It is advised that striped bass and bluefish are the only fish that should be consumed from the Lower Mystic, and even then should not be consumed by high risk groups.

https://mysticriver.org/fish-advisory

Mystic River Watershed Associations stance on the topic of eating things from the main lower mystic river.

https://youtu.be/Wp5zgGVeRg0

But it's also still a pretty dangerous place for fish due to high temps and low levels of oxygen, water quality is improved but still not great, Historically it was said you could walk across the Mystic on the backs of herrings they were so plentiful, before poorly regulated industrialization hit the region.

https://youtu.be/oCV1swNDFPA

If a tenant's lease is up and they don't tell the landlord they are leaving until right before I think the only practical recourse would be withholding security deposit, but these days that happens so often for little to no reason at all it's unclear that would be any different.

As to raising rent at the end of lease, technically 30 days notice is required but I certainly have been in situations where landlords regularly did not honor this. You could push back and best case get a month of cheaper rent but at the risk it just turning into a notice to quite. But ultimately it comes down to weather or not you want to stay and the cost and hastle of moving even with 30 days is significant.

I would much prefer ops situation of being told 4 mo ahead what the new terms will be.

There should not be anything illegal about this request, yes they can request this. However until you sign your new lease this 4mo would just be a verbal understanding that would not be otherwise enforceable outside of the notice requirements of the current lease.

They are likely being conservative and want to make sure they have enough time to find a new tennant if you`re not planning on staying. I do understand why this would be annoying, but it's also a good idea for all involved to plan ahead.

I expect most tennant's typically know 4 mo in advance if they intend to stay in the same place, barring the unexpected, and if they don't it's probably a good motivation to think about what you want to do.

Much much worse are the landlords who tell you a few days before your new lease that your rents going up 🤷. Or conversely the tenants that give landlords very little notice that they aren't renewing their lease.

I think amazon likely just moved into this spot for it's immediate proximity in either direction to rt1.

Also why as a buyer it can be important to check public record for bedrooms and square footage and not just go off the listing, which is often exaggerated.

Typically in listings square footage, bedrooms, and features are in practice largely at the discretion of the listing agent, and the Buyers to decide what they think about it. If an argument can be made to a reasonable person that it's a 3 bedroom than it's a 3 bedroom in the context of a listing.

The only things that could override this would be like septic size constraints or perhaps claiming a bedroom in a basement with no separate egress, but typically even here as long as it's not a separate unit the interpretation of what constitutes a bedroom are very flexible

If a reasonable observer would think it's a 3 bedroom and there's no legal reason it can't accommodate 3 bedrooms then it can be listed as a 3 bedroom. The questions of valuation, and weather your property should be priced as a full 3 bedroom may be more nuanced.

Honestly though the bigger issue here, this seems like a red flag from your listing agent. I'd probably look for another realtor who's going to standup for my interests.

This is correct but its actually quite a bit more complex than this. MA's CH70, state law around education funding, means a municipality is legaly required to fund schools at an amount determined by a standard equation. And Proposition 2.5 means the municipal levy (overall property taxes) can only grow by 2.5% YOY.

Services, like education costs, consistently grow far faster than 2.5% every year, but really the cost of most municipal services grow more than 2.5%/yr. Some of this can be mitigated with development, as that can add to the tax base further. But the typical effect of these state laws, in lower density suburbs particularly, is that services like roads and infrastructure must be perpetually scaled back over time as the school budget eats up a larger and larger percentage of the overall budget, or in wealthier towns they have periodic override votes, see tax increases, to mitigate this legislative inconsistency.

Don't know a lot about Stoughton in particular, or if they would even have many sidewalks. I think I may have only been out there in recent years for Ikea. My impression is it's quite far out, so being quiet is likely expected. They did construct a brand new $126M dollar high school finished in 2020 though. With 55M coming from the state, along the lack of investment claim they seem to be getting investment!

What's even an example of a "suburb you're talking about? Malden absolutely redid many concrete sidewalks while I was there, and has rebuilt their entire downtown in the last 6 years or so. Wellesley has great sidewalks, many concrete, mostly with granite curbs; the city even plows all the sidewalks in the winter. Somerville seems to have sidewalks at least as nice as Boston, if not nicer and many large projects going on like Assembly. Lexington is redoing their entire town center, and cutting down all the trees in doing so 😢. The list can go on and on. I can't think of a suburb in the Boston metro that even anecdotally supports your hypothesis.

Massachussets municipal finance is governed entirely by a 1980s proposition 2.5. A municipality cannot raise their total levy limit beyond 2.5% YOY without voters approving an override or debt exclusion. For a long time the cost of municipal services have risen much faster than 2.5% and so 2 things tend to happen. Ch70 means a town must fund education at a specified level. So that means a town either continues to cut services like public works, infrastructure ect or they periodically go to voters and ask for overrides. What's more, these overrides compound by raising the base limit that continues to grow 2.5% YOY into the future. Poorer towns tend to suffer under this model more as it can be a much bigger ask to go to voters to raise property taxes than in affluent towns. IMO this is one of the larger sources of inequality in MA government, as it directly and indirectly impacts almost every part of municipal government service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Massachusetts_Proposition_2%C2%BD

This is not actually how property taxes work in MA. Due to Prop 2.5, property values have no bearing on the property tax revenue a municipality in MA generates. Basicaly a town can collect X revenue based on their historical norms. That amount can be increased by 2.5%/yr. Town assessors asses housing values in the town to provide a weighting for your portion of the property tax revenue vs your neighbors. Ultimately the sum of the property values is divided by the revenue the town will collect and that determines the rate.

If all property values doubled next year a towns property tax rate would automatically get cut in half, or vice versa.