COMMENTARY by Larry Lick, RHOL

In the spirit of Cooperation

The phone rang at 4:55 am, but I didn't hear it. We've lived through two teen age sons and learned to sleep through calls at all hours of the day and night.

When I finally ambled downstairs about quarter to eight last Saturday morning, and poured coffee, (we have an automatic) I saw flashing lights on one of my wife's techno-toys. The caller ID box showed a five am call from the City. It couldn't be the rental inspection department - my god, it must be the police. I did a quick mental inventory of the family. Who might have been out at that hour. Damn, one son was spending the night at a friends house in town.

I gently woke my wife. "Do we have a way to contact Landel?" I asked.

"Yes, he has my beeper, what's wrong?"

I told her about the caller ID message. She jumped out of bed ... without even bothering to cover up ... and hustled downstairs. She checked the ID box, then knew enough to play back the answering machine. Sure enough, a message from the police:

"Call us back as soon as you get this message."

Now she began to panic. "Relax," I told her, "it's probably something wrong at the mall." (I also manage a mall) She wasn't listening to me, she was getting a run around on the phone from the police station. No one knew why we had been called.

This was going to take awhile so I started considering other possibilities - my way of remaining calm - and realized that with all the rentals we have, it's ironic that we have never been called about a problem at one of them. We have 22 houses and manage a few others. Surely, at some point, some one will die in one of them from natural causes. Perhaps a fire ... or a drug raid.

My wife finally began talking to someone. I heard her call him Captain Carmody, her face went white and her mouth dropped open ... I grabbed the phone.

"Jim, this is Larry Lick, what's wrong?"

"There was a homicide."
"Gulp!"
"You own a home at 13th and Pearl right?"
"Yes"
"Are you familiar with the bath room in the basement?"
"Yes."
"We found four guys hiding in the shower. We think they hid the gun in the house, perhaps dropped it down inside a wall from the bathroom upstairs. We are going to try using an Endoscope (a fiber-optic camera) borrowed from the hospital, to spot it, if that doesn't work ..."
"Tear open the wall!" I quickly volunteered. Do what ever you need to do. Is the tenant cooperating? What can we do to help?"

"Yes, the tenant is cooperating. One of their sons may have been involved but they gave us permission to search the house. The shooting appears to be gang related. An 18 year old kid was killed. It happened about 2:30 in the morning."

"Were you called in at that hour Jim?" I asked.
"Yes ...," He thought a moment. "It's the fifth time in the last two weeks I have been called into the station in the middle of the night. My family is getting punchy."

"Jeez, what a lousy job," I offered. "We want to do what ever we can to help you. What can we do?"
"Nothing yet. If we determine we need to open a wall, we'll call you. We just wanted to let you know what was going on."

The rest of the story is rather typical. Headlines in the mainstream media. The boy was charged, the first jury hung. The boy's family has not paid their rent in several months because the money has all gone for lawyers. We have been reluctant to evict them for non-payment while they are going through such trauma.

Update: We finally evicted them when they owed us nearly $4,000. They filed for bankruptcy. We never got a dime.

But the point I really want to make here is that if you are a landlord, some day you too will be contacted by the police. It is important to note that their contact with us was in a spirit of cooperation. I was not surprised. That has always been my experience when dealing with most officials at every level of local government.

When I find fault with government on these pages, it is usually because of a differing political philosophy. Many of us believe in the least possible amount of government regulation, taxes, and interference in our business and our lives. We want only want the government that is necessary to help us provide a clean, safe and viable community. Some in government however, see their roll vastly expanded to include large amounts of public housing and even real estate development. We will always cooperate with government in the performance of the former, we will always criticize them for using our money to compete with us in the latter.