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Being a landlord gives an initial aura of being different than other businesses.  I believe this is because your product is an intangible.  You’re not selling an item like a store.  You’re selling a service, but even that is different than most services.  It’s not like you are an electrician or plumber where you come in, perform a service and get paid.  As landlords the service we provide is a properly maintained housing unit. 

The service we provide forces us to have a different relationship with our customers than a plumber would have with their customers.  Our business relationship with our customers can last for multiple years.  We can see marriages happen, children being born, growing up, etc.  We have a view into intimate happenings.

On a personal note, I will say that I believe that if you are a good person, and treat people well, you will be treated well and have a good life.  You can call it living by the golden rule, karma, whatever you want.  My point is that it is how I live my life and it flows through to my business practices.

As a landlord, especially a new landlord, it can be hard to realize that there needs to be a line drawn between the tenant and you.  This is a business and it nes to be treated as such.  This isn’t charity, it isn’t a helping hand, it is a business.

When it comes to landlording it may seem that those two points conflict but I don’t believe so.  I give everyone a fair shake when i deal with them.  I don’t take advantage of anyone and I don’t expect to be taken advantage of.  If a tenant doesn’t pay me I see it as being taken advantage of.  I live up to my end of the deal by taking care of any issues that arise and providing good, sound housing.  They need to live up to their end by paying on time and taking care of the property.

What goes around comes around.

This article is a very good reason why you should not mix relationships.

Business is business.  Personal is personal.  Listen to the godfather on this one, “It’s nothing personal Sonny, it’s all business.”

Obviously this situation ended as poorly as it could have but there were so many chances taken here.  First, legally, if she was his tenant and he was giving her a rent reduction for a relationship I can smell harassment, prostitution, etc all over the place.  The landlord would have been in a pickle if she decided to take some type of legal action. 

Landlording is a business people.  We need to treat it as such.  Landlord, tenant and girlfriend/boyfriend should not be in the same sentence.

Woman held in stabbing death of boyfriend

Chicago police this morning were investigating a stabbing death on the Far Northwest Side that resulted from a dispute between a 54-year-old landlord and a tenant of his building who also was his girlfriend.

Officers were called to the apartment building in the 6400 block of West Touhy Avenue at about 12:30 a.m., police said.

Police arrived to find Fred Khoshaba, the owner of the building, dead on the floor of his girlfriend’s apartment there, bleeding from a stab wound to the neck. A 49-year-old woman was arrested and charges are pending, said Police Officer Laura Kubiak.

According to Kubiak, the woman pulled a knife during a possibly domestic-related argument in which she ordered her boyfriend to leave her residence. When he refused, a struggle ensued, with the victim reportedly grabbing the woman’s arms and shaking them, apparently causing the knife to plunge into Koshaba neck, according to Kubiak.
A cousin of the dead man said the woman called police and told them Khoshaba had stabbed himself in the neck as they argued.

"I will never believe that," Wissan Zala told WGN-TV Ch. 9. "He would never hurt himself."

Zala said his cousin had four children, was in the process of a divorce and was having financial problems due to the difficult real estate market.