Nothing rings my Schadenfreude chimes louder than a tale of a trendy-liberal professor teaching at a fancy college getting…royally hosed by another trendy-liberal professor teaching at a fancy college. Especially when the scene of the liberal-on-liberal hosing is California, home of likely the most trendy-liberal legal system in the country.
Here is what happened, as reported in Mother Jones (of all places): In January 2016 Elizabeth Abel, a longtime English professor at the University of California-Berkeley about to embark on sabbatical, rented out her home in Kensington, an affluent suburb in the hills just above the UC campus, to David Peritz, who teaches political science at Sarah Lawrence, the elite liberal-arts college just outside New York City. Abel had found Peritz via SabbaticalHomes, an Airbnb-style sharing-economy website designed for academics. “A Place for Minds on the Move” is its motto.
Abel, according to her account, never bothered to do a background check on Peritz because…well, he was a professor. (Even though a glance at Peritz’s web page at Sarah Lawrence doesn’t really reveal what his exact job title is, or whether he occupies a tenured or tenure-track position.) Besides, Abel and Peritz seemed to have so much up-to-the-minute postmodern ideology in common. Her web page lists her academic interests as “gender and sexuality, psychoanalysis…race, cultural studies, and visuality.” His page lists his as “cultural diversity, social complexity and political dispersal, critical social theory, social contract theory, radical democratic thought…” Mmm, two peas in a pod! So Abel handed Peritz the keys and flew off to Paris to do research on a book about Virginia Woolf.
It seems that Peritz never paid Abel a dime of rent after moving in. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to interview requests from Mother Jones writer Ian Gordon, who reported as follows:
The cop was right. Deep-blue California not only has a complicated, tenant-favoring eviction process that can stretch out a tenant’s rent-free stay for several months of delayed hearings, but its “adverse possession” laws can give squatters ownership rights if they live on the premises long enough and comply with certain legal requirements. Serial evictees hopping from premises to premises are a common phenomenon in the ultra-liberal but ultra-pricy Bay Area.
Abel now found herself in California landlord hell, especially since Peritz was allegedly suggesting he might file a libel suit for badmouthing him on SabbaticalHomes. She also discovered that a New York City couple who had sublet their apartment to Peritz in 2015 came close to suing him over what they claimed was unpaid rent, broken furniture, missing paintings and severe floor damage. An anonymous website titled “David Peritz—Unlawful Detainer” popped up. She cut short her sabbatical and moved into an upstairs bedroom across the street so she could watch him and his pickup truck. She hired a private investigator who found tax liens and a prior eviction action against Peritz from another house in Berkeley.
Finally, in May 2016 Abel hauled out her biggest gun of all: UC-Berkeley’s postmodernist superstar, gender theorist Judith Butler, a personage who Abel figured could genuinely terrify the “critical social theory”-obsessed Peritz. Butler shot off an email to Peritz stating, “I have recently become aware of your scurrilous behavior—effectively squatting in the home of my colleague, Elizabeth Abel. If you are not out of that apartment within five days time, I will write to every colleague in your field explaining the horrible scam you have committed.” Butler’s correspondence was startlingly effective. Peritz was gone by Memorial Day.
Well, I do feel a bit sorry for Abel over her ordeal. But, really, is it a good idea to let a stranger take over your home just because he’s a trendy-liberal professor like you?
