water on Christmas Eve 2017. Two months later, in February 2018, feces and urine bubbled from the tub and toilets.

“We got two five-gallon buckets and a bag of plastic bags brought to us and we had to (urinate and defecate) in those buckets for five days because the toilets were blown off the floor,” Carlson said.

The toilets still gurgle, indicating blockage. That’s when she shuts off the water and waits for plumbers to clear the backup.

Tenant organizer Devin Williams grew up in Antioch after his parents moved out of San Francisco in 2003, part of a migration of Black residents leaving city centers for cheaper homes in safer suburbs. The 32-year-old is devastated that the same opportunity is not available to tenants like Carlson now.

“People have a responsibility to make sure people have habitable living conditions,” he said. “And their lives are just being exploited because people want to make money.”

The post California Tenants Rise Up, Demand Hire Caps From Metropolis Halls – NBC Bay Space appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Investors want to see a clear path to a turnaround from boomerang Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger before nibbling at a stock plumbing fresh lows.

“What investors really want is they want to see a company that can execute its way to success,” said Goldman Sachs managing director Brett Feldman at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference in San Francisco.

Feldman provides coverage on Disney and other legacy media companies for clients.

“If you are still debating what they are supposed to do, that can be an overhang on the stock,” Feldman added. “So the main thing [of importance] is setting a strategy and then setting a strategy that the market thinks will work if you execute on it.”

Judging by Disney’s stock price, investors are worried about the path forward for Disney under Iger.

Shares of the media giant hit a fresh 52-week low on Tuesday. The stock has tanked over 6% year to date, badly lagging the S&P 500’s 17% return.

There remain several issues hanging over Disney’s stock price, pros such as Feldman contend.

First — and a new one — are the increasingly contentious contract negotiations with Charter (CHTR).

Disney channels such as ABC and ESPN have been blacked out since last Thursday for the cable customers of Charter-owned Spectrum. The blackout came after the two failed to reach a new carriage agreement.

Mickey Mouse, the mascot of The Walt Disney Company, waves before ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nov. 27, 2017, in New York City. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Disney urged Spectrum subscribers to opt for Hulu + Live TV to circumvent blackouts on Tuesday, Yahoo Finance’s Alexandra Canal reported.

The final outcome of the contract battle could have negative ramifications for Disney’s future earnings power if the higher rates it’s trying to push through to Charter aren’t landed.

Meanwhile, following sweeping layoffs at Disney enacted by Iger this year, investors remain on pins and needles on the next restructuring move.

Iger said in July he would take an “expansive” look at Disney’s traditional TV assets, a signal to the Street that a sale of linear TV channels is in the cards amid growing cord-cutting by consumers.

Story continues

No update from Disney has been provided since. Iger has said that he doesn’t want to unload the ESPN brand.

The lack of information appears to be unnerving investors.

“To hear a leader in the industry like Bob Iger acknowledge that you have to put everything on the table right now, I think shows how seriously they’re taking this,” Feldman said. “It’s a real signal to the Street that they’re going to do what they need to do so that Disney can have another hundred years of success.”

Read more coverage of the 2023 Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Tech conference:

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Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations, or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.

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8 October 2022

Image caption,

Andy Johnson says he is fully booked as demand for chimney sweeps soars

A chimney sweep says he has never been busier as rising energy bills turn people towards other ways to heat their homes.

Andy Johnson, who works in Herefordshire, is fully booked until the end of November, he says.

As the National Grid warns of potential blackouts, Mr Johnson adds he has had messages from customers who say their fires may be their only heating option.

The Guild of Master Chimney Sweeps says it is the same across the country.

“This is the busy season anyway for a chimney sweep but this year in particular it’s really busy,” said Mr Johnson.

“I’m having a lot of new customers that are thinking of opening up the stoves and having it reused. I can’t even answer my phone in the daytime it’s that busy.”

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Fire services have warned people to take precautions when using stoves and wood-burners

Mr Johnson said he had received a request from a woman asking him to sweep her chimney “in case it becomes my only form of heat this winter”.

“I try my best to get round everybody but the demand is too much,” he said.

Lawson Wight, chair of the Guild of Master Chimney Sweeps, said there was a huge demand for sweeps across the country but urged caution when using fireplaces that had been out of use for a while.

It followed a warning from a number of fire services about how to safely use alternative heating methods.

“We absolutely understand that saving money on bills will be the priority for many,” a West Midlands Fire Service spokesperson said.

“We’re concerned that some people might take risks to save money, potentially putting themselves and their loved ones in danger.”

The service advised people to ensure they used the correct fuel for wood-burning stoves and open fires and to regularly have their chimneys swept.

The post Chimney sweeps ‘busier than ever’ as power costs rise appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service said in addition to a spate of chimney blazes, it has seen a significant rise in burner incidents with seven incidents recorded between January 20 and 27 alone.

A total of 75 burner incidents were recorded in 2022 compared to 22 the previous year.

Meanwhile in December and January firefighters put out to 30 chimney fires, including 17 last month.

There were 79 chimney fires recorded in 2022 and 1,407 in total recorded over the 10 years between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2022.

Now the fire service is urging residents to call in an approved chimney sweep to prevent damage and and household fires.

It said wood-burning stoves were growing in popularity due to the spiralling cost of gas and electricity, but owners were also being urged to ensure they are correctly installed and regularly maintained.

Emma Roberts

Prevention head Emma Roberts said: “Sweeping your chimney at least once a year and using a quality-assured fuel is the key to prevention. Not only does this remove soot and tar deposits, but also gives chimney sweeps the opportunity to check for any problems with the chimney or liner. A typical sweep only takes about 90 minutes and doesn’t make a mess.

“Professional chimney sweeps use modern methods and tools such as power-sweeping, CCTV and vacuums to ensure minimal disturbance for the homeowner. Customers don’t need to move all of their furniture out of the room.

“So, if your chimney is overdue for a sweep, now is the time to get it done and not add to the list of chimney fires.”

Details of approved chimney sweeps are available from the Heating Equipment Testing and Approvals Scheme(HETAS) on 01684 278170.

The post Wooden range and chimney fireplace warning as brigades deal with rise in name outs appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.