Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Landlord's Tale

All of us have our stories as renters. In City Journal, Bret Stratton gives a fascinating account of what it's like to be a landlord. An excerpt:

Years later, I sat at McDonald’s with my elder son, Ted, 28. The first generation (my father) scrapes, the second generation (me) tries to keep things on keel, and the third (Ted) needs tutorials in toughness because it doesn’t remember the first. I told my son not to forget the little things: pens, checks, camera, Post-it notes. I said, “Lesson One: Write everything down. You don’t want to think about ‘cold water leak, Apt. 24’ all day.” Lesson Two: Be wary of restaurant workers, particularly chefs and servers. They come home late, party hard, and wake up the solid-citizen tenants in the building. Lesson Three: ABC, for “Always Be Closing”—closing a deal, that is, which, in my case, means collecting the rent. That’s from a David Mamet play and was an inside joke between my son and me. My son, like every other young person, enjoys quoting movies verbatim.

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