Most tenants are pretty sad... except for one family... "Thanks heaven! Finally that old stuff is gone! Hope they'll put in something decent!"
I have to admit I was close to physically attacking that guy... it hasn't been the first fight with that particular family.
Wow, you can get quite emotional, no?
Having lived a good part of my young life in old, decrepit buildings like that, I can probably understand why he would think like that.
The buildings I lived in ... some are beautiful, I loved how they looked outside, and all the architectural details inside.
But the conditions were not all that good, because unfortunately the landlord wouldn't invest in the building. Some of the tenants also didn't give a *$%# and made things worse, in fact.
Rotten water pipes, rotten electric wires, stairs that were all crooked from age, leaky roof. The steam heat & hot water didn't work sometimes, etc.
So, while it's unfortunate that the nice-looking old stuff has to go; when you're living in environments like that, something new that works properly can be a blessing.
I remember one of the apartment buildings I lived in, back in 1980-82 had a toilet with a tank high up on the wall. As a five-year-old I loved it. But my mom noticed that the tank was coming loose from the plaster and she was afraid it was going to fall down some day.
She pestered the landlord enough that he finally came and replaced it with a modern toilet that didn't look so charming....but at least there were no worries about a tank shattering on someone's head.