FranLab is getting evicted

[EEVblog]

It surprises me that the patrons are still funding this endless monetary pit.

For me, as a Patron, I still support her because I still watch the videos and I want her to continue doing them.
But yes, personally I wish she'd make some drastic changes to make it work long time, and privately I've tried to help convince her of that. But she has her reasons.

[EEVblog]

So what happens now? Fran runs another fundraising round to pay for yet another x months lease somewhere else and we get another lab tour video a few months after that, then another please help things are bad again video 18 months later?

In the latest Patreon video, which I'm sure she'll release in a day or two, she said because it takes so many months to move again (not to mention finding another place first), she's basically locked into another 12 month lease in the same place because the lease is coming up soon and a decision has to be made now.
I guess she would have the option to move the lab into a cheaper building in Philly (probably in a more dangerous area), and still keep the two storage units and the factory.

[tom66]

Is it common for leases to be that short in the USA?  Our local hackspace signed a 7 year lease.  It has a mid-point rent review in which rent is allowed to be increased by up to CPI (consumer prices inflation) plus 2%.  The landlord can't just arbitrarily increase the rent, and the tenant can break the lease at that point if they don't want to accept the increased rent.  Fortunately in that case, the landlord didn't touch the rent.  He'd rather have a reliable tenant than a bit more cash.

[EEVblog]

Is it common for leases to be that short in the USA?  Our local hackspace signed a 7 year lease.

This isn't acommercial office space, it's a normal residential apartment. She just lives and works in the space. Her rarely seen "factory" that has the big machining gear is a shared commercial space though.

[Siwastaja]

Is it common for leases to be that short in the USA?  Our local hackspace signed a 7 year lease.  It has a mid-point rent review in which rent is allowed to be increased by up to CPI (consumer prices inflation) plus 2%.  The landlord can't just arbitrarily increase the rent, and the tenant can break the lease at that point if they don't want to accept the increased rent.  Fortunately in that case, the landlord didn't touch the rent.  He'd rather have a reliable tenant than a bit more cash.

Sometimes I watch from TV a UK reality show which follows bailiffs who collect debts and evict people, watching this you get the idea that in UK any landlord would probably kill to get reliable tenants who just pay their rent in time and do not destroy the whole place like a war zone, so if these TV shows have any touch with reality then I'm not surprised they like your club of "nerds".

But it's similar here. I used to live in a commercial garage/storage unit type (one with heating, running water, etc.) that I rented for my business but really used for business-hobby-living combo. The landlord never increased the rent because he was happy me always paying my rent in time and not destroying the place. He had some bad experiences before, too.

[Nominal Animal]

The weird fish dish we do have is kalakukko.

Thats nothing more than poor attempt to copy  the british fine dinning classic, the fish finger sandwich.

Note that kalakukko is large, about 1 kg, the size of a loaf of bread; and made in the oven (as most traditional Finnish dishes are); not deep-fried.  It's also surprisingly old dish, first written mentions from late 1700s.  It was the take-out/travel/work food back then.  Some tribes even baked in a birch twig handle for easy carrying.

The fine dining variant is lihapiirakka, minced meat (i.e. Mystery Meat) and rice inside deep-fried donut dough pie.  If you open it up, don't be too alarmed to find out the "meat" is grey, not brown: it is always like that.

The peak dining experience in Finland is, however, the steamed "sausages" they sell to drunk people here in Helsinki when they leave bars and nightclubs.  Terry Pratchett (AFAIK having experienced them first hand after Ropecon) even described them in Soul Music, comparing to Dibbler's hot dogs in a footnote: "But Dibbler had now actually managed to produce sausages that didn't taste of anything. It was weird. No matter how much mustard, ketchup and pickle people put on them, they still didn't taste of anything. Not even the midnight dogs they sell to drunks in Helsinki can quite manage that."

I used to live in a commercial garage/storage unit type (one with heating, running water, etc.) that I rented for my business but really used for business-hobby-living combo. The landlord never increased the rent because he was happy me always paying my rent in time and not destroying the place. He had some bad experiences before, too.

Yup.  It's usually the owner change that bites the tenant.  I once got hit with a 25% apartment rent increase due to new owner announcing a "change in long term plans" (ie. replacement of long-term tenants for shorter-term ones and especially those whose rent is paid by the social services, increasing average rent paid in the building by over 50% within six years).

[tom66]

I think a lot comes from areas and classes of property being more desirable too.  Landlords in areas like Philly know there are another 10 tenants that would happily rent that space from Fran if she were to leave - this gives them a lot of leverage. When the hackspace moved into its commercial premises, the unit had been unoccupied for about a year, so the landlord would have been keen to get it let out.  Rental residential property in the UK is much crazier (probably similar to Philly by the sounds of it) and I am so glad to have escaped the landlord madness.  Yes, I have to fix my house when something goes wrong... but it's MY house!  Ain't no one but the bank kicking me out, and as long as I pay the mortgage, that isn't going to be an issue.

I would argue that residential tenants need better protection - Fran should be able to rent somewhere for 5+ years at a time - but that always needs to be balanced against the hazard to landlords.  In the UK many landlords have pulled out of the market because the regulations are making it increasingly difficult to rent out property.  This is having the expected effect of putting up rents. 

[RAPo]

Well in that case stand up and own your decision. Don't whine, don't ask for money. You get what you want, and you cannot have it all.

... But sadly that's not going to happen, she has been very clear on that multiple times, so much so that she's had to do multiple videos now explaining why she won't do that.

[rsjsouza]

Well in that case stand up and own your decision. Don't whine, don't ask for money. You get what you want, and you cannot have it all.

... But sadly that's not going to happen, she has been very clear on that multiple times, so much so that she's had to do multiple videos now explaining why she won't do that.

Yes, this is impossible to understand from our distant point of view. Because Philadelphia is sooo safe and peaceful...

[EEVblog]

I used to live in a commercial garage/storage unit type (one with heating, running water, etc.) that I rented for my business but really used for business-hobby-living combo. The landlord never increased the rent because he was happy me always paying my rent in time and not destroying the place. He had some bad experiences before, too.

Yup.  It's usually the owner change that bites the tenant.  I once got hit with a 25% apartment rent increase due to new owner announcing a "change in long term plans" (ie. replacement of long-term tenants for shorter-term ones and especially those whose rent is paid by the social services, increasing average rent paid in the building by over 50% within six years).

Yes, new owners usually have some plan in mind, like gentrification. It's not often they want to keep the status quo, and this is what Fran has been bitten by many times in the past.

[EEVblog]

Well in that case stand up and own your decision. Don't whine, don't ask for money. You get what you want, and you cannot have it all.

As someone else who is in the exact same business as Fran, I can't see how you can blame her for wanting to try and keep this gig going. It's been working for her for a long time now, so the obvious play is to try and keep it going.
But I think the only card left she has to play I think is sponsored videos, but I doubt she'll do that. She has said countless times that Patreon is the only way she wants to make this work. It's literally Patreon or bust, and I can see she has clearly resigned herself to that.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes in any case, diversification of her income sources should be the goal.

I also remember she said (a while ago) she got a deal with some manufacturer for licensing her Frantone pedals. I don't know where it's at and how much she gets (if anything yet) from that. Probably not much. Maybe it's not ready yet even, or the deal broke, because I don't think she talked about it ever again after mentioning it once.