Category — Landlord Biz

Fatima had a B.A. and a steady job, and was single — for about three days, until her boyfriend moved in with her. The boyfriend wouldn’t fill out a rental application. He drifted around the basement electric meters with a screwdriver.

The building manager told him to stay out of the meter area.

He said, “How do you know I’m not a registered electrician?”

The building manager said, “Because I didn’t call one.”

I got a call from an anonymous man: “Watch out. Fatima is no good. She owes me $40, and her boyfriend carries a gun.”

I told Fatima I’d give her all her money back if she left within two days. If she didn’t move out, I would evict her for “unauthorized roommate.”

I gave her $900 back, and she moved. Add another $100 to that — my extra cost  because I owed a tenant in the building $100 for recommending Fatima. I couldn’t not pay the guy for his referral; I had approved Fatima, and then she had screwed up, bringing in her boyfriend with the screwdriver. 

There were several screwups.

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“Fatima” is a pseudonym.
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Check out Jack Stratton’s latest Kickstarter. He’s hoping to raise $25.  Click here for info.  And watch this slightly incoherent vid:

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Here are my greatest letters (my greatest hits) to tenants:

1. Dear Tenant, The building manager heard you yelling out your window, “I’m a porno star and a sex machine.” This isn’t the only time this has occurred.

2. Dear Tenant, You flicked 20-to-30 cigarette butts out your window.  Some of these butts landed on cars and left burn marks. This must stop!

3. Dear Tenant, You got in a fight with a female in your apartment and tore the door jamb off. Also, you have slipped unsolicited notes under the door of other tenants.  That can be construed as sexual harassment, depending on the content of the notes. You are a self-described drunk.  That, too, won’t do here — at least not outside your apartment.

4. Dear Tenant, There was very loud recorded music coming from your suite between 3-5 a.m.  That’s when people sleep. You aren’t living in a dormitory.

5. Dear Tenant, You were incessantly buzzing a neighbor’s entry buzzer, banging on a neighbor’s back door, and banging on your ceiling. You phoned me and said a neighbor’s cat was annoying you by running across your ceiling.  Tenants are allowed to have cats.  The tenants pay extra for cats.

6. Dear Tenant, The hallway smells outside your apartment. You need to clean up immediately. 

7. Dear Tenant, you and a female visitor were drunk and screaming in the parking lot.  She lay down on the ground.  She could have gotten killed.

8. Dear Tenant, You disturbed other tenants’ sleep at 3 a.m. by loud talking, running through the halls, and kicking on the locked door.  Three tenants complained.  Three!  That’s serious. Please understand, this building is not party central.

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In case you missed Jack Stratton on NPR’s All Things Considered, click here.

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This was a witch store. Now it’s an insurance agency.

Before the witch, Fred Smith operated Smith’s Deli here, in the 1950s,1960s and 1970s.  Students from St. Ed’s High, across the street, would come in and rip off Fred for candy and pops.

I ran into one St. Ed’s alum — a 55-year-old man — who thought I was God because I had known Fred on an adult level.

Fred got tired of the kids and retired.  He needed more than Snickers sales to pay the rent.  One Snickers sold, one Snickers lost to shrinkage/shoplifting. No gain.

After Fred left, 1977, the store went through many owners. The most famous post-Fred tenant was Angela Hicks, who founded Angie’s List.

There was also a flower shop, a tax service, sports cards shop and the witch store, Ancient Ways.  The witch kept cats in the basement. She reimbursed me for the destroyed carpet when she left, but not for the five months remaining on her lease.

The insurance agency has been here five years.  Five years is a decent run.  That’s the proof the store was not hexed by the witch.

But the insurance guy is moving.  He just called [12/31/13].  “I’m vacuuming and going to be out by 1 p.m.,” he said.

1975

2008

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Footnote:

A list of  tenants at 13431 Detroit Avenue, 1977-on:

Fred’s deli, moved out, 1977.

Streeter Sporting Goods, 1978-80.

Antique store, various owners for another 10 years or so.

Ka-La’s Flower Shop, 1983.  (“KaLa” for Kathy and Laura.) Then various other flower shops.

Embossed stuff.  Embroidery Ink, 1991.

Kayln Tax Service, 1993

For You Productions.  More the embossed stuff, 1993.

Grand Slam Collectibles, 1994.

Vacant 1995-1997.

Resale shops, a couple years.

Angie’s List, 1999.

Ancient Ways, New Age, 2001-2004.

Vacant 3 ¾ years.  2004-2008.

Farmer’s Insurance. 2008-13.

2014 — ?

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A version of this post is also a video (originally posted  1/21/11).

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The former Brith Emeth temple in Pepper Pike, Ohio, looks like a clam shell or flying saucer.

My kids went to Hebrew school there. It was disorienting; I never knew which way to turn, right or left, to pick them up.

The acoustics in the social hall were bad.  Everything was boomy.

Brith Emeth folded in 1986, and Park Synagogue East took over.  Then Park Synagogue East sold the building to the Ratner School, a Montessori school.  Now Kol HaLev — a Reconstructionist shul — rents from the Ratner School, the owner, for shabbes services.

When my band plays Kol HaLev, I tell my musicians, “We’re playing the clam shell.”  I never say, “We’re playing Ratner Montessori School.” I also don’t say, “We’re playing the old Park East,” which would be confusing because there is a new Park East. I also don’t say, “27575 Shaker Boulevard,” because for a while, shrubs in front of the building obscured the address.

“We’re playing the clam shell, aka the flying saucer, guys.”

On October 17, 1969, Rabbi Philip Horowitz delivered the sermon “Is the Negro Equal?” at the clam shell.

The place still has a very sixties flare.  I travel back in time every time I  enter Brith Emeth. After-burners. The clam shell.  The launch pad.

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More on Brith Emeth here.
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Yiddishe cup plays First Night Akron (Ohio), 6-8 p.m. Tues., Dec. 31.
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SIDE B

For the record . . .

JUST NUMBERS

If you get a 3 percent return, on top of the inflation rate, that’s solid, middle of the road. But right now you can only get 1 percent on a CD, with inflation around 1 percent. You can’t get 3 percent without significant risk. If you go for more than 3 percent real growth, you’re taking a risk.

Risk in business is integral, part of the equation. Can’t be avoided.

You’re a genius; the stock market is booming. You weren’t a genius in 2008.

I know a woman who lost with Madoff, and now she’s doing the 1 percent CDs. I talked to another Madoff investor who said she had found a short-term investment that paid 20 percent. But for only 90 days. Twenty percent is 20 percent, doesn’t matter how long a period. Twenty percent is crazy. “That’s a lot of risk!” I said.

I have a friend who went in for CDOs (Collaterized Debt Obligation) and lost. He said he was getting 15 percent on them. But it only lasted a month. Then the whole thing collapsed.

We are here today to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Madoff debacle . . . Another Madoff investor I know — enough with the Madoff! — this Cleveland schoolteacher said she didn’t think she was greedy when she was pulling in 10-12 percent a year from Madoff. She just thought she had made a good investment. I would have thought likewise. Madoff returned the schoolteacher’s original investment minus the paper gains. A small-timer, she got national TV attention for being a salt-of-the-earth Madoff victim.

The stock market typically clocks 9 percent per year, but that’s meaningless because the figure doesn’t take into account human behavior, known in the biz as “investors returns.” Most people buy and sell at the wrong time.

My father went all in on real estate 1965, and that’s why I’m in real estate now. He went in at the right time, luckily, and leveraged himself to the hilt. Our house was leveraged; he had second mortgages. He was gutsy, smart and fortunate.  (He flopped at some other businesses.)

I’ve bought two buildings. The first building, I put down 25 percent and got a 10 ¾-percent mortgage. That was the going rate in 1987.

The second building, I put down 15 percent. I bought it from an old guy who was dying. I was dying too!  The old guy lived another 21 years.  The seller financed the deal; I didn’t have to go to the bank for a mortgage. I paid him off 17 years later. It worked out.

The first building — the one with the 10 ¾-percent mortgage —  I paid off as quickly as possible.  Took 7 1/2 years.

Win more than lose, hopefully.

And don’t chase 20 percent returns!

Hey, did my kids read this far?

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I have this new band, Funklikht, which is so filthy. My lead singer is the shit — a Lebanese kid from Detroit who does it all, including Yiddish hip-hop. He was a shabbes goy in Oak Park. My drummer — also from Detroit — grew up  next-door to Aretha in Bloomfield Hills.  He’s shit-plus.

My bass player kills it.  (He has a following in Norway.)

I found all these players in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I go up there regularly for cheap young talent.

We’re on fire. We play temples and Jewish arts festivals throughout the country, but we aren’t stuck in the J bag.

We have a major presence on iTunes.  Our best-selling tunes are  “Shvantz Tantz,” “Di Gantse Velt is a Blintz” and “Dreck II.”

We’re in discussion with a major label, but I’m skeptical; the label thinks we’re “too Jewish.” We’re not too Jewish! We’re too filthy!

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SIDE B

This one is real . . .

LARRY DAVISES

I knew two Larry Davises — both Jewish landlords in Cleveland. There was Larry Davis of Solon and Larry Davis of Cleveland Heights.

Larry Davis of Solon was a Romanian immigrant who developed industrial parks in the far eastern suburbs. He loved Yiddish music and hired Yiddishe Cup for his 75^th birthday party. He died shortly after that. (No foul play.)

Larry Davis of the Heights is alive, and owns property in Cleveland Heights. You’ve probably seen him around (if you live in Cleveland). He has a beard, wear shorts a lot, and has a small tattoo on his leg. Larry Heights started with a lunch counter in Lakewood and worked his way up.

I ran into Larry Heights at the grocery store and we kvetched about the real estate biz. Our kids weren’t too crazy about running the properties. Larry said, “I wouldn’t wish it on my daughter.”

I thought to myself, “Here we are, two fairly healthy guys, standing in the vegetable aisle at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday. Objectively speaking, we’ve got it made.”

Maybe I’m the third Larry Davis. Larry Davis Heights II.

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Larry Davis, Heights, left / Larry Davis, Solon, right:

(Click on the drawing to make it bigger)

Footnote: “Objectively speaking, you’ve got it made” is a line I regularly steal from writer Mark Schilling.

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Yiddishe Cup plays First Night Akron (Ohio), 6 p.m. Dec. 31.

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Some thieves specialize in quarters. They pry open coin boxes on washing machines and dryers in laundry rooms.

Quarter stealers did this a couple times at one of my apartment buildings. One time the building manager ran into them, took their picture, and asked them who they were. They said they were Sarah and Michael.

Afterward, the building manager handed the photo over to the police. Sarah and Michael were then videoed pouring quarters into a coin-sorting machine at a nearby grocery store.

Sarah and Michael hit 21 buildings on the West Side, the cops told me.

About a month later,  I got a letter from the county prosecutor about Paul and Erin — the crooks’ real names.  They were charged with burglary, possessing criminal tools, aggravated theft, theft, tampering with coin machines and vandalism.  The thieves wound up in prison.

My damages: $884.50.

That’s a lot of quarters. (For the record: 3,538.)
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SIDE B

Not another fake profile! (The complete fake-profile series is here.)

THE BOXER

I’m a boxer. That’s the essence of who I am.

I’m not a heavyweight so you probably don’t know me. I grew up boxing. I listened to Johansson-Patterson fights on the radio. Also, Patterson versus Clay. I boxed at the Ukrainian Club, AAU and Junior Golden Gloves.

My parents were all for it. My father encouraged boxing. In my dad’s day, Jewish fighters frequently hit the top: Jackie Davis, Benny Leonard. Locally, Harry Levine was a good light heavyweight. Levine fought with his face out front. If it got hit, his head would shake like a bobblehead. He kept hitting though.

My last sanctioned fight was in 1968 against Johnny Montello. We were from the same neighborhood. The bout was old-school, Italian versus Jew. It was a 1930s ethnic turf battle but in the 1960s! Johnny was just back from ’Nam. He had been a cook over there. He was punchy (foggy-headed). He had boxed too much in the Army.

Johnny got into my face verbally, like Ali, saying: “You’re always talking about Jewish shit.” Johnny pointed at the Star of David on my trunks.

I said, “You should know one thing about me: being Jewish is who I am. Everything I do is a part of that.” I was a college student back then. Up at Michigan, I boxed in Waterman Gym — with myself. Existential stuff.

My buddies attended the Montello fight. My friends were hippies. Montello’s friends were extras from Grease.

Montello broke my nose and gave me a concussion. After that, I promised my parents I would quit boxing. My dad, finally, thought it was a good idea and got me private tennis lessons. Tennis was like boxing, he said, but without hitting. Agassi’s dad — a boxer — said the same thing.

I miss the ring. I play tennis, but I miss the ring. I think about boxing a lot: Babe Triscaro, Jimmy Bivins, Tony Mulia.

I would like another chance. The Senior Olympics has pickleball but no boxing. What’s pickleball?

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An op-ed, by yo, in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Friday (11/29).  The print headline was “Klezmer Christmas?  He’s actually in favor of goodwill to men.” The online headline was “Dreaming of a Green Christmas.”

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Stan Herschfield paced his apartment at 3 a.m., waking up the tenants below.  I asked Herschfield to ease up, and  he said, “What do you want from me?  I can’t fly.”

He moved out shortly after that.

About 10 years later, he called. “Stratton, you remember me — Herschfield.  I want to move back in.”

“Herschfield!” I said, emoting like I was in a bad JCC play. “You painted the floor.  You complained about the deaf guy across the hall blasting organ music.  You complained about the people below you fornicating. You skipped out on your final month’s rent.  It cost me fifty dollars to clean the place.  But you did teach me some good Yiddish words.”

“I didn’t skip!  Those yentzers below, they drove me out!”

“You painted the kitchen floor.”

“Stratton, I used Benjamin Moore.  Only the best!”

I didn’t let him back.

Maybe Herschfield didn’t say yentzers.  Maybe he said shtuppers.  I only caught a fraction of his Yiddish.  He talked so fast.

I’ve had a couple former tenants move back in.  Usually not into the same suite, but often into the same building.

I save old records on tenants.  F. Scott Fitzgerald said bookkeeping is not a sexy subject, but it is moderately interesting.  I wish I hadn’t thrown out my dad’s tax returns; they would make fascinating reading now I’m older and into nuance.

I keep dossiers on ex-tenants.  Nothing personal, no nude posture photos like those Ivy League colleges did.  Just notes on whether the tenant paid his final month’s rent, turned in his keys and didn’t trash the place.  If all’s well, I’ll let him back.  Could be a decade later.

The good tenants, you don’t remember.  You have to look them up.

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This post was a vid first,  4/5/12. Features Alan Douglass singing “Dear Landlord.”
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Yiddishe Cup is at KlezmerPalooza at The Temple, Beachwood, Ohio, 7:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 16.  $20, or $15 if you buy by Nov. 9.  Call 216-831-3233.  Free dessert, beer and wine.
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A new vid, “You wouldn’t believe the derelicts . . . ”   Forty-five seconds of  real estate talk:

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This is a fake profile . The complete fake-profiles series is here.

My mother collects rents.  She tracks down delinquent tenants every third of the month.  She’s a bit forgetful — she misplaces checks — but she still makes the rounds, chasing tenants.  She’s 80 and owns 38 units on the East Side of Cleveland.

She wants me to do the collecting. I don’t want to.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t want to dun 22 year olds for their rent.  I prefer to be at work; I’m a lawyer, and have been for 29 years.

I have manilla folders with notes from my mom.  She collects legal clauses like some old ladies collect Hummels. I once tried to streamline her five-page lease but she wouldn’t let me. She instructs her tenants to use a string mop.  That’s in the lease! Why?  What 22 year old even owns a mop?

My mother hides apartment keys everywhere, and says to me, “Now this key is to that room, which is next to this door. Turn right, and reach your hand around the corner and it’s on this ledge.”

I have to write all that down. My sister is in Texas. It’s all on me.

I ran into Bert Stratton, the real estate blogger, the other day.  His klezmer band really should hang it up.  How long have they been around?  Pass the torch (Havdalah candle), Bert!  Bert always asks me the same thing: “What are you going to do when your mother dies?”

I don’t want to collect rents and fix leaky toilets, Bert, understand?

Bert says he understands that, but then mentions the real estate gig is, if nothing else, parnassah.  Bert likes to sling Yiddish.  Sling this, Bert: Va fangool!  (Parnassah means livelihood in Yiddish.)

I’ve got a livelihood!  I’m 54 with a successful law practice.

Stratton: “Really, what are you going to do when your mother dies?”

“Call you, Bert.”

That shuts him up.

No disrespect to anybody.

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For more on the landlord biz, check out my interview on NPR yesterday, from the show The Story.  I got my 15 minutes.  No, 20 minutes.  It’s long, yet amusing.

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Think ethnic

Yiddishe Cup was nominated for the “best ethnic/world band.”  We were practically the only non-Afro/ non-reggae/ non-Caribbean/ non-Zydeco band in the contest.

With one email blast to our fan base, Yiddishe Cup would have won the Cleveland Music Award.

Sorry. Not our scene, Scene.   (Cleveland Scene magazine sponsored the contest.)  We did not want to email blast our Yiddishe Cup fans. We didn’t want to disturb world Jewry.

I think the judges — Scene editors — designed the ballot so we would win.  Their theory:  Young voters would spread their votes among the Afro bands, and Yiddishe Cup would pick up the rock-solid Jewish block.

Do you think the other bands held back on email blasts?  No! They sent out hundreds of emails: “Vote for us!” . . . “Make us number one!” . . . “We’re number one!”

Pathetic.

The winner was Mifune, an Afrobeat hip-hop band.   Mifune — you can’t even pronounce that.  At least you can pronounce Yiddishe Cup (if you’re Jewish).

The most-recent music awards contest was in 2010.  Nothing since.*

Scene, please reboot. Yiddishe Cup wants to be number one.  We’re ready to rock and e-blast now.   Free Cleveland coconut bars to everybody who votes for Yiddishe Cup!

*News flash: Scene just held another music awards contest (September 2013).  There was no “ethnic/world” category.  Foul ball!

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The photo at top is Daniel Ducoff (L) and Alan Douglass of Yiddishe Cup.  Their hats are Mongolian.
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SIDE B

CENTIPEDE LANDLORD

I was the landlord in a panel discussion, sponsored by the Cleveland Tenants Organization and the Center for Families and Children

I wore a sports coat and polo shirt.  I looked good.

One problem: there was no audience, to speak of (to). Only two people.  One had an apartment full of centipedes.  She had put her money in escrow for several months, and the landlord hadn’t gotten rid of the centipedes.  She said, “I don’t mind a bug or two, but I don’t like them crawling on my ceiling, and me, when I’m sleeping.”

She also said there were grain moths when she moved in. She said the city inspector came out and said, “Where do you shop?” Which she considered a veiled racial remark.  “Like he thought I shopped in the ghetto.  I shop where everybody else shops!”

The woman’s landlord should have gotten rid of the centipedes. I would have liked to have heard from the landlord.

The other person at the presentation had been booted out of her apartment. Her common-law husband had kicked her out.  She had two kids and lived on $400/month.

Mr. Polo Shirt – me — had nothing to say.  Come move in with me?  Nope.

Lead paint. That’s boring. The meeting ended on that note.

Centipede eats lead and dies

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I had two hot water tanks go out in the same building on the same day,  a Friday afternoon.

Four guys can carry in a 92-gallon commercial hot water tank .  And I can pay $5,400 for their fun.

No plumbers were around.  They were all preparing their boats for Lake Erie weekend-cruising.

I reached Stack Heating.   Stack said he didn’t do commercial hot-water tanks.  Just boilers. I reached Royal Flush.  They said they couldn’t get it until Tuesday.  Dale at Madison Plumbing could do it Monday.  Pompeii said never. B & B Hot Water Tank said no thanks.

I started flipping through the Yellow Pages.  That is the end of the world.

I braced myself for calls, like “Mr. Landlord,  there is no hot water.  How am I supposed to go to work without showering? ” . . . “I have to stay at my parents’ house and it’s 60 miles from work . . . ”

It’s not pleasant, these scenes.

I  got Bill the plumber.  He came by and blow-torched the old tanks to dry them.  (The tanks had flooded because a sump pump had failed.)   The plumber gave the first tank a 50-50 chance of recovery.  The second tank had 40 percent chance, he said.  I liked his odds.

The first tank went on after six hours of pampering. We were good.

Still, it was no picnic.

 . . . Dear Landlord,  I have  deducted $275 from my rent payment because I  stayed in a hotel for three days due to the lack of hot water.

Didn’t happen!

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SIDE B

In honor of the mildest summer ever . . .

WICKIN’ COOL

I threw out my dad’s wife-beater T-shirts. About time. My father died 27 years ago. The wife-beaters were balled up in my dresser drawer.

When it’s 90-plus degrees — which it isn’t often this summer — I think “wife-beaters.” I used to wear my dad’s wife-beaters around the house.

My wife bought me a wicking T-shirt with UV protection at Target. Only $11. It was cooler than the wife-beater.

I saved one of my father’s T-shirts for posterity and threw the rest out.

Underwear fashion is generational. My grown sons aren’t interested in my wife-beaters. My dad wore his wife-beaters under dress shirts for work, for his day job at the key company.

I’m going to buy a couple more ultra-light wicking T-shirts.

No doubt, my sons will pitch my ultra-lights when I’m either dead or not looking. By 2025, T-shirts will be spray-on from a can.

Meanwhile, I’m wickin’ cool.

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A version of  “Wickin’ Cool” was on CoolCleveland.com 7/12/12.

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I didn’t feel like playing the old Jewish standards, such as “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn” and “Tumbalalaika.”   Instead I read neo-beatnik prose from my blog.

Bad move.

I was performing at a nursing home. A resident in the front row said, “Play something we know!” and walked out.

My accompanist — keyboardist Alan Douglass — told me to change my act.  He said, “The Who went to their greatest hits whenever they faltered.”

I stuck with the blog stuff.  I wanted to be like Dylan at Newport — my own man.

Again, bad move.

Afterward, I  told my wife,  ‘I feel like I just played Sowinski Playground.”  (Sowinski was a city playground where vicious rapes occurred in the 1960s.)

I’ve learned my lesson: My Ferlinghetti schtick  isn’t going to cut it at Myers Apartments independent living.  Next time I’ll play “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn” and “Tumbalalaika.”

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SIDE B

ROBERT WOODWARD

Robert Woodward, who died in June, was a newspaperman, but not the Bob Woodward of Watergate fame.

Robert Woodward worked as a clerk at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He was a tenant of mine.

Bob Woodward

He signed his lease renewals in green ink. I always made it a point to countersign in green. Sometimes I had to go out of my way to find a green pen. This went on for decades!

I’m not sure what Bob did at the PD. I occasionally saw him at the movies. He was a film buff. Once we coincidentally flew on the same flight to New York. He was going to see movies.

Woodward was a tenant for 37 years. He died at 65. He had been dead in his suite for about four days. A sister called. The cops went in.

Bob never bugged me, except for appliances. He never wanted people fixing stuff in his apartment.

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This is not Bob’s life story!  For instance, not covered here:  Bob wrote op-eds about gay rights for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal .

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Zack put down a security deposit for the apartment, then changed his mind.

He was going back with his wife.  Try some counseling. Not moving in.

The apartment was off the market for a week!  I kept the deposit.  Zack said I was a thief.  I re-read him the application: “If the applicant is approved and makes a deposit –- and then decides not to move into the apartment –- the deposit will be forfeited.  THE DEPOSIT WILL NOT BE RETURNED TO THE APPLICANT.”

Zack said, “See you in small claims court!”  Then he added, “Wait. I’m taking the apartment! We’re going to have a real good relationship.  Tell your building manager, I’ll see him on Sunday with coffee and donuts!”

Zack worked demo and was a hauler. He might rent the apartment just to trash it — to demo it.

Zack didn’t show up Sunday. He called a week later.  He still wanted in.  He said he would be there in two days. I figured there was a 10 percent chance he would show.

What if  he did?

I called Zack back: “I want to part ways.  You go yours, I go mine. I’ll give you your security deposit back.”

“Man, I already have my truck packed!”

“I think there’s a lot of ill-will, and we should part ways.  I’ll mail you the deposit.”

He said he wanted the deposit right now. “Things are all awkward between my girlfriend and me.  I need the money,” he said.

“You can pick up the check from Rachel.  She has bangs and is in her twenties,” I said. Rachel worked at the corner bakery. I didn’t want to tangle with Zack.

A basic rule of landlording: Once you get ’em [troublemakers] in, it’s hard to get ’em out.

Maybe I played it too safe. I’ll never know.

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The latest from Jack Stratton and his band Vulfpeck:

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

I think 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 guys weren’t in the college-prep classes.

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

When I was about 10, I sent away to the Air Force Academy for photos, and the academy mailed me an application.  That was exciting.

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

Aten-hut! Thank you.

The Armed Forces recruiting center contained 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; they 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.  And that wasn’t the half of it.

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 a little guilty about that.   (I know, typical ex-hippie revisionist thinking.)

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Yiddishe Cup and ice cream drip on the lawn at Wiley Middle School, 2181 Miramar Blvd., University Hts., Ohio, 7:30 p.m. Thurs., July 25.  Free concert and free ice cream.  Indoors if raining.

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Clevelanders, go to “Hava Nagila (The Movie)”  7:30 p.m. tonight (July 17) at the art museum, Gartner Aud.  You won’t regret it.  Terrific archival footage. You don’t need to be  Jewish or a klezmer nut to enjoy it.   Helps, but not essential.  Features Harry Belafonte.

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Brittany, a tenant, said she saw five rats in her kitchen.  She hightailed it to her parents’ house in Sandusky, Ohio, and called me. “I’m tired,” she said.  “I have to drive in from Sandusky now every day for work.”

“You saw five rats at once?” I said.

“Yes. Your custodian said they were rats,” she said.

“They were probably mice,” I said.  I also told her to take $200 off her rent, and we would bring in a professional exterminator.

She said the rats crawled in her bed.

I paid the exterminator $102.  He sealed the apartment with caulk and put in mouse traps that looked like miniature tinted-glass limos.  Mice crawled into the limos and died. The mice were ready for the mouse funeral parlor.

Brittany showed me a cell phone pic, taken in her kitchen, of a dead rat.

I said, “Mouse.”

“That’s a rat,” she said.

I’ve seen maybe 50 trapped  mice and two trapped rats.  Rats are much bigger than mice.  Rats rip things up.  They’re like raccoons in your kitchen.  Rats rip bags to shreds.  Rats eat through concrete.

“You had a mouse,” I said.

“Rats.”

“Please don’t say rats,” I said.

“OK, rodents.”

Yes! Success.

She moved out.

Rats.

***

Drug Mart has a new mouse trap with an extra-wide feeding plate.  I’m not sure it’s a better mouse trap; I haven’t bought one.

My favorite traps are traditional spring-loaded Victors, from Lititz, Pennsylvania.

Drug Mart was out of Victors. I got the Chinese knock-offs. The instructions on the Chinese traps read: Ne pas mettre les doigts dans la trappe. Drug Mart must have gotten the traps from a Canadian buyout. Recommended bait: fromage, saucisson, jambon, beurre de cachuetes.  I figured all that out, except saucisson.

I looked up saucisson: French hard salami.

Mice live well in Canada.

I don’t blame my tenant, Brittany,  for moving out.  A rodent — a mouse or rat –- crawling in your bed is serious.  Rodents should stay in the kitchen, where they belong.

—

SIDE B

This will take your mind off rats.

MURKY

A Yiddishe Cup musician sent this pic from a gig to his friends. (My sidemen are always taking pictures.)

The pic was murky and scary. The musician captioned the photo: “Wildest gig ever. Upside-down acrobat pouring champagne for the guests.”

Another musician – not at the gig – wrote back: “Wild Gig? What did I miss!”

The absent musician missed the upside-down acrobat. Compared to a bar mitzvah, it was a wild gig.

The event was a fundraiser for a community college.

Not salacious enough for you. Right.

—-

Yiddishe Cup plays 6:15-7:45 p.m Mon., April 15, at Landerhaven for Cleveland’s community-wide Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration.  Free.  David Broza is on at 8 p.m.

—

The Klezmer Guy trio plays 7 p.m. Tues., April 23, at Nighttown, Cleveland Hts.  $10.  More info here.

Alan Douglass (L), Bert Stratton, Tamar Gray. (Photo by Ralph Solonitz)

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I interviewed for a position on the library board.

I like to read, and I know two people who have been on the board and liked it.

I wondered, “Will the school board ask me what books I’m reading?” (The school board oversees the library board.)

In 1967 at Johns Hopkins’ admissions office, I talked about my Holocaust reading. The Holocaust wasn’t yet the “Holocaust.”  I made a good impression in Baltimore, I think. (I was pre-med.)

Re: the library board interview. I recently read How Music Works by David Byrne and Shit my Dad Says by Justin Halpern. I have also read to page 100 in Malamud’s A New Life, a novel about a college instructor. For the first fifty pages, I was interested in the goings-on of a 1950s college English department. Then less so.

Nevertheless, “I’m reading Malamud” might be the ticket.

The members of the school board sat on a dais at the board of education building, and I took the “witness stand” in the center of the room. Only three school board members — out of five — showed up. One MIA board member was a playwright; the other, a guy from my synagogue. My A-team was absent!

Question 1: How would you make the library better for students?

Students?  They are the species who play computer games and horse around in the teen room? I’ve been in that room, like, never. “I would maintain the library as a first-class multicultural, multimedia center,” I said.

Question 2: What do you do at the library besides take out books?

Not much! “I was at the dedication of the Harvey Pekar statue,” I said.

Question 3: What would you do to help the library’s finances?

“I vote for the levies.” What about Malamud?

Question 4: Are you willing to commit to a seven-year position?

“Yes, but actuarially speaking, who knows.”

A chemist beat me out for the job. In an email, the library director thanked me for applying and encouraged me to apply again.

First I need to walk through the teen room and get a better feel for the young adults’ needs. I’ll do that right after I finish Malamud’s A New Life.

—

Side B

MR. OO

I got a call from Oo (rhymes with “boo”), looking to open an Asian food market.

I said, “How do you spell that?”

“O, O.”

“O, O, 7?”

“Yes.  Hah-hah.”

“Is Oo your first name.”

“No, that’s Kyawswar.”

“You Chinese?”

“No, I’m from Burma.”

“Close enough,” I said.

“Yes, very close.”

“Is this going to be an American mini-market or an Asian market?” I said. “I don’t want 40-ounce malt liquor and cigarettes.”

“Asian market, sir.  Our people like rice, the vegetables, avocados.  Maybe cigarettes. The high school boys from the school [across the street] buy the fruit juices.”

Oo rented the store. He’s  industrious.  He owns two sushi stands at Giant Eagles.  That’s not all . . .

I told my wife, “Oo had a nail salon.”

“Who?” she said.

“Oo.”

—
Footnote: Consider “U Thant,” the former UN secretary general from Burma. Thanks to Ted Stratton for this  U/Oo connection.

—
Byliner chose my essay “The Landlord’s Tale” (City Journal) as one of the top 102 nonfiction journalism pieces  of 2012.  Read the essay here.

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Charlie Chaplin brings me to tears.  Louis Armstrong and Beethoven do too.  T.S. Eliot — yes, I know he didn’t like Jews — but you can’t deny his greatness.  For instance, “Humankind can not bear too much reality.”

Yes, reality blows — as we used to say in junior high. (We said the “blows” part.)

Art?

I escape to the arts.  I escape to this:

Fire escapes have to be painted every year in Cleveland, or they rust.

I used to be shallower, vainer, younger and facetious.  Now I’m all that, and older.

I’m thinking of getting elevator shoes. A couple inches might change my life.

I don’t like ferrets.

Go ahead, indict me.

Indict me on this too: Anglomania, Jewmania and prickliness.

Downton Abbey — the TV show — is terrific.  Everybody is so taciturn and proper.  Nobody runs his or her mouth.

Who’s a Jew?  That’s my second obsession.  I annually debate whether Brubeck was a Jew.  He wasn’t.   Or was Chaplin Jewish?  No,  he wasn’t.

Prickliness, that’s a universal trait.  I cut off a man’s position in the check-out line at Dave’s supermarket. The man said,  “What you doin’?”

“I’m ahead of you.”

“No, you ain’t. You moved!”

I had moved for a second!  I had left my cart in one line and walked to another line to see which was shorter.

I said “you win” to the man, and let him in front. He got out of the store before me!

I’m looking for elevator shoes.

I cry a lot.

—
SIDE B

This one is real.  The above post is half real.

FIRING SABINA

It’s easy to fire a drunken building manager, or a thieving one, but it’s hard to fire a manager who is only lousy.

For instance, he doesn’t answer the phone quickly enough, or he doesn’t clean enough.

I thought about firing Sabina; I had hired her husband, not her, and her husband had skipped out on her. She was shoveling snow, cutting grass, and climbing ladders. It wasn’t her strong suit; she had majored in Russian lit at a Russian university.

My tenants reported negative things about her.

That helped — me.

I asked a tenant how the manager was performing, and he said, “I hate her.”

“Do you hate me too?” I said, trying to establish a baseline on his “hate.”

He didn’t hate me. “She doesn’t clean, she has her kids cutting the grass, and she doesn’t tell us anything — when anything is going to get fixed.”

I fired her.

Then I rehired her. She couldn’t get welfare because she had no green card. I let her stay.

Avon calling

She found a boyfriend – a guy in Avon Lake – and moved out.

I owe that guy in Avon Lake.

—
“Sabina” is a pseudonym.

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Merjeme Haxhiraj, a tenant, tried to get her rent reduced. She wrote, “Mr. Albert, I wish you will only rise the rent to $470/month.  I think you will fulfill my wish.”

She wrote this letter annually (changing only the dollar figure).  I knocked her rent down to $490 from $500 the last time.

Ms. Haxhiraj was Albanian, worked in a nursing home, and had cancer.

After 10 years, she said she was moving.  I couldn’t figure out where to.  New York? Albania?   Some place where I couldn’t find her, I bet.

She didn’t want to pay the final month’s rent.  She wrote, “I am leaving country and will not have forwarding address. Please keep the security deposit.”

Wait a minute, Ms. Haxhiraj, the tenant has to pay the final month’s rent! I knocked on her door and said, “We need the final month’s rent, Ms. Haxhiraj. That’s the rule.”  (I said Hacks-er-aj.  Totally wrong no doubt. Loved the x.)

“I am old woman.  I no work for three years.”  And don’t forget the cancer.

I walked through her apartment.  “OK, but don’t leave anything,” I said. “Take everything.” I pointed to the hangers in the closet. “Even the hangers.”

“Everything go,” she said.

“Not that it matters, but are you Christian or Muslim?” I asked.

“Muslim.”

I was curious.  That’s all.  I try to make my job as interesting as possible.

When Ms. Haxhiraj moved, she left a bed, five chairs, a sofa, handbags, four bags of garbage, many oranges, several chocolate bars and a lot of hangers.  No gym bag.  I needed a gym bag.

The little old lady from Albania, Albania . . .

I didn’t  get the chocolates.  The building manager beat me to them.

I got the hauler’s bill.

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1. THE BUG MAN

Drain flies aren’t bad.  Roaches aren’t bad. Mice are nothing.

Two-hundred dead flies in an apartment — that’s bad. I saw 20 in the bathtub alone.  The building manager said, “I killed them with spray.”

I said, “Where are you hiding the body?”  I meant the dead body.

Swarma

Another 50 dead flies were by the window in the living room. The apartment was vacant.

I called
the pro exterminator. The bug man’s secretary said, “Are they metallic – the flies?”

“What do you mean by metallic?”

“Blue or green?”

“They’re big flies,” I said “You see them all the time, like on horses.”

“Oh, excuse the expression — they’re shit flies.”

“Yes. My manager says he has 500 dead ones in his vacuum cleaner. I need you over here.”

The flies were officially called blow flies, and are attracted to carrion and excrement.  The bug man found a nook above the drop ceiling in the bathroom that we had missed.  He hit it.

The flies are gone now.  I wonder what was up there.  I didn’t look.

2. THE SCRAPPER

I was looking for a scrapper to take a dilapidated, nonfunctioning boiler out of an apartment-building basement. The boiler was sitting in the basement, minding its own business, but the city inspector said it had to go.

I called a heating company, which suggested I hire them and an asbestos-removal company to remove the old unit.

Instead, I contacted Charles the scrapper and said,  “What are the chances of you doing this job and just taking the good stuff — the metal — and leaving behind a mess?”

“I don’t do it that way.  I’ve been doing this all day — all my life – and I do it right,” he said.

The boiler consisted of eight cast-iron sections, each about 200 pounds.  And it was down a flight of steps.  The boiler was the size of a VW bus.

“That’s what I do,” Charles said.  “Get rid of it.”

But I didn’t use Charles.  I used Daryl, another freelance scrapper. Daryl got to the job site long before Charles and gave me a good price: free. “I’m here and I’m ready,” Daryl said.  That counted for something.

—
I wrote this one,  “The Nostalgia Vortex,” for today’s CoolCleveland.com.  I was raised by a village — Norge Village.

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1.

My dad, Toby, and I hired Charles Tuncle for kitchen-floor lino jobs.  Tunkl means dark in Yiddish, which my dad never failed to point out.  Tuncle — the man — was black. Also, he was a killer. He shot a man in a bar.

Armstrong no-wax. Tuncle, 1984. (2010 photo)

When Tuncle was sent to prison, my dad wrote the parole board about Tuncle’s quality vinyl-floor work, and Tuncle got out early.  My father never told the tenants — or our building managers — about Tuncle’s record.  My dad never said:  “You see that guy over there with the utility knife?  He’s a killer.”

***

My dad called our business Reliable Management Co.

We should have hauled garbage with a name like that.

When I started an offshoot company, Acorn Management Co., my dad said, “What the hell does ‘Acorn’ have to do with anything?”

“Dad, I live on Oak Road.  That’s why.”  It was 1976.  Environmentalism was the next big thing.

“Nobody is going to understand ‘Acorn,’” he said.

I sometimes call my company “Reliable + Acorn Management companies” now.  That makes me feel like a Danish architecture firm.

***

I hired Standard Roofing for a roof tear-off.  Standard Roofing went under.  Too standard?

My electrician is Jack Kuhl, pronounced “Jack Cool.”

I knew Emin Lyutfalibekov, a handyman.  I told him to shorten his name, and he said no way; he was offended.  He said he was royalty back in Azerbaijan.

Napoli Construction is a bricklaying firm. Art Gallo, chief mason.

I use Donnelly Heating once in a while.  Dan Donnelly.  There are four Donnelly heating companies on the West Side: Dan, Tom, William and Original.  They must have large Seders.

Lawrence Christopher Construction — that was Larry Vesely.   He filled a hole for me for $9,000 — a coal bin that had collapsed beneath a parking lot.  The city wouldn’t allow me to fill the hole with plain gravel. The city wanted a reconstructed coal bin that could practically double as a bomb shelter, complete with beams and concrete.  Larry said the job would cost $3,000 and take several weeks.

The final bill was $9,000 and the job took nine months.  One delay and complication after another.

I could not charge higher rents just because I had a nice coal bin.  No tenant cared I had a bomb shelter.

I paid Larry back in nine monthly installments, just to get slightly back at him.

***

Tuncle the floor guy — I miss him.  He died at 84 in 2008.  A nice guy, except for that night in the bar.  He didn’t have any other criminal record.

2.

I was at a gathering of Jewish landed gentry — a landlords’ shabbat — in Pepper Pike.

Landlord A — to my right — owned a 17-suiter which her late father had bought in 1955.

Landlord B owned a building his father bought in 1936.

Buy and hold, chaverim.  Shabbat shalom.

I owned (with my sister) a building my dad bought in 1965.

In real estate — as in many fields — it’s good to pick the right father.

In college Donald Trump bought his first building, using his father’s money: a 1,200-unit apartment complex in Cincinnati.   Trump’s dad owned property in  New York’s outer boroughs.  Trump’s net worth upon graduating college in 1965 was $1.4 million, in today’s dollars.  [Trump, The Art of the Deal.]

Suites, a local real estate mag, did a profile on Marty Cohen, a Cleveland  landlord.  The article said Marty “couldn’t shake his interest in property management.”  Marty worked at a bank for a while, but that wasn’t a good fit.  His family owned a 150-unit Parma apartment complex.  Maybe that had something to do with Marty finding a good fit in real estate.

Buy and hold, brothers and sisters. Pass the strudel.

3.

Griffith, the state boiler inspector,  called.

I said to him, “You’ve been around as long as me!”

“Yes, sir,” he said.  “I was around even when your dad was still around!   You know, your father was a kinda guy.  A good dude.  I miss your dad.  He was hoping you’d take over the business.  And you did!”  (My father died in 1986.)

“How long you been around, Griffith?”

“Since 1972.  You were just a kid.  You were in high school.” (I was in college, Griffith!)    “Your dad was a little worried about you, I’ll be honest with you. I hope you don’t take this personally, he thought you didn’t have the fire.  You know, he had went through some things that weren’t easy, and he wanted to leave the buildings to somebody who would appreciate them.”

“I gave my father some things to think about, I guess.”

“I’m proud of you.  You come around.  If he was around, I’d tell him how good you’re doing.”

I didn’t run the family biz totally into the ground.

My epitaph — if I’m lucky: I’m in the Ground But My Business Ain’t.

—

Next week’s post will be on Thursday, not Wednesday, due to Yom Kippur.
—
Here’s an op-ed I wrote for the Sunday Cleveland Plain Dealer  (9/16/12). “High Holidays beckon twice-a-year worshipers.”

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“58% of commuters have experienced road rage while driving to work, and 9% have gotten into a fight with another driver.”
— Wall Street Journal, 8/15/12

Fifty-eight percent seems kind of low.

I was doing the speed limit, 35 mph, on North Park Boulevard at North Woodland in Cleveland Heights.  A guy in a red sports car tailgated me.

Not only did I give the guy the finger, I jumped out of my car at the light and yelled, “Thirty-five!  The speed limit is thirty-five!”

I’m not sure the guy in the car was a guy; it was somebody with tinted windows and vanity plates 1KAP, and the driver was aggressively tailgating me.

Whoever it was, was nice, aside from being a bad driver.  The person didn’t jump out of the red car and come after me.

Maybe I looked threatening.  I had on shades!

I hesitated telling my wife about the incident.  I knew she would get mad.  She would call me hostile.  Correct.

I had never jumped out of my car before and yelled at a driver.  Do I have any explanation for my behavior?

My best explanation is I was on my way to visit Michelle, my number-one employee, who was dying of cancer at 40. She couldn’t talk, and she was on all kinds of tubes.

I’m not sure who I was mad at.

—

SIDE B

MICHELLE

My top building manager was Michelle Orozco.  I’d visit her first. She was always upbeat and set the mood for the day. She had problems — a lot of physical ailments, but she didn’t complain much.  She was my assistant.  That was an official title.  She got paid a little extra. She had grown up in Los Angeles and dropped out of high school.

Michelle Orozco

She was a School of Hard Knocks honor student. When the city said I needed to cough up the names of all my tenants and their move-in dates for my annual housing license, I thought, “What’s that about? Big Brother?” That’s what I thought.  Michelle said, “They want the names for RITA.”  The Regional Income Tax Agency.

I paid Michelle to supervise my newer custodians.  She showed them how to do evictions notices, how Tarnite was better than Brasso.

Michelle moved back to California and left me. She wanted to try her hometown again, the Golden State and all that.

She came back, because California was too expensive. She moved into one of my buildings as a tenant.  I said, “I’m not promising you a job.  And whatever you do, don’t undermine the custodians in here now.” (I’ve had ex-custodians who stuck around and pestered the new custodians.  The ex-custodian would call me and say, “The new guy isn’t cleaning.  He’s drunk.  He’s swearing at the tenants.”)

Michelle — and her husband, Manuel — kept to themselves.  They waited and eventually got their job back.

She was my spy. I wondered if  other custodians checked their boilers regularly in the winter.  Did they “blow down” the valves?  I asked Michelle, “How do we know they’re doing it regularly.”

She said, “They’ll do it because it’s more of a hassle to have the boiler go out than blow it down.”

I hired Michelle when she was 25.  Her mother worked for me. I hired Michelle’s niece, also from California.  I hired Michelle’s sister.

Michelle didn’t steal or lie.  She was a good cleaner.  She could rent apartments.  Sounds basic, but it’s not.

She called just-looking apartment seekers “looky-loos.” I never did understand that.   I heard it as “Lucky Lous.” She called air fresheners “smellies.”

Michelle knew the ways of Home Depot rental trucks, and how to access the junk yard with proper ID.  More basics, but again, somewhat tricky. And which apartment buildings I allowed satellite dishes, and which I didn’t.

She was an optimist. She had a bright personality. She kept things on the sunny side — no small feat in the real estate biz.

Michelle Orozco, 1971-2012.

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