Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

I’LL PAY THIS TENANT’S
MOVING EXPENSES

by Bert Stratton

I’ll give Caleb $200 to move out. I’ll give him his security deposit back, too. Maybe I should offer more. He kicked out a radiator vent in the hallway. He’s always breaking blinds in the hallway. His buddies kicked out the windowpanes in the front door. He has a 10-year-old conviction for drugs. From now on, no felonies, period; I don’t care how old the crimes are.
bad gig

He’s got a disorderly and is on probation. The cops are coming out regularly. I gave Caleb a letter saying I wouldn’t renew his lease. He’s mentally unhinged, but not so much I won’t call the cops on him. He has threatened to steal the building manager’s car and “drive it to California.” He also called the manager a “fucking Jew,” which he’s not. (He’s not Jewish.) Caleb said he’s going to smash every window in his apartment.

I’ve been on the cops just about daily, but they aren’t as gung-ho as I’d like because everything is “hearsay,” according to one dispatcher. We don’t have video cameras everywhere.
Maybe $200 isn’t enough. Maybe I should go $400.
—
Caleb is a pseudonym.

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3 comments

1 Ken Goldberg { 11.29.17 at 9:52 am }

Sounds like one of these wretched situations that make one pull out of the real estate business. One of many reasons I’d never be interested even in a double or duplex, as someone suggested recently. Meanwhile, I never cared that much for Matt Lauer that much, either (see breaking news this a.m….)!

2 don friedman { 11.29.17 at 1:18 pm }

Put the $$ into a security cam or two with voice recording. Or put a little voice recorder in your pocket next time you have to talk to the bum. Or hire my friends Bruno and Vinnie!

3 dave rowe { 11.29.17 at 5:14 pm }

Maybe what’s called for is a one-way Greyhound bus ticket west,

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