It is not their own, and they do not obey the golden rule in the use of it.
Every five years or so plumbing laws are changed, and if an old house is touched the fixtures and pipes must be all renewed.

Tenants have learned to fear the sanitation of old houses, and yet abuse the appliances they should care for.
Public ownership or corporate ownership or an increased lawlessness are accountable for a disregard of others' rights and of property which is unnecessarily increasing the cost of living.
I have said elsewhere that it is not because the landlord does not want children in the house but because he does not want such ill-bred children, vandals, who have no respect for anything.

He charges high rent because his investment is good for only ten years.
The shibboleth of duty to own a home has so strong a hold on the moral sense of the people that it is made use of by the promoter who may in some cases think himself the philanthropist he intends others to call him.

I mean that the duty of owning and the heinousness of paying rent are so ingrained that buying on the instalment plan has seemed a righteous thing, even with the examples of broken lives in plain sight.

As an incentive to save, if there were anything to save, it might have been justified in the days of feudalism.