Landlord

By Anne Taylor

Everyone knows about renting. Each of us has either been a renter or knows someone who has. Landlord
captures the humanity of the man and his philosophy as he works with many. You will see life through the lens of the owner of the property as he interacts with those around him. Real life experiences abound. You can easily be drawn into these experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984585387

Anne Taylor

Anne Taylor is one of the world’s preeminent experts on assistive technology for blind users, and she has personal experience working with a number of top companies on improving accessibility, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

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Copyright © 2020 by Anne Taylor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/22/2020

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Necessity

Chapter 2 Learning Curve

Chapter 3 Safety First

Chapter 4 Justice

Chapter 5 Disasters

Chapter 6 Wheeling and Dealing

Chapter 7 Inconvenient

Chapter 8 Scared for Life

Chapter 9 Felines

Chapter 10 The Fixer

Chapter 11 Call the Police

Chapter 12 When You’re Bad, You’re Bad

Chapter 13 When You’re Good, You’re Good

Chapter 14 Union Hall

Chapter 15 Romance

Chapter 16 Flying Low

Chapter 17 Bean Again

Chapter 18 Swamp Holler

Chapter 19 Electric

Chapter 20 Psycho

Chapter 21 Contact

Chapter 22 Deck

Chapter 23 The Frenchman

Chapter 24 Mistake Repeated

Chapter 25 Poor Choices

Chapter 26 More Choices

Chapter 27 Slow Time

Chapter 28 Auctions

Chapter 29 Two Years Later

Chapter 30 Transactions

Chapter 31 Cheap

Chapter 32 Sharing

Chapter 33 Salesman

Chapter 34 License to Destroy

Chapter 35 Others

Chapter 36 Grazing

Chapter 37 Renewed

Chapter 38 Misstep

Chapter 39 OMG

Chapter 40 Just Do It!

Chapter 41 Hiring

Chapter 42 Buying

Chapter 43 Meat Market

Chapter 44 Buying the Farm

Chapter 45 Blue

Chapter 46 Body

Chapter 47 Garage Sale

Chapter 48 Ham Bone

Chapter 49 Final Salute

Chapter 50 Court

Chapter 51 Salvage

Chapter 52 Pig’s Head

Chapter 53 Walkers

Chapter 54 Three Strikes

Chapter 55 Ding Wall

Chapter 56 The M and M Twins

Chapter 57 Benefits

Chapter 58 Appliances

Chapter 59 I’ll Take Less

Chapter 60 Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Hmmmm!

Chapter 61 I Need Money

Chapter 62 Time-Out

Chapter 63 Creepy

Chapter 64 Numbers

Chapter 65 Justice for All

Chapter 66 Call 911

Chapter 67 Tax Time

Chapter 68 Brothel

Chapter 69 Just Money

Chapter 70 Stop Order

Chapter 71 Thumper

Chapter 72 Gone, Not Forgotten

Chapter 73 Foreclosure

Chapter 74 Something’s Wrong

Chapter 75 Animal Kingdom

Chapter 76 The Man

Chapter 77 Unwelcome Loan

Chapter 78 Fall Guy

Chapter 79 Grandma

Chapter 80 Hoarders

Chapter 81 Speak French?

Chapter 82 No Trespassing

Chapter 83 Timing

Chapter 84 Testing, Testing

Chapter 85 Fresh or Frozen?

Chapter 86 College Keepers

Chapter 87 Messy

In memory of Harry Taylor (1934–2018)

These are the stories he always wanted to tell you.

ONE

Necessity

T he first purchase of a rental home was an act of desperation. Harry and I married in 1984, ten years after my first husband died and eight years after Harry’s divorce became final. The divorce had strapped him financially. He owed three loan companies, drove a ten-year-old car, and became the sole support of his young nine-year-old daughter.

His long career in sales did not pay enough to make it work financially because of the staggering court and legal costs. Very sure he could do better and get back on his footing if he could just get started in rentals, Harry started looking for a start-up investment in a duplex.

Harry’s buddy, twenty years his senior and getting out of the rental business, approached him about buying a property, just at the time when Harry needed extra income. The deal made, Harry had his start in rentals. The harsh financing at 12 percent at least gave Harry a new beginning.

That duplex had two bedrooms each unit. Both apartments showed lack of attention and needed a whole lot of his labor to make them better. Harry’s skill in both repair and renovation, plus his persistence in getting things done right, came into play.

One thing he couldn’t fix, the tenants.

Since they came with the property, Harry had quite a few surprises waiting for him.

Lisa and her seven-year-old daughter resided in the upstairs apartment. She alone signed the lease for the two of them and no one else.

On collection day, the little girl answered the door to Harry’s knock and in great excitement announced, My daddy just got out of prison!

Uh-oh.

Is he here? Harry hoped he had another place to live.

Hope dashed.

Yes. She giggled as dad approached the door.

Long hair pulled back and tied with string, the tall skinny man in front of him full of bravado announced, They call me Bean.

Smug and confident, Bean pumped out his bit of a chest and boasted, That’s short for String Bean. He extended his hand in greeting.

As it turned out, that household presented no serious problems with the addition of Bean. On occasion, complaints from the downstairs tenants came in about fights or shouting upstairs. Other than their drinking issues, rent usually got paid close to due date.

A few months later on collection day, Bean answered the door. In somewhat of a stupor from overdoing the drinking, he mumbled, Lisa has the rent and hasn’t come home yet.

Ten in the morning and no Lisa. Ten in the morning and Lisa drinking. Ten in the morning and Bean hung over. Not good, Harry thought.

I’ll get the money when she comes back, Bean stated matter-of-factly.

Later that afternoon, Harry was doing some outside painting on the property when Lisa came staggering through the backyard. He heard someone coming fast down the backstairs, and before he could do anything, Bean had Lisa just about upside down, rummaging through her jeans pockets, cussing her out, and none too gentle.

Beyond startled, Harry approached Lisa to check her condition. She assured him she was okay. Her partner handed Harry the tattered rent money left over from her tavern visit.

This was going to be a rough way to make a living.

TWO

Learning Curve

A fter twelve months, Harry bought a second duplex. He did this by setting aside the profit after making repairs plus paying mortgage, insurance, and property taxes on the first duplex.

His buddy sold him his second property at the same interest rate, 12 percent, but despite the high rate, Harry was just happy that his friend had faith in him to make those mortgage payments.

A nineteen-year-old college guy sporting a leg cast answered Bob’s knock on the door.

Did you get hurt in football? Harry inquired, pointing to his injured leg.

No. I broke it jumping off the porch roof.

Concerned about what had prompted him to jump off the roof, Harry asked logically, Why did you jump off the roof?

The young man didn’t even hesitate in his answer. In his matter-of-fact tone, he said, I wanted to know what would happen if I did.

Well, he found out.

That same kid, now a recent college graduate, lacked common sense.

Moving-out time approached, so the apartment needed to be inspected. Everything looked to be in fairly good condition until Harry entered his bedroom.

The bedroom screen had a two-inch hole cut out of the bottom right-hand corner.

What happened here?

I needed to drain my waterbed. The young man seemed undaunted by the question and likely puzzled over why his action would be questioned.

Harry inquired again, But why is there a hole cut in the screen?

Really confused at this point, the tenant once again explained he needed to drain his waterbed, and he made the hole in the screen to get the hose out the window.

Harry looked at the student in disbelief. Striding to the screened window and in one easy move, he lifted the screen by the tabs at the side.

Now it was time for the college graduate to be amazed. I didn’t know the screen opened! he admitted.

Yep, it does. I’ll need to rescreen that window.

PEOPLE!

That house had its share of problem tenants. One of them got Harry into trouble without know it. He had been called to the apartment to repair the stove, which had some issue when the young lady used the oven.

She wasn’t home when Harry went in to make the repair. The air, filled with the warm, sweet aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, got Harry’s attention.

All the time he spent fixing the stove, he smelled those cookies.

After finishing the repairs, he could resist no longer. He had a sweet tooth. Surely one little cookie would not be missed, he thought. It is an abundant plate of cookies.

He ate the cookie and enjoyed every bit of it. Rearranging the plate of goodies so that one wouldn’t be missed, he left the apartment.

When he got home, he did not look too good. His pupils were dilated, and he admitted it had been hard driving back. I experienced some double vision.

I asked what he had eaten. He admitted to the pilfered cookie.

Did you never hear of the Alice B. Toklas cookie recipe? I challenged. That cookie recipe has been famous for decades and is a favorite among some college students experimenting with marihuana.

He had not. Not being much of a drinker and definitely not into drugs, it had a quick and profound effect on Harry. That was his unexpected experience with drugs.

THREE

Safety First

G etting into college rentals proved to be a totally different experience from leasing to locals. For one thing, those young people for the most part were great. We would have been proud to call any of them our son or daughter.

Jeannie was no exception. Leasing with her four classmates, they had signed onto our five-bedroom house, one of those 1920s something Victorian homes. Her father wanted to see the place she leased to see if it was safe for his big city gal to rent.

Upon inspection, he had a couple of issues. Her front bedroom had a picture window looking out on the porch, and her bedroom door had one of those gorgeous antique sliding parlor doors without a mark on it for all its age. Neither was up to Dad’s expectation.

Dad thought that her window needed to be bolted shut from the inside, and the parlor doors needed a lock installed.

I don’t believe the fire department would allow the window access to be blocked, explained Harry. And I don’t really want to damage those old parlor doors.

Well, I am entitled to my security, Jeannie stated adamantly with her hand on her hip. She stood there, a picture of defiance.

With that, Harry relented and offered to put a sliding bolt on the parlor doors that could be locked from inside the bedroom.

Dad left happy to return to Chicago with the compromise, sure that his daughter’s safety was guaranteed.

The next morning on the way to church, we drove past the house. The lawn was littered with paper cups, cans, and prominently on the front porch set a keg.

Harry parked the car.

He went up on the front porch, around the keg and trash from party time, and knocked on the front door. No answer. It was Sunday morning, and it looked like it had been one heck of a party. All appeared to be asleep.

Trying the front door, he found it unlocked.

No one was thinking security there!

He entered, hollered but got no response from any of the five gals.

Knocking on Jeannie’s door and again getting no response, he gingerly opened the door. The slide bolt he had put on just the day before at father and daughter’s demand wasn’t in use.

Slide bolt not locked and front door not locked, so much for security.

Jeannie! Harry yelled as he looked at the two bodies buried under the blankets. Are you okay? A dazed Jeannie and her boyfriend stared out from under the covers.

We’re okay, Mr. Taylor.

Are you sure you are okay, Jeannie? I know your security is important. Should I call your father?

No, please don’t. I’m okay, Mr. Taylor.

Jeannie lived there three years total during her undergraduate work and never had any security corrections made after that first night. Harry smiled often when he thought about it.

FOUR

Justice

A lthough he could handle most any building or repair problems, when it came to appliances, Harry would