A Landlord Tells His Story

Bert Stratton joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to talk about Stratton’s experience as a member of one of the most despised but important professions: landlord.

Stratton is a musician and blogger, but he makes his living managing apartment units and retail space in a suburban neighborhood outside of his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. He prefers to call himself a “landlord-musician.”

Stratton’s first piece for City Journal, a quirky essay called “The Landlord’s Tale,” appeared in 2012. “Everybody hates landlords,” Stratton writes. “Nobody paid rent as a child, so people think they should live free as adults, too.”