Certainly it gets abused. People keep their apartments even though they're not living in them, because otherwise the rent would go up. I know someone who did that for 20 years with an apartment on Russian Hill. She would sublet the place for a year or two and then come back.
I know several people that do that: luck into a sweet rent control deal even though you were wealthy enough to afford market rates anyway, never, ever give up the lease even after you've essentially moved away anyway and then sublet the unit out at market rates yourself.
I don't know the same people that get mad at a corporation for allegedly "cheating the system" in some way don't find this sort of thing offensive, but weirdly they don't seem to at all.
> I know several people that do that: luck into a sweet rent control deal even though you were wealthy enough to afford market rates anyway, never, ever give up the lease even after you've essentially moved away anyway and then sublet the unit out at market rates yourself.
If this is in San Francisco, report them to the landlord or the city so they can be evicted. Tenants who abuse the system worsen the housing market for everyone.
> She would sublet the place for a year or two and then come back.
That's generally illegal, unless the subtenant is paying no more than the tenant is in rent. Every tenant who does this in San Francisco can be, and ought to be, immediately evicted. There is zero economic/social justification for abuse of rent control.
It’s illegal, period. The unit has to be the tenant’s primary residence. Obviously the litigation to prove this in an anti-landlord town like SF is messy and often not worthwhile.
