Dear south end students: You’ve been living in what were formerly single-family homes for what, four months now? It doesn’t matter where you came from, in Halifax, there’s a law: we compost. That’s what the big green garbage can that is assigned to your house by the city is for. It’s not for your garbage and plastic crap. If you keep filling it with crap, it will keep not getting emptied on garbage day. And it will get so heavy that no one will be able to move it off the curb, where you annoyingly leave it. So, learn to compost, get the crap out of your green bin (yes, your problem!) and learn how to “do” garbage in 2020 (hint, there’s an app!). After half a year in school here, you got this! Signed, your non-rodent-loving neighbours.
—Non-rodent-loving Neighbour

I am a person with a legitimate disability on assistance, although before you assume I'm a "welfare bum," please know that I work part-time as much as I physically can to supplement my very modest income. I am disgusted with trying to find a reasonable rental apartment in HRM. I'm looking for a simple one-bedroom apartment and I cannot find one for under $750. This is ridiculous.

Assistance only allows $535 for rent and landlords know this. They assume everyone on assistance is a bum who isn't worthy of having a home. They price all their units hundreds above that amount to ensure they will get working tenants. This is discrimination and not fair. Do you think most people on assistance choose to be? They do not. It is not an easy life living on a pittance.

I am doing everything I can do get out of the apartment I'm in now, which is infested with black mold. The place before this was 700 bucks a month and had bed bugs. I had to throw out all my furniture and lost everything! The landlord does nothing when I call for repairs, doesn't show up. But raises the rent each time I call. So that's why I stopped calling him to fix things (no one shows up anyway). I am feeling totally hopeless in this situation and am wondering if I will end up sleeping under an overpass in a sleeping bag.

I have tried to go on the wait list for Metro Housing, but you have to have a zero balance on your power bill first. My power bill WAS up to 500 bucks, but since I have been working part-time, I have gotten it down to 155 dollars owing. So I have to wait longer in this horrible unsafe place with mold until I can be placed on a wait list for an affordable apartment with Housing. I am a little reluctant to go to the only building that Housing has in my neighbourhood that allows people my age into the building (not seniors), because it had bad pipes and the tenants got Legionnaires' disease from living there. Also there is a known pyromaniac in the building who was never evicted, yet continues to set fires inside the building repeatedly.

HRM needs rent control. There needs to be more affordable housing, and landlords and rental companies need to STOP discriminating against people who need social services. We all need a roof over our heads. I am doing the best I can and I always pay my rent on time. I have never defaulted on my rent. I am clean and quiet. I have good references but bad credit due to my circumstances of trying to survive day to day in a world where the cost of living is more than what I am allotted by welfare. Please increase the housing allowance for welfare recipients and please start a rent control program—I know I am not the only one who is in this hopeless situation! I hope the municipal politicians read this and make changes. PLEASE HELP!
—Chronic Bronchitis—Now I Know Why

Dear generic white-walls-and-beechwood cafe, it was me who stole/rescued two of your sad-looking succulents—and you'll be glad to know they are revived and currently thriving. Between your slick IKEA-style decor and boring local photography the place looks like a neglected hospice for dying plants and I had to do something about it. So thanks!
—Compulsive plant hoarder

Why does this city only care about how tall a new building is going to be? How about the building that chooses ugly white panelling because they are too cheap to do all windows? Or how this same building is a year behind schedule and now has tenants living in the bottom while a giant, unfinished tower hangs above them for the foreseeable future? This building is outdated and they aren't even done yet. Ugh.
—Here's hoping for a beautiful Halifax

To the rental company and manager that treats tenants like dog poop and omits info from their landlords, I hope you step in a really smelly turd today. One day you might realize that some tenants are also landlords who will never use your company.  Get a hobby...and maybe a new career. —Tenant and Landlord With A Bigger Brain Than Yours

Dear housemate who never does her dishes. I get that you really love eating pork topped with bacon (ew) nightly, but seriously do your fucking dishes. All I want to do is cook a fucking veggie burger and not have to clean up bacon grease every time I go to do so. Also, stop smelling up the house with your shit food. Oh, and that mixing bowl that you left dirtied for 3 weeks until one of us cleaned it, I remember that shit. So, if you somehow read this and get the slightest inclination that this might be you. I beg of you, just do your fucking dishes so I don't have to, for the love of Christ. —Everyone Else in Your House

I am really sick of seeing these white, privileged local “designers" using their privilege of travel to exploit the materials made and created by others in countries like India and Columbia to name a couple, and re-selling them here at a way higher value.

As an independent small business, how can you justify the ethics of your unapologetic capitalist colonialism, and then ask the city to support you in high end gentrified boutiques on Agricola?  Using mostly white models to display your wares does not help the broad picture.

Can someone tell me what NSCAD is teaching if it is not morality of an artist? —frustrated local devi

Apartment hunting on kijiji and trying to find an affordable place in a decent location is like trying to catch a fart in a windstorm. The most shit-hole in the wall you can imagine is at least $750/month. Heat and hot water is rarely included. It will say Dartmouth, until you click open the ad, and then you see it is Primrose, or Pinecrest or Jackson Road or insert crime-ridden area. You look though the photos of the joint and it's always really trashy looking. Peeling Linoleum floors, ugly dated 70's fridge and stove. Then these slumlords have the nerve to say "no partiers," "no loud music," "no smoking?" Are you fucking kidding me? You think you're gonna tell me how to live now? Who do these landlords think they are??? You don't have the right to tell me how to live my life. The Residential Tenancy Act trumps any special rules you may wish to stipulate as a landlord, rendering them null and void. So make all the rules you want, asshole. I'll lie to your fucking face if I want. It's not against the law to smoke in my own home, which I pay rent for...and it's not illegal to play loud music before 11 pm. So deal with it, fuckface. You should BE so lucky someone is willing to rent your roach motel for the exorbitant prices you're asking. FUCK YOU! —Your next tenant

You took money from my roommate and I as an 'application' fee for your apartment. When I asked for it back you denied me and told me I was an ignorant fuck. You refuse to let me serve you hearing papers. I have a mental illness and I am on welfare. I need that money more than you. Thanks for denying me food and medication for the next month you shit head. —You Make Me Sick

Over the last couple years a disturbing trend has unfurled of rents skyrocketing. What the fuck is this? I can't afford this shit; and it has gotten so out of hand I am taking the time to learn how to build a ship for the ocean; because that is cheaper than paying $600+ for a shit-hole apartment that I could have gotten for $450 five years ago! Not to mention utilities!!! Fuck man; what city do you people think you are renting to? Our population is diving, there is no money here, the rich run off credit; and rent just keeps going up and up...Don't even get me started about food prices... —Lunatic Fringe