Category — Landlord Biz

I knew a building manager who followed the weather reports relentlessly and thought the end of the world was coming every day via hurricanes, heat waves, or snowstorms. I don’t think she ever went outside.

Another manager was also fixated on the weather. He did a lot of indoor apartment painting and wanted every day to be 74 degrees, like Costa Rica, so he wouldn’t sweat.

A neighbor of mine once asked if I had a winter place in Florida.

I was surprised. I’m not there — retired in Florida.

However, I know a klezmer musician — a bushy-haired, ex-hippie clarinetist — who moved to Florida and took up golf. Anything is possible. I hope he plays a hora by the water fountain on the 16^th hole. (Mickey Katz did that. His band surprised a golfer on his birthday.)

Arizona versus Florida. That is a question. Which place is too hot, or not too hot.

Alice and I went to a wedding in Florida, where a guest asked, “Are you still in Cleveland?” Meaning  “Are you nuts? Do you like gray skies, slush and potholes?”

Another Clevelander at the wedding said, “The day I hit sixty-two I had to leave.” She spends her winters in Scottsdale, Arizona. A third Clevelander, originally from South Africa, prefers Florida over Arizona. “I like the ocean,” she said.

One time in Florida, at a Yiddishe Cup gig, I ran into a man who had lived in both Florida and Arizona. He said summer in Arizona is unbearable, and Florida is bearable.

What about Ohio? Is it bearable? I think so.

(This op-ed, below, was in the Wall Street Journal last week.The op-ed generated 880 comments. Struck a chord.)

I have a no-dogs policy. I’m a landlord. When I bought the building in Lakewood, Ohio, decades ago, a gigantic Doberman lived in apartment 400. It bounded down the stairs and almost ran me over. Also, the dog stained the oak floors by regularly urinating in the living room.

So I kicked the dog out, and the tenant, and instituted a new policy. (Cats are OK at an additional $20 a month.)

Yet I do have dogs in the building—“emotional support animals.” These aren’t trained service animals like those that help the blind. Tenants find a licensed social worker or psychologist to write a letter saying the animal is needed for their mental health. The Fair Housing Amendments Act obligates the landlord to offer “reasonable accommodations” to tenants with disabilities, emotional and otherwise.

Last month a new tenant informed me she has two emotional-support dogs. She brought this up after she had already moved in. She described the dogs as “mixed-breeds, about 20 pounds each.” I immediately fantasized about changing my no-dog policy to “second dogs are OK—at $500 a month.” That would slow the pooch parade. But it would be illegal.

The tenant texted me that Daisy and Miu “are bonded and separating them would cause distress that would negatively impact my condition.” The dogs’ owner also pointed out: “My apartment is approximately 700 square feet, which is sufficient space for their size and needs.” My tenant had done her homework. More than I had. I didn’t know you could have two emotional-support dogs in a one-bedroom. How about three dogs?

The tenant said each dog has a unique function: “One assists me with daily functioning and provides support when I leave home, whereas the other helps reduce anxiety and provides a sense of safety and stability within my home environment, particularly following a past traumatic experience.”

The tenant works in a restaurant, but everybody is a lawyer on the side, courtesy of AI.

If the dogs aren’t quiet, I’ll have to file an eviction for “disrupting the neighbors’ peaceful enjoyment of the premises.” What a hassle.

I’m hoping the dogs are reasonable. The tenant isn’t.

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The link (no paywall) to the actual WSJ article, with comments, is here.

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Yiddishe Cup plays a free concert 7 pm Sunday, June 28, at the Alma Theater, Cain Park, Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

Steven Greenman & His Violin, plus some sidemen, 1992

 
My tennis partner, Ivan, wanted to add a drive-thru window at his frozen custard shop. The addition was a big deal; there were environmental remediation concerns. The drive-thru would be on the site of a former auto repair place. Nobody wants gasoline on their ice cream cone. Ivan is 77. The drive-thru would cost hundreds of thousands. What did he need this aggravation for?

He did it. You’ve to respect an old man still taking risks like that. Or maybe Ivan is crazy.

I’m not a big risk taker. For instance, 12 years ago I freaked out about buying a medical office building in Solon, Ohio. I was 63 and didn’t really need more “action.” But my friend Carl — a fellow real estate investor — said, “You’re not dead yet.” And my wife added, “It would be a good challenge, and you’ll learn something.”

Or I could have studied Spanish, or maybe art history, at Cleveland State University. The university sponsors tuition-free classes for seniors 60 and over. The medical office building would cost more than a million dollars, and if it flopped, I wouldn’t be too happy. Carl said, “If it flops, you’ll be OK. You’ll live with it.”

I lived with it.

Do something — that’s my wife’s mantra. She’s a former gym teacher. Still, when I’m spending a lot of money, I get nervous.

I wrote an email to my investment partner: “I’m out. I don’t need it.” I didn’t relish such a roller coaster ride in middle age. I didn’t need more buildings. I met my partner for breakfast the next morning and bailed. He said, “If you’re that anxious, yes, bail.”

I slept on it again — actually, didn’t sleep — and changed my mind. The deal happened. Then, three years later, I sold the property right before the office building crash. I made money. Win some. (I’m not going to tell you about my “lose some”s.)

I have three file cabinets in my home office. That’s probably more than you have. I like paper. Yes, I have QuickBooks Pro and Excel spreadsheets, but I’m more old school than new school. (My daughter runs a 100-person company and doesn’t even own a pen, she says.)

A 24-year-old employee once said to me, “The whole history of 20th-century Cleveland real estate is in this office.” Like the other day, I threw out some 1994 employee W-2s and a boiler manual from 1990. I also collect notes from my father, who died in 1986. He started the family real estate biz. He used to jot notes on 8-column green accounting pads. I study these accounting pad marginalia for insights. I’m not quite sure what I learn . . . “Light the incinerator from the top floor down, so the refuse burns down.” Incinerators were banned around 1974. “Blow down the boilers every week.”

I should have been a historian.

I don’t dwell on the past all day long, but how about half hour a day? I recommend it, particularly if you’re 60 and up.

A high school friend, now living in New York, recently wrote me a super-curt email: “Not sure I want to meet up. No nostalgia here.” That was the entire email. He and I and other high school friends were supposed to meet up in Cleveland. My old buddies were from out of town. That’s the thing with a family business; I’m stuck here. We didn’t visit our old stomping grounds. We went to the Cleveland Museum of Art — always a safe, quality choice.

Toby Stratton, 1985 — a year before he died.

A year before my father died, I interviewed him on videotape. Part of my history-buff thing. My dad got riled when I asked him, “Do you ever think about your mother?” I asked that because my dad rarely talked about the good old days, in central Cleveland, with his dirt-poor Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. My dad said, “Son, I think about my mother every day!” He just didn’t feel like announcing his affection daily.

My dad was good about moving on. He was always reinventing himself: chemist, stockbroker, office manager, cosmetics salesman, real estate investor. I’m not that great at it — moving on.

I saved some of my father’s personal financial statements. He inflated car values and listed stocks he didn’t own. He liked to fudge financial statements. These slightly cooked documents helped him get bank mortgages for his investment properties. My dad claimed he had $17,000 total in Emerson Electric GTE and GM stocks. And he claimed he had life insurance with a cash value of $78,000. Nope.

My dad loved leverage. He bought his first building with only 8 percent down. I don’t know how he slept at night. Come to think of it, he didn’t sleep much. He was often cranky.

I don’t roll the dice as easily. I’d like to own an old Burroughs adding machine — one that makes a lot of noise and has a clanky lever like a slot machine. Take me back.

Sorry, I’m losing it. I’ve been stuck in this real estate office, above my garage, for 32 years. Before that, I was in a basement for 12 years. Before that, a third-floor attic.

I move slowly.

Change? Let me think about it.

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[This essay first appeared in Phi Kappa Phi Forum magazine, Spring 2026.]

 
I’ve probably been to eviction court 100 times in Lakewood, Ohio. In the old days I actually stood in a real courtroom with a judge with a gavel. But nowadays I meet up in a conference room with a magistrate. The guy knows me. Believe me. We sometimes exchange pleasantries post-hearing. But not usually. The guy is in a hurry. The other day I faced off with a deadbeat tenant — nothing unusual here — except he announced to the magistrate and me, “I probably shouldn’t even be here. I have a contagious disease.”

That got our attention. He said he couldn’t go to work because of the disease. The magistrate shut him down and gave him the eviction notice — the red tag — right then.

The magistrate

Post-adjournment, the tenant explained he was “skin-to-skin contagious.” So you have to touch him to get what he had. That made us all feel better.

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And please read my essay “Rolling the Dice” in the latest Forum magazine. Author Jim Sollisch says it’s one of my better outings.

 
I got this text the other day: “Sir, there’s a cat in our restaurant that came through the ceiling.”

I rent to a restaurant. The cat belongs to a tenant who lives upstairs. The cat was in the restaurant, and I was getting calls. The cat-owner wasn’t around.

The access panel in the tenant’s bathtub was loose, and the cat had scurried down the pipe chase into the restaurant. I called the cops. “This is not an emergency,” I said.  I explained the cat-in-the-restaurant was a one-off freakish thing and wouldn’t happen again.

“It better not,” the cop said.

I shouldn’t have called the city. That often muddies things.

Eventually an animal warden came around and got the cat, and the tenant picked up the cat.

And then a couple days later, the cat fell through the ceiling again. My handyman had apparently not screwed in the access panel tight enough. Or maybe the cat was a tiger.

We got longer screws. We’re OK for the moment. Cat is not on the menu.

 
I knew a building inspector who could smell rats. He didn’t have to see rat droppings; he could smell rats.

I knew a handyman who could jimmy almost any apartment door with a credit card.

My talent is figuring out if a tenant has skipped out or not. I knock loudly on the tenant’s door. If there’s no response, I yell “maintenance” a couple times and bring out the master key. I yell “maintenance” a third time, and step into the apartment. A couch, a bed . . . always. Skippers leave behind the heavy stuff. TVs, for sure. Everyone upgrades his TV on move-out. Some small items are left behind: beer bottles, pennies, unopened bills. Usually enough to fill three or more garbage bags.

The stove is fried. The refrigerator is always missing a plastic shelf. Why?

Underwear and socks . . . gone.  No socks means no tenant. The guy definitely skipped.

Some of his clothes are on the floor. Some good, some bad. I found a tux left behind. The guy was 6-4. I had the pants legs shortened. (He wasn’t a skipper. He was a dead man. And his place was clean.)

I enjoy wrecked apartments. Who doesn’t? A building manager once phoned me with on-the-scene reporting from a wrecked apartment: “It looks like a cyclone went through here crossways!”

But occasionally a manager will not react positively. “I’m creeped out,” one manager told me, standing in the common-area hallway while I went into the suite. She was creeped out by a few bottles of beers, cat urine and cigarette butts. (Probably because she had to clean it.)

I phone the skipper to make sure he’s definitely gone. I say, “You out?”  Nothing more that than. No lectures about housekeeping. Nobody wants to be criticized on their house-cleaning skills. 

 
John Cermak installed a pool table, gun rack and shower in his parents’ basement. He lived down there his entire adult life. In his twenties, John drove a humpy Saab. Had to be a Saab. He showed me how to do oil changes on my car (a Plymouth Valiant) and helped me build a coffee table from pine 2x4s. We grew up across the street from each other.

John especially liked motors, fishing and woodworking, but that’s not the whole picture; he went to St. Ignatius High and graduated John Carroll University as an English major.

When I got into the landlord biz (thanks, Dad), I called John for advice on boilers, blown fuses, leaks and everything else. John was my guru of the physical world.

When John was in elementary school, he mounted a lawnmower engine on a tricycle. The guy knew everything.

John died in 1992 at age 41 from complications of mental illness and alcoholism. He could put away a case of Wiedemann’s in a day. Schizophrenia ran in his family.

A repairman called me and said, “The voltage at the cap is good.”

What’s that mean? If the voltage was good, why didn’t we have power in four suites? The man said, “The inside line, outside, is yours.”

John, you there?

 
This essay is in today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer.

An apartment-building manager in Lakewood texted: “Plaster just fell. Nobody died.”

I’m a landlord. The building — on Detroit Avenue — is 100 years old. I called the tenant and apologized.

In old buildings, plaster — a limestone-and-sandstone paste — is squished between wood lath and joists, and can lose its key over time. “Losing key” means plaster cracks, crumbles and goes plop. Old plaster is often compromised by water leaks, decades of vibrations from Detroit Avenue, and plain old gravity. Things sag, as you’ve no doubt noticed if you’re over 50.

Heads up: Should I replace every bedroom ceiling with modern drywall? Should I pass out helmets to all the tenants?

I like old buildings. Not everybody does. I live in a 99-year-old house in Cleveland Heights. A lot of people prefer newer construction. My parents did, for sure. They grew up poor in the Kinsman neighborhood, and when they moved to South Euclid in 1951, they insisted on brand-new everything. Then, in 1973, they moved to an apartment building – also brand-new — in Beachwood. My parents didn’t want raindrops (from roof leaks) or plaster falling on their heads.

When I was young, I thought people in Beachwood – or, say, Solon, Westlake or Avon — were on the wrong track, with their in-vogue housing choices. Apparently not everybody aspired to be an elitist architecture snob like me. I’ve since mellowed on the subject of housing. To each his own.

Plaster fell onto a barber’s chair on Detroit Avenue. The barber rented a street-level storefront from me. The barbershop owner, Al, told me no one was injured. “But what about next time?” he said.

Good question. I thought about giving Al a reduction on his next month’s rent. The dilemma was how much of a reduction. Al is an Iraqi refugee who has seen more than his share of falling things. He worked at a commissary for the United States military in Iraq.

The plaster in the barbershop ceiling had been slowed in its descent by first hitting modern drop-ceiling tiles – those stippled white acoustical tiles you see when you look up in a barber’s chair, or at a dentist’s office. The drop-ceiling tiles at the barbershop camouflaged the original plaster ceiling. Acoustical ceiling tiles are cheap at Home Depot. I stockpile them. I gave Al half off his rent. Settling — money and plaster; that’s part of my job.

A second-floor tenant, above the street-level storefronts, called.

More bad vibrations? He called during a Browns game. He said, “People are literally stomping above me, on the third floor. I’m having heart palpitations right now. I’m calling the police. If I die, it’s on your head. I was pressing my arms over my ears so hard it took the muscle off the bone by my upper arm.”

“Have you tried earplugs?” I said.

“I had tubes in my ears as a child. I’m not sticking anything foreign in my ears.”

“I’ll send the manager right over,” I said.

“Don’t send her. She tried to kill me.”

“When?”

“Three years ago. She tried to force me to drink a beer. I’m a recovering alcoholic.”

“Is your ceiling shaking right now?”

“It’s rattling badly.”

The Browns lost. Does the team have any extra helmets? The sky is falling.

 
I gave Livingstone, a tenant, a break on his rent because he called the police after he saw a thief stealing leaded-glass windows from the building entrance. I appreciated Livingstone’s civic involvement. Livingstone was nosy. That’s a good thing.

Two leaded-glass sidelights flanking the front door

Then a vandal scrawled graffiti on a front door. Livingstone wasn’t around. (Different building.) The building manager knew the graffiti “artist.” She even knew his phone number. My manager personally knows this derelict? The tagger hung out at a skaters’ coffeehouse, as did my manager, and had a very recognizable tag.

I phoned the graffiti kid and hung up. What if he was a loony? Let the cops handle it. Then the kid called me. “You just called,” he said.

I hate that.

The Lakewood cops found the graffiti guy and made him clean up the door. His mom helped. The kid was in high school. I didn’t press charges; he and his mom did a good job cleaning the door.

Back to the leaded-glass thief . . . He was caught, primarily due to Livingstone’s accurate ID. The thief sold the windows to an antiques store. He was eventually charged with aggravated burglary and grand theft. He didn’t do any jail time. He paid restitution to me.

 
MetroHealth hospital said they’d pay me $200 — a portion of a tenant’s rent. The tenant was hospitalized and getting financial assistance.

But Metro didn’t pay, right off. They said they paid. And this was after I had filled out a couple hospital forms and mailed them in, and waited six weeks. Metro said they had sent the payment ACH. I didn’t get it, or maybe I did and was losing my mind.

I reached a Metro employee who said the payment wasn’t ACH, after all. It was a regular check mailed USPS. Metro said the check had cleared. When? Metro even read me the Metro check number. I was nuts, certified by a hospital.

And I didn’t have the check! No sign of it in my bank account or anywhere else. All this aggravation for $200?

A few weeks later Metro contacted me and said, “We’re going to reissue the check and mail it.” This, I assert, is an admission that Metro was nuts, and I wasn’t. (At least for the moment.)

—
Got the check.

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I had an op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week: “The bait-and-switch of our beautiful lakes.”

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Yiddishe Cup plays TONIGHT (Wed. Aug 27) at 7 p.m. at the outdoor, covered Wain Pavilion on the grounds of Park Synagogue, 27500 Shaker Blvd., Pepper Pipes, Ohio. There are chairs. The concert is free. And if you want, you can donate to Magen David Adom (the Israel Red Cross) at the show.

 
I wish I had been in the military. I could have been in, but I didn’t go. I was against Vietnam. I learned quagmire — the word — from Walter Lippmann in Newsweek.

I can take orders and I don’t generally sass people, and I’ve never argued with cops or umpires.

Some of my high school classmates went into the service.  Some are on the war memorial on Green Road. By and large, these deceased guys weren’t in the college-prep classes.

One high school friend — a Jewish guy — went to Annapolis, though. He eventually became acting head of the FBI in Cleveland. I visited him at his office, and we brainstormed on ways to thwart terrorists. I didn’t have much to contribute.

When I was in elementary school, I sent away to the Air Force Academy for photos, and the academy mailed me an application.

I was mistaken for a military man only once, when I represented the Armed Forces at a sign-review meeting at Lakewood city hall. The Armed Forces rented a store from us. A sign-review board member said, “You walk like a military man.”

Atten-hut! Thank you.

The Armed Forces recruiting center housed the four major branches: Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force. The Army turned its basement area into a gym with punching bags and a Nautilus.

In 2008 the recruiters moved out and went across the street to a newer building, and left us with three ratty sofas, a rusty Nautilus, barbells, a mini-trampoline and a punching bag. For starters.

I wrote to the Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky, re U.S. lease W912QRM504000025:

There is 40 years’ worth of  junk in the basement: 27 chairs, a punching bag, American flag, scrap shelving, metal framing, boxes of “Army of One” promotional material, two bikes, six pieces of Nautilus-like weight equipment, barbells, a mini-trampoline . . .

A 1970s stereo system, file cabinet, and a lot of assorted paperwork, of which I’ve enclosed an invoice from 1991, just to give you a flavor for what’s down there.

The government paid for the hauling. That was my last dealing with the military. “Sgt. Stratton” never happened. Nor did “Private  Stratton.”  I feel somewhat guilty about that. (I know, typical ex-hippie revisionist thinking.)

 
It was cold in her apartment. But did she have to call the city on me? It was September and the heat was hard to regulate. (Fall is the hardest season because the outdoor temperature fluctuates so much.) She hadn’t paid her rent, either. It was the 20th of the month. Also, she bad-mouthed my building manager and ripped down curtains in the hallway.

Bad stuff. But I could handle it, except her calling the city on me. She was way-late with the rent, yet she felt she could drop a dime on me?

I first rented to her 10 years ago, at another building. I didn’t remember her other than I had marked “late payer” on some notes I kept.

. . . I’ll wait her out and not renew her lease. Just five months to go. Or better yet, she doesn’t cough up the rent this month, and I evict her.

Now she’s texting my onsite manager: “You’re too old! I don’t like your tone! And the way my rent gets paid is none of your business!”

Now she says she’s moving. Yes.

Nope. We go to court.

She tells the magistrate she has medical problems, and she tells me she has been laid off from her schoolteacher job for hitting a kid. “It isn’t true,” she says. “But it’s in court, so I can’t get another job.” The magistrate gives her five days to move out. Her son is up from Florida, and he guarantees she’ll be out.

“I’ve never been late,” she says to me.

“You’ve never been on time,” I say. (I keep my cool. I’ve been listening to Sam Harris’ meditation app.)

She’s still here. Five days later. She says, “My son has arthur-itis and is in pain, and it’s raining. I’ll be out by noon tomorrow.”

“We go to court at 11:30 am tomorrow if you’re not out by 10 am,” I say.

She says, “I was telling the kids to put away the toys in class and I tapped one with a toy, and then this boy, Armani, started crying and said he got hit on the head, and he went to the office. I got escorted out of the building. It has ruined my life.”

She has a record; the City of Cleveland criminal docket has all the particulars. I don’t usually look at Cleveland, because most of my action is in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas and the city of Lakewood. She has evictions, traffic violations and the school-related assault case.

“I’ll be out by 10 am. I’m a good person,” she says.

Today. 10 am. There’s a U-Haul truck in the alley. I’ll wait her out. No court.

5:03 pm.

She’s gone.

Note to self: Don’t rent to her a third time.

Down and out in Lakewood, Ohio

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Yiddishe Cup plays a free concert 2-3 pm Sunday (May 11). Mother’s Day. Beachwood, Ohio, library. Corner of Richmond Road and Shaker Blvd.

 
Waste Management wants $2035.24 for taking away my old dumpsters. I rent the dumpsters for trash removal at my apartment buildings. I’m on a lease. (Landlords can be tenants!)

I’ve used WM for 13 years. Do they still love me? No, they regularly overcharge me, assessing extra charges (“overages”) because my dumpsters are too full.

I think I’ll take my dumpster needs and talents to Rumpke. Ever heard of them? Fun name. Rumpke is a regional company, out of Cincinnati. Rumpke say they won’t charge me overage fees or removal fees when my lease is up.

But what to do about the $2035.24 the gonifs in Chicago (WM’s HQ) want? Two grand to take away my 11 dumpsters? Should I ignore Chi? Maybe WM will forget about me. WM is huge; there are even WM dumpsters in Japan; I’ve seen it in the movies.

Garbage haulers and coin-op laundry guys . . . they’re  all originally Mob-related, started decades ago. I remember a coin-op laundry operator from Chicago trying to turn me into an indentured servant. It was almost impossible to get out of the contract with them. (“Coin-op” refers to rental washers and dryers in my buildings.)

I’m not thrilled about sending $2035.24 to Carol Stream, Illinois. Is that a real town or just a Mob post office in the middle of nowhere?

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Update: WM didn’t forget about me, and I paid half, $1017.62. Matter settled.

 
This acclaimed animation is from the guys over at Challah Barbaric. The vid (below) may seem, at first glance, to be navel-gazing. It’s not. It’s magic. The two main characters — a sleazy guy and a bug-eyed naïf — turn the cutthroat world of real estate into something warm and fuzzy and slightly erotic  — or robotic.

The landlord in the vid is so pompous at first. Then more so. The plot twist: the young lady draws forth the landlord’s humanity and even a Peter, Paul and Mary lyric.

Should I rent to a Stripper? 2:57 minutes. United States . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSzSE1QHnpA&t=1s

 
My latest Cleveland Plain Dealer essay . . .

A LONG MOVIE, ONE LESS TENANT AND A GUITAR

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — The new Bob Dylan movie, “A Complete Unknown,” is too long and a bit too “unknown” — too much about Dylan-from-nowhere. And it’s two hours and 20 minutes, with 40 songs. I like biopics from somewhere — and shorter. How about Dylan’s year at the Sammy fraternity house at the University of Minnesota, followed by his odyssey to New York’s Greenwich Village? That would have been better.

Maybe I’m not enough of a Dylan aficionado. I’m a fan, but not a fanatic. Irwin Weinberger — who used to play in my klezmer band — is a super-fan. Irwin has been to Duluth and eaten at Zimmy’s Deli in Hibbing, Minnesota. Irwin loved every bit of the movie. When Irwin and the klezmer band played weddings and bar mitzvahs, Irwin would often — by request from listeners — veer from the klezmer music into Dylan, singing “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Tangled Up in the Blue” without a cheat sheet. The trick was getting Irwin to stop after two verses.

A tenant left his guitar behind. (My day job is managing apartment buildings in Lakewood.) The tenant said he was going home to Kentucky, taking only what could fit in his car. He said he wasn’t renting a U-Haul because he didn’t have a valid driver’s license. The manager at the building told me the suite was dead-bolted from the inside. I said, “Well, if the place starts to smell, let me know.” Every so often a tenant dies in a suite.

I tried to open the door with the regular key. That, surprisingly, worked. Locks can be finicky, particularly in old Lakewood buildings; you’re never sure you’re getting in until you’re actually in. The suite was above an Indian restaurant and a butcher shop on Detroit Avenue. I found a wooden chair, the guitar, some heavy-metal CDs, a book of Shakespeare plays and Charles Bukowski’s “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” The guitar was a Chinese Martin knock-off with a solid-body case. The case, alone, was worth something. I’ll give the guitar back to the tenant if he returns, but I doubt he will. I also got some postage stamps from the apartment. Nobody wants stamps except me, apparently. I pay a lot of my bills by mail. I’m 74.

When I was 26 . . .

Years ago, I learned a few guitar chords, and now I want to try again. How about, “Dear Landlord”? … “Dear landlord, please don’t put a price on my soul.” Life is complicated. I hunched over the guitar, pressed my fingers to the steel strings, and strummed hard. An acoustic guitar is probably the least ergonomically friendly instrument around. I’m not a 20-year-old made out of rubber.

Dylan mostly plays piano these days. I can see why. He’s 83.

Maybe a tenant will leave me a piano. But please, not a rotted-out 400-pound upright with worn-out strings, dampers and hammers. I “inherited” that piano from a tenant in September. It cost me $500 to junk.

 
I perused Dental Economics magazine. I owned a medical office building in Solon, Ohio. Did you know it costs about $350/square foot to build-out a dental office. There’s all that extra plumbing involved. Either the landlord pays for the extras or the dentist does. Everything is negotiable.

My building had five dental offices, three doctors’ offices, a chiropractor, a masseuse, and a trucker. The trucker was because it was getting hard to find independent medical practitioners.

I had a lunch date with a dentist-tenant. A young real estate apprentice tagged along with me, to Corky & Lenny’s. He said to the dentist, “A DDS is a license to print money.”

Apprentice, be quiet. We don’t want the dentist to know we know he’s loaded.

The dentist pondered the idea of expanding his office; he had three dental chairs and was thinking about a fourth. And he had some complaints. When I had first met him, he had said, “I’m going to be your biggest pain in the ass.” Correct.

At Corky & Lenny’s, the dentist said the lettering on the medical building’s office-directory sign board in the lobby wasn’t uniform. Some dentists and docs had bigger lettering than he did. “It doesn’t look professional,” the dentist said.

The apprentice had inadvertently bought different-sized lettering. “It was our error,” I said. “The letters are supposed to be the same size.”

The apprentice said, “You know it’s very hard to communicate with sign companies.”

“No, I wouldn’t know about that,” the dentist said.

Onward: the artwork in the lobby. Bad. We had hung pastoral oil paintings by the renowned painter/musician Irwin Weinberger. The Cleveland Clinic had calming artwork; why not my building? The dentist said, “You put up paintings in the lobby, but you can’t afford to paint my walls?”

I sold the medical building two years later. A commercial real estate broker told me, too late: “Docs and dentists all think they’re God.”

An Irwin Weinberger oil painting , 2015.

 
This essay was in the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week.

The Cost of Living

LAKEWOOD, Ohio — Some older folks like to regale young people with stories about how matinee movies cost 25 cents, circa 1960. These old folks rarely mention 25 cents in 1960 equals $2.66 in today’s money. And Coca-Cola was a dime. Give me a break; I always try to reference the Consumer Price Index (CPI) whenever I do historical flashbacks.

The CPI is a big part of my life and job. I’m a landlord. I don’t go ballistic with annual rent raises, but enough to stay in the game. An efficiency apartment in Lakewood goes for about $700/month. That’s a bare-bones, 1920s-era apartment — no dishwasher, no air conditioning, no elevator. Academics call these apartments “workforce housing.” Tenants get a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room that doubles as a bedroom. About 350 square feet. You don’t throw big parties. If you lay out your efficiency tastefully, you can call it a studio. I’ve seen studios that look like sleek Pullman cars, with everything in just the right place. I’ve seen expensive folding bikes hanging on racks along walls. An efficiency can be a work of art, or just a huge mound of dirty clothes in the center of the room. Depends on the tenant.

Bill rented an efficiency in Lakewood. His apartment was clean, small and cheap, period. Nothing fancy. Bill told me his rent check had been stolen. He had never been late with his rent before. I went to the Lakewood police station with him. A police officer asked his name. Bill said, “Bill.”

“William?” the policeman said.

“Bill . . . Bill R. Hunter.” Bill had moved to Cleveland from Kentucky decades ago and was a retired factory worker. He smoked a lot, and his right hand had no fingers. We repainted Bill’s apartment walls nearly every year because the government wanted the walls to not look like the color of Bill’s lungs. Bill’s rent was partially subsidized by the government.

Eventually Bill was reimbursed for the stolen rent payment by a money-order company. A crook had knocked Bill down on Detroit Avenue and cashed the money order. The cops nabbed the robber several weeks later. Lakewood police are good.

Detroit Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio

But then Bill missed two rent payments in a row. I found out he was in a nursing home. I wondered, “How creepy would it be for me to try to collect the rent at a nursing home?” Bill’s distant relatives didn’t answer my calls, and the government stopped paying its portion of the rent. I went to the nursing home, which was right across from Bill’s apartment. Bill — with oxygen tubes in his nose — muttered to me, “You’ll get paid.” Flat on his back, he balanced a wallet on his chest. He counted out the rent. “Here you go, buddy.” He called a lot of people buddy.

Then Bill’s wallet vanished, and so did Bill. He wasn’t at the nursing home, and he wasn’t in the hospital. And he wasn’t in the obits. And he owed rent. The housing agency eventually gave me a “case closed” green light to enter Bill’s apartment. We pitched Bill’s belongings into the dumpster, except for his TV, which another tenant took.

Bill’s wooden floors hadn’t been re-sanded in19 years. That’s how long he had lived in the efficiency. The cost of re-sanding floors was up 94%. Inflation was up 53%. Bill’s rent was up 64% in those 19 years.

I called the Ohio Bureau of Vital Statistics. A clerk said she had many dead Bill Hunters on file. I said “Bill R. Hunter. Lakewood.” She said he had died shortly after leaving the nursing home.

I doubt Bill ever checked the cost of living. He didn’t need to. He lived it. He used to write “rant” in the subject line on his checks.

 
There was a “suspicious death.” Apartment 31. At least three gunshots.

I’m hoping it’s suicide. I’m told there are gunshot holes in the bedroom ceiling and wall. I haven’t been in the apartment. There is a coroner’s seal on the door.

Samantha Kovach — the dead tenant — was a secretary. She was 30. She had multicolored hair and was into emo music. I learned all this on Facebook. I’m told Ms. Kovach was a “scene kid.” That’s a certain style. My building manager said Ms. Kovach had guys over a lot and dressed kind of “ghetto” and “whorish.”

Ms. Kovach paid her rent on time and was quiet. I didn’t know her.

I’m putting this letter in the entranceway of the building:

As you no doubt know, Samantha Kovach, a tenant here, died on Sunday. Gunshots were heard coming from the suite. I have been talking to Lakewood police every day. Right now the death is classified as a “suspicious death.” The coroner’s report is not back yet.

What this means: the police are working on the case and haven’t concluded anything, at least publicly. The lead detective told me, though, “The tenants there have nothing to worry about.”

But if you have any questions or concerns, or information, feel free to call Detective __________ at 216-_______

Lakewood is one of the safest places around, and the police are quite good.

Sincerely,

Albert Stratton

Gadson, a neighboring tenant, is freaking out and wants to move. I told him, “You’re being irrational. Lakewood has a murder every two years. Maybe this is a suicide.”

We had towed a male visitor’s car from Ms. Kovach’s parking spot a month ago. Maybe that’s a lead. I’ll tell the police.

A random internet photo of a scene girl. Not Ms. Kovach

I’m not sure what kind of life Ms. Kovach lived. I hope to learn more from the family, or the papers, or from the detective.

. . . Nothing. All kinds of stuff online and in the papers about burglaries and stolen cars but nothing about a possible homicide. Nothing from the parents. The detective said to me, “You don’t know half of what I know.” True. “The people she hung around with generally don’t call the police.”

The coroner’s report isn’t back.

. . . Back now:  The cops  called and said it was a suicide. She shot herself and apparently missed a couple times. The cop said he has the gun and wants to let the family in the apartment after all the blood is cleaned up. “We don’t want to traumatize anybody,” he said.

The maintenance man reports: “The apartment is not bad, really, dude, and she was good-looking, judging from the pictures, but that don’t matter.”

“Not too much coagulation,” another maintenance man said. (He had worked in law enforcement.) “Just blood. No bugs.”

And a cat. “A big fat gray one under the bed. I gave him some tuna fish.”

I need to post a note in the lobby that says Ms. Kovach killed herself so the other tenants will cool down. Done . . .

The funeral for Samantha Kovach, who lived here, is Saturday. Details are available online. Yesterday the coroner ruled her death a suicide. The investigation is now closed. May she rest in peace.

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“Samantha Kovach” is a pseudonym. This happened 10 years ago.

 
The Hotpoint refrigerator — the “value” brand of G.E. — is a good product. It lasts 20 years.

That’s what you want: 15-to-20 years.

And if we start talking stoves, you want even longer. I got 24 years out of a Magic Chef stove.  The burners were clogged and the thermostat was shot. Time to buy another one.

I used to buy Spanish refrigerators. Welbilt. The spelling said it all. Good for only nine years. Frigidaire isn’t much better — 10 years.

I buy appliances from a distributor out of  Stow, Ohio. He’ll hook up the gas flexline (pigtail) to the stove. I could go to Bernie Marcus at Home Depot, but my guy in Stow is hassle-free and about the same price.

Refrigerators are fun; they don’t often screw up, and you can occasionally get a few beers and pops after the tenant moves out. Definitely some open ketchup.

I didn’t take anything from this refrigerator.

Toby Stratton (1917-1986). Photo 1984.

My father, Toby, took me to a lightning-round tutorial with Cousin Gershy. (Gershy is short for Gershon.) Gershy looked horrible — three strokes and two heart attacks. My dad didn’t look any better. My dad died of leukemia two months later.

Gershy had shotguns, a steer horn and a shalom plaque over the mantle. Gershy said, “You wouldn’t believe it, but I used to be a shtarker (strong guy/bully). Now I’ve got this little curl in the tail — that little something different — that something the new treatment doesn’t cure. You’re in trouble, they say. They say, ‘We can’t straighten out your tail. You’re dead.’ That’s what the doctors tell me.”

My dad didn’t chime in. (The docs guessed my dad had another two years.)

A gun dealer had sold Gershy the steer horn for $50, and now the gun dealer wanted the steer horn back. “Gun dealers is a funny ballpark,” Gershy said. “He could shoot me, but a deal is a deal. That’s the way it is.”

Gershy owned a shopping strip center on Mayfield Road in Cleveland Heights. (The building had Gable Pharmacy and Bass Lock & Key.)

Gershy’s price was too high, Toby said.

“If the kid is interested,” Gershy said, looking at me. “I’d come down.”

“It’s up to the kid,” Toby said.

“I’ll work with him,” Gershy said.

On the drive home from Gershy’s, Toby said to me, “Gershy has mellowed.”

Mellowed?  Gershy did not seem mellow to me — not part of the Donovan, mellow-yellow ethos.

“And he’s a gonif,” Toby said. “Don’t buy anything from him.”

I didn’t. Instead I bought an apartment building in Lakewood a year later. I bought the Lakewood building because I wanted to prove to myself I could pull the trigger — buy a piece of investment property — without my dad telling me what to do. My dad was dead. I was 36. I bought the apartment building from a man named Chisling. Odd name, right? I could have used some advice from my dad.

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Yiddishe Cup is part of the Shavuot celebration 7:15-8 pm Tues. (June 11), Park Synagogue, Pepper Pipes, Ohio. We’re doing a 45-minute concert. For more info, click here.