Live in the SCV long enough and you’ll learn the code words that many in this town use to put down residents of Newhall and Canyon Country who, through circumstance or choice, live differently than the landed homeowners in Valencia, Stevenson Ranch and other parts of the SCV.
You know what I’m talking about. You might have engaged in it yourself. Example: The term “High Density” may have originated in a demographer’s lab, but in the SCV, it may as well be a four letter word.
It’s often used as a polite way to denigrate as sub-human and abnormal not just renters, but people who own condos, townhomes, or other properties that share walls, open spaces, and other resources. Instead of calling such people trashy or poor or smelly or consumers of Goodwill products or making reference to their skin color, we just say we’re opposed to “high density housing.” Toss in a few references to the San Fernando Valley and you’re done! Project dead, point made. “Those people” are to be avoided and kept far away from our safe, conformist suburban bedroom community.
Well now we have a new term for the reactionary lizard brain of the SCV to embrace in this effort to scare us from efficient, environmentally responsible living: flophouses. Reporter Jim Holt, writing a nice account of yesterday’s pointless and violent SWAT raid of a house in Newhall, was handed the novel-if-archaic-but-golden word on a platter by a Deputy who said the Newhall home was like, literally teeming with insects who started fleeing just as the brave exterminators arrived:
“It’s a flophouse with numerous people living there,” Lewis said. “There’s no other way to describe it.”
People seen entering the house apparently escaped out the back, he said.
“OMG a flophouse!” the lizard brain of the SCV said. “What’s becoming of our town! I remember when the onion fields…the sheep…the cows…” followed by “something something San Fernando Valley!!!!111!” it continued.
Too bad for the Deputy and Holt (who enthusiastically and matter-of-factly embraced the loaded word later on in the story) that the house was anything but flop and its residents were anything but floppers. A Signal commenter quickly pointed out:
This is NOT a “flophouse”. just because the house is owned by younger individuals, it does not necessarily mean its a flophouse. The owner bought the house about a year ago with his hard earned money. What went on there before that it in related. The YOUNG ROOMMATES that live there ALL have full time jobs, 2 of them own a small local business. The facts should be investigated before the slander is printed.
Alas it was too late. Facts be damned, the lizard brain of the SCV embraced the term with gusto and dispatch. It went from rating a 0 on the SCV interwebs to rating like 3000 all in a short 48 hours. Its usage is already being debated here on SCVTalk (where, if the new thumbs up/thumbs down rating could be applied, it would surely break all records), at The Signal and it will be used in the future to describe any single family home being occupied by people who are un-related or even multi-generational families who are, because such homes are not strictly high density but something is wrong with them anyway.
Are you a Master’s College student who rents a house in Newhall with four other 20 something guys? Flophouser! A multi-generational Indian or Pinoy family with gramama helping out with the toddler while mom works? Well, first of all, who would live like that, and secondly, flophouser!
It’s like the SCV’s own “death panels.” A term no one really bothers to think about (or wonder if its usage is accurate) but everyone instantly and emotionally reacts to.
Here’s to Deputy Lewis and The Signal for unintentionally birthing a brand new, SCV-only meme. I’ll look forward to its usage in LTEs, City Council meetings and in rants right here on SCVTalk.
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It’s a bloody outrage!
“Flophouse!?” Next thing you know they’ll be using terms like “bordello” and “ghetto.”
Awww, I love the term flophouse. We always refer to the house next to the complex (the house that grows all the corn) as a flophouse. Our new house has four bedrooms. Three are going to be turned into hotel spa-like bedrooms for occasional guests, and one of these days my mother will be moving in full time. I have every intention of turning our new house into a flophouse, except I like to think of it as a Bed & Breakfast.
AKA makeshift housing during the 2008 City Council elections, or if you cannot afford our $600,000 houses, then just pack up, and move along. Only 4 people per 2,000 square feet, please.
The above was sarcasm, of course. Hope that came through. My in-laws live with me (8 people in about 1800 sq. ft.), and we would not have been able to afford our house without extended family.
“Here’s to Deputy Lewis and The Signal for unintentionally birthing a brand new, SCV-only meme.”
A-hah! Who knew Master Blogger Jeffrey was a “birther”? C’mon son, you too can achieve the American dream if you just set your mind to it.
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“Flophouse”, “death panel”, “birther”, all pejorative terms used by the simple minded to make the complex world around them easier to understand. People that engage in labelling like that are not to be taken seriously.
The City of Santa Clarita does have a “Rooming House” ordinance which prohibits a Residential Home Owner from entering into more than 3 rental agreements per residence. Therefore an individual, young or old, who rents out 3 bedrooms of their residence is within the expected Santa Clarita norms.
I would have thought the Signal and the Sherriff Department would be aware of Santa Clarita code requirements and therefore act accordingly.
Why do you assume that this house is the example of all Newhall? It sounds to me as though there were a lot of non-permanent residents there, hense the term “flophouse”. You are assuming that all us land owner types characterize all you dense dellers as such. Shame on you. It seems as though you are the one with the stereotype stuck in your head.