Another landlord has gone missing. Happens all the time. You see messages from distressed tenants posted in the Yahoo forum: “My landlord has disappeared, what do I do?” 

Chances are, there’s a logical explanation. The building is being foreclosed and the landlord skipped town. Or, he’s so wealthy he forgot to stop by and collect the rents. Or, he simply got tired of fixing all those drippy faucets. 

Still, whenever I hear about another missing landlord, my imagination spins.  Abducted by space aliens?  Hiding from hit men? And when these things happen, how do tenants cope?

Such questions are fodder for fiction like this: Mystery of the Missing Landlord >

Poor Mrs. Hudson. The often-overlooked landlady rented rooms to the worse of all possible tenants, the untidy and eccentric Sherlock Holmes.

Susan remembers a story Mary Gordon told at the Albany Book Expo. Gordon—the story goes—went to her writing room every morning. Her children understood that she was not to be disturbed. But one day Gordon sensed the presence of a child on the other side of the closed door.

No, not really! But the metaphorical Building Code Inspector sure has wreaked havoc in my writing life, slapping those official-looking “stop work orders” on every attempt to finish a novel.