Sure, i understand the moral/ethical part, and i'm generally in favor of preventing price gouging. But the vast majority of complaints i've seen are more "my rent increased from 3000 to 4000", when all the other rents in the area are $4000.
I had a bad experience myself renting in boston, that involved the health inspector fining the operating company about 20k.
Wait, really? You're in favor of artificial pricing constraints to avoid "gouging"? Doesn't virtually every reputable economist believe that those constraints decrease the supply of housing? The moral dimension to rent control seems just as dubious as the legal one!
When I say price gouging, i mean the economic definition, which is a very very specific thing:
IE when a coercive monopoly raise prices to levels that wouldn't exist if there was competition.
This does not decrease the supply of housing, because it's a monopoly, they are doing it because they can, not because supply is low.
I had a bad experience myself renting in boston, that involved the health inspector fining the operating company about 20k.