At the same time landlords have reported problems with poor tenants not paying rent and anti-social behaviour.

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Or Jesse Grey who successfully led New York's rent strikes in the 1960s, in which poor tenants from Harlem brought their rodent room-mates to City Hall.

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Only thorough research could discern that residents of high-rise buildings are more likely to be victims of crime, because stacked tenants make for poor monitors of the surrounding streets.

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If the problem that led to the threat of repossession was a poor credit record, then after the sale and rent back takes place, the new tenants tend more than most to be poor payers.

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Nowadays the laws protecting tenants make landlords much less keen to let rooms cheaply to poor strangers.

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