Photo By John HoffAn intrepid comment poster tracked down some information on Mahmood Khan and submitted it via a comment thread...
He did it by finding Khan's phone number on a city document, then searching the number on Craigslist under rental properties. That turned up a Craig's List ad:
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/apa/948032029.html
Links to ads on "CL" go dead in a month or so, therefore I'm going to extract the info and make it available on this blog:
$950 / 3 br-- 34xx Emerson, 17xx Oliver and a few single homes (32xx Bryant, and 20xx Russel)
Ad was posted on December 6, 2008, 8:09 CST. It reads as follows.
In North Minneapolis. Single Family Homes and Duplexes. 3, 4 and 5 bedrooms. AVAILABLE NOW!!! Rents range from $950 to $1250. Some with FULL basements and attics and also some include single and double car garages, WALK IN CLOSETS.
16xx 22nd Ave., 16xx 27th Ave., 32xx Bryant, 34xx Emerson, 17xx Oliver, 20xx Russel, 20xx 21st Ave. and 16xx Sheridan. Utilities to be paid by the tenant that is water, gas and electric. Please call.
651-636-7080
(Here, Khan, let me proofread this for you, free of charge. There should be a hyphen in "walk-in." Two L's in "Russell." That mistake happened twice, so it was not just a typo. That sentence which begins with "Utilities to be paid..." is just bad, mangled English)
OK, LISTEN UP JOHNNY NORTHSIDE READERS. And keep in mind this is my own little private predator drone mission, here, and not something officially-sponsored by anybody.
I want the addresses of Khan's properties. I want to dig up info about the situation with all these other properties because, good lord, I've seen how he keeps 2222 4th St. N., and it's an indignity to our neighborhood.
Anybody got an idea how to get a quick handle on getting those other addresses, other than a burdensome process of trial and error with the city's property information website? Because, oh gee, I can't search the website by name of owner to find the properties of a notorious slumlord where a body turned up. The city doesn't TRUST US to use that information wisely, though city officials reportedly have access to the information themselves. I want to turn up the addresses, but I don't want to check, for example, every possible address on the 3400 block of Russell.
Also, and I will reiterate this: I'm open to hearing Khan's side of the story. Khan can contact me, if he likes. Also, when the owner of 2222 4th St. N. discovered the body (presumably it was indeed Khan, if one makes the dangerous assumption the city's records are up-to-date) he did the right thing by calling 911.
Clearly, some cynical individuals would have thought, "Oh, good lord, a body in my garage! This is nothing but trouble for a slumlord such as I! Gotta think, gotta think...OK, I've got it. Plastic tarp. One of my houses with a bathtub. Lots and lots of battery acid...."
The owner of 2222 4th St. N. DIDN'T DO THAT.
He called the police, as per his civic duty. And though I might be inclined to be harshly critical of the condition of his property, my criticisms will only go so far before I have to throw in a caveat: when he called the police, the owner of 2222 4th St. N. did the right thing, and there were indeed other options.
6 comments:
Wow, you do watch a lot of CSI. No, it would not be easier to do that. Not when you have an urban forest of vacant houses owned by other people or the city/county where you could try to dump the body so that it would be someone else's problem. Much less incriminating too, if you were caught.
One aspect of the vacant house phenom is that there seem to be some slumlords that are expanding their empires faster than they can manage them. I.e. because the houses are so cheap, they are snapping them up and their already sorry landlord practices are even worse when they own more distressed houses and more of them. The rents for his places also seem pretty high given where they are located, unless the houses are really big. Walk in closet? LOL! Probably a bedroom that doesn't meet code, no egress, etc.
Four more Khan property listings for ya (incl. one that seems to be an entire apt. building for sale)
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/apa/938574760.html
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/apa/938573977.html
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/apa/938573264.html
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/apa/938571873.html
In regard to getting rid of a body: you know what, I could come up with a witty response but...I don't want to find any humor in any of this. I was just making an offhand remark about how the slumlord in question didn't necessarily have to do the right thing by calling the police, yet he did.
And, yes, you're right about the over-expanding slumlord empires. This much I've learned in my own time working for slumlords: multi-unit buildings are more efficient to manage. One roof to replace, one big boiler to keep fixed, one place to go and check the security. Multi-unit is the way to go, not buying up duplexes or (good lord!) single-family homes.
But some slumlords are like the hungry man at the buffet: their eyes are bigger than their stomach. Mahmood Khan clearly has more property than he can handle, at least when it comes to one property; 2222 4th St. N.
Oh, and guess what. The info about Khan's other properties is coming through my email right now. Stay tuned.
Good, good. Working on this.
info we heard somewhere said khan bought 31 properties in auction this fall which included 2222 4th st n. seems to be a pattern of rapid turnover of these just out of forclosure properties 2226 6th st n. has had 3 owners since 6/08. 2230 6th st has been passed back and forth among owners like a hot potato.
Here's another thing that jumps out at me John. "Utilities to be paid by tenant" are water, gas, and electric. While this is not anything other than anecdotal, it's been my experience that landlords usually at least spring for water and/or the hot water heater.
If he's starting his rates at $950/mo for a 3-bedroom unit of a duplex, well...that's not out of a reasonable range, but it is on the higher end. Something tells me that his $950/mo, 3-bd duplex with all utilities paid by the tenant is not a nice enough property to bear out a higher-end cost like that. If I were giving him the benefit of the doubt, I'd say he's charging those rates to minimize his risk of taking on a bad tenant. But the information I'm seeing so far does not lend itself to giving this guy that much leeway.
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