far be it from me to disparage the mentally ill, but...i had a completely insane landlady growing up in berkeley. my parents rented two different houses from her on Westside south of Sacramento from 1974-1990 or so. she was the hearing voices, talking to herself kind of crazy. she frequently forgot to collect the rent check, and frequently forgot to cash it. yet, she was a functioning landlady, in a matter of speaking, for many years, and owned several properties. her habitual attire was bedroom slippers, bathrobe, curlers and cigarette. my parents were afraid to ever ask for anything from her because she didn't raise the rent for decades even when she could. when my parents moved out of their house to the one next door she also owned - this was about the same time as when i forged out on my own, around 1986 - the old house was never moved into again, but became a storehouse for her junk, and the stairs to the front door actually rotted through and collapsed. an unlived-in house in west berkeley in the 90's? on par with crimes against humanity, practically.

Last time I lived in Berkeley it was in Piedmont area because there wasn't anything in Berkeley... Lucked out too, as my next door neighbor used to be the guitarist (Danny Kalb) in a group probably few now know of called 'The Blues Project." He taught me a few licks... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues_Project

I had a landlord as I was growing up I thought looked exactly like Nikita Khrushchev. I'm sure he was a nice fellow, but in the mind of a kid, these impressions can take weird imaginative turns....