Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW Vol. 5 Num 1131 Sun. August 05, 2007       Letters to Editor Increasing house rents Md. Ali Haider, MS student, South Dakota State University, USA One can easily recall that even 10 years back the people who lived on their limited but handy income could manage to rent a good house or apartment in the city. But now the prices of all the necessities, daily household essentials including foodstuff, educational and transportation costs have gone so sky high that families like us are no longer able to maintain a smooth middle class life while paying the ever increasing house rent. Usually, most of the landlords don't bother about the problems of tenants and they like to raise the rents of their houses each year, sometimes two or three times in a year without taking care of tenant's capacity or the present average income of general people. I doubt how sensible it is to impose an increment o Tk 1,000 over the monthly rent at the end of each year while the house is not even in a posh zone or it is not growing in size! Landlords hardly consider the poor economic condition of our country. I wonder if there is any law which restricts those greedy landlords who are fond of increasing the house rent to satisfy their insatiable appetite for money. If there exists any law of such a kind, measures should be taken to make both the parties aware of it and the law should be enforced where it is necessary. Moreover, as it is a kind of business, landlords should pay taxes to the state for the rent they are collecting and increasing at their sweet will!