r/berkeleyca

Bought the cheapest Byrne tickets at $100 a piece, because the floor was a whopping $500 each (wow).

Love dancing at shows. Think I’ll still be able to on the lawn? Any advice?

We recently moved from the city and are looking for a home cleaner that can come maybe once a month. We looked into the cleaning service companies but seem a bit expensive and would rather support one off families that are not tied to a company. (Our cleaner in SF was a couple we had for 7 years, cash only). Anyone know of a good home cleaner in Berkeley that may need more work? We have a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apt. Appreciate it

Hey everyone, I need to bring light to something incredibly messed up happening at the Berkeley recycling center.

Today, my partner went in with 14 pounds of plastic. We recycle to get by, so we know exactly what we are doing. We meticulously sort our stuff. Out of those 14 pounds, there might have been one or two individual pieces of non-CRV plastic that accidentally slipped in—definitely not even a quarter of a pound.

The staff decided to use that as an excuse to completely rip him off. They mixed the entire load together and claimed he brought in 13 pounds of scrap plastic (payout: $0.26 total) and only 1 pound of CRV (payout: $1.00 total). The math is physically impossible. They straight-up stole from us because they thought they could get away with it.

This isn't an isolated incident or a simple mistake. If you talk to anyone in the unhoused community who relies on recycling carts to survive, they will tell you the exact same thing:

• The staff routinely gives unhoused people attitude, questions their loads aggressively, and shorts their weight.

• They power-trip. A friend of ours recently called them out on this exact type of cheating, and they banned him (86'ed him) from the facility. Now he has to bike to an entirely different city just to turn in his recyclables, or rely on others who often take a cut of his money.

They are targeting vulnerable people because they think we won't or can't fight back. It is blatant discrimination, and it's hurting people who are already just trying to survive.
We need eyes on this. If anyone has connections to local advocacy groups, the Better Business Bureau, or local investigative journalists, please help us expose this. They need an undercover check to see how differently they treat housed people versus unhoused people bringing in the exact same materials.
Watch your receipts, watch their scales, and please help spread the word so they stop exploiting the community.

UPDATE: I am turning off notifications and will not be reading or replying to any more comments on this post.
The entire point of sharing this was to bring awareness to predatory, discriminatory business practices happening at a local recycling center. It wasn't an invitation to debate my housing status, and it certainly wasn't an invitation for harassment.
To those of you who chose to leave hate: I am truly sorry that you carry that kind of bitterness in your heart, but please keep it to yourself.
To everyone who was kind, validating, and offered actual advice or resources: thank you so much. Please don't ever stop being kind; the world needs a lot more of it right now. I’m stepping away from this thread to focus on taking care of my family.

We looked at this house (1788 San Lorenzo Ave) in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood today. It was listed at 1.5M in December but didn’t get any buyers and went off the market. Now it’s back and listed at 1.25M. We toured it and really liked it, didn’t see anything wrong with it. We‘re wondering why it didn’t sell in december at a price that seems right. Would love to hear opinions from folks familiar with the local real estate market.

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Berkeley/1788-San-Lorenzo-Ave-94707/home/1566495?utm_source=ios_share&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy_link&utm_nooverride=1&utm_content=link

Hi there!

I’m planning on moving to West Berkeley this summer and have been considering 4th&U (on fourth st / university ave) as a possible location. However, I’m very concerned about the noise from the tracks, as the unit I’m interested in directly faces them.

For those of you living on/near fourth st, how bad is the noise? Specifically, if anyone has any experience with the noise at 4th&U, I’d truly appreciate hearing about it.

Any alarms out there have their cap and gown they could spare for a day?

It’s graduation day. My kid forgot to pick up her cap and gown rental until yesterday afternoon. What they didn’t tell any of the students was pick up was only until two in the afternoon. They told her to come back this morning to see what they could do.

But in case they can’t do anything for her wondering if anyone in the greater Berkeley Oakland or San Francisco area have a cap and gown to borrow?

She is about 5’4” and 225 lbs

Hope the universe can answer our quest!

Hey Berkeley reddit,

Looking for some advice and/or things to keep in mind with dealing with our neighbor whose behavior I just don't understand / cannot place. Long story short: Neighbor built a fence in our yard. TLDR + my questions at the end of the post.

--

Roughly 1.5 years ago, someone bought the house next to our that had been sitting empty before. Our relationship with the new neighbor is fine in that we just don't interact much if at all.

~2 months ago, with zero warning, we spotted people building a fence in the neighbors and (based on the city of Berkeley's maps) our property. My guess is that he is building his fence roughly 3 feet too wide on our property (so basically "taking" a 3 feet wide strip of land). Now, we don't actually care about him temporarily using that space but my understanding is that upon prolonged usage without objections he can essentially "claim" our yard as his own.

We immediately went out and warned him that he was likely building on our property to which he responded he really needed the fence urgently, and that he could always rebuild it later.

I then e-mailed him to confirm / acknowledge that we talked and he agrees that it may be on our property, he didn't respond.

I then had Chatgpt generate some sort of understanding document in which he acknowledges that it may be on our property and is only intending to temporarily use the space. He said he wanted to speak to his lawyer before signing anything.

I brought up being happy to pay for having an official survey done, he mentioned those are unreliable because the ground moves.

Later, that same day he mentioned that instead of signing what I made, he proposed coming to a mutual agreement about where the property-line is and leaving it at that. What he suggested as the property-line is in line with what's on the city's maps and I'm fine with that. And then we just never heard anything anymore. This was about a month ago.

A few days ago, we've reached out again, but we haven't heard anything since.

So yeah, long story short:

In my view we are trying to make everything as easy as possible for him, we don't even care about him building in our yard, the only thing we want is some guarantee that he will not try to later attempt some form of adverse possession and he seems unwilling to do that.

Am I being too worried about adverse possession? Is there anything I can do that doesn't require my neighbors cooperation but also doesn't involve as nuclear of a solution of having an official person come by and forcing him to take down his fence? Anything else I should know?

I do realize I am probably influenced by the callousness of him just building it in our yard without even talking to us, but I want to be somewhat wise about this and not act spiteful based on emotions.

As an East coaster preparing for my first visit to Berkeley this summer, what dispensary in the area would you recommend? I’m a fan of quality over quantity and really excited about my trip to CA. I’ve heard a lot about 710labs from friends out West and wondering where to go and what brands to be on the lookout for. Also, is it true that many CA dispensaries also sell mushroom products? Thanks!