Landlord

"You own a street and a block of flats
You earn your living like the other rats
You've no morality what do you care

You deal in poverty you buy despair"

—The Police, "Landlord"

In a series dealing with a character staying in apartment-style housing, a landlord is a common sight. The job description entails what one would expect: The upkeep of the building and grounds. However, while landlords are a diverse bunch visually, there is one hard and fast rule: Make them entertaining, or at the very least, intriguing.

The manager works as a logical and predictable Drop-In Character, while their apartment setting can house a slightly more realistic version of Pretty Freeloaders who, naturally, constantly visit the put-upon lead.

Can crossover with Almighty Janitor.

In terms of rank, the Authority Tropes arguably equal are Badass Preacher, Corrupt Corporate Executive, Good Shepherd, Irish Priest, Preacher Man, Pedophile Priest, Schoolteachers, Sexy Priest, Sinister Minister and The Vicar. For the next step down, see Student Council President. For the next step up, see Dean Bitterman.

Examples of Landlord include:

Anime and Manga

• The archetypal example is Otonashi Kyoko from Takahashi Rumiko's Maison Ikkoku.
• Urashima Keitaro from Love Hina, In a rare example of being the lead character (and being male). His Aunt Haruka, though, fits the trope better.
• Hisakawa Maachi from Best Student Council, who almost universally goes by "Kanrinin-san" ("Ms. Landlady").
• Hibiya Chitose from Chobits and Kobato..
• Sanzou Lulu from I! My! Me! Strawberry Eggs.
• Hirozaki Karei from Maburaho.
• Aoba Kozue from Mahoraba.
• Kasumi Tani from Hand Maid May.
• Neneko Izumi from DearS.
• Sarah Dupont, the Idol Singer and Team Mom from Kaleido Star.
• Subversion: Aoi Sakuraba pretends to be the landlady in Ai Yori Aoshi, as her cover to not let people know she is Kaoru's girlfriend. The closest to a real landlady is actually her guardian and the local Apron Matron, Miyabi Kagurazaki.
• Chitose in Chocotto Sister, who was typically known as "Miss Manager" or "Miss Landlady."
• "The Landlady" (no actual name known) in Hidamari Sketch.
• Otose from Gintama.
• Misae Sagara from Clannad, the supervisor for Sunohara's dorm. Apparently, it's very easy to influence her into violence against the immature rugby team members, such as practicing wrestling moves for peeking in the girl's dorm or drop kicks to people who don't clean their plates at dinner. And it's always awesome when she does. She even gets a sort of mini route that sees its resolution in Tomoyo's route.
• Miya Asama, the landlady from Sekirei always sees herself as the Cool Big Sis, though everyone else sees her as a Mama Bear
• Taeko of Otaku no Musume-san, whose tenants are slowly trying to make her into Kyoko, starting with an apron with a chick on it and later naming the dog Soichiro.
• The landlady at Falling Apartments in Crayon Shin-chan! "She should be nice to me, I come from a long line of slum lords." And Hilarity Ensues when Shin confuses "landlady" with "manlady". "She's just upset she'll never be a real lady!"
• Maiko Motohiro in Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo is the owner of the house where Ureshiko and Kagara lives, those it's Ureshiko who takes care of pretty much the entire household, since Maiko herself is quite old.

Film

• Peter Parker's landlord from the Spider-Man films.

Literature

• In the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Blue Angel, there's an Alternate Universe where the Doctor is just a suburban landlord. He's only got two tenants; it's mostly to justify why the characters would all live together despite the fact one of them, Compassion, is ordinarily a Sour Supporter. Also, he suffers from anxiety and delusions. Unusually, he's far and away the main character of the story and seems to have very little authority over his tenants; Fitz is almost his caretaker and just try having authority over Compassion.
• Mrs Hudson, landlady of Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Only a minor character in the books, but many adaptations give her a bit more to do.

Live-Action TV

• The Super Sentai series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (the one Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was based on) had the Zyuranger's boss, an immortal sorcerer do this as his day job.
• This was once a popular character type in 70's sitcoms: Bookman of Good Times and Schneider of One Day At a Time are examples.
  • Also the Ropers (and, later, Mr. Furley) in Three's Company.
    • And, of course, the Ropers in Man About the House.
• Mr Balowski from The Young Ones.
• Ethel and Fred Mertz in I Love Lucy.
• Mrs. Dubcek on 3rd Rock from the Sun
• Mr. Barriga in El Chavo del Ocho is the landlord of the vencidad that serves as main setting for the characters. His main issue is collecting the fourteen months of overdue rent Don Ramon owes him. When Dona Florinda became a restauranteur, she rented a place that also belongs to him.

Tabletop Games

• In the HERO system (Champions), characters can purchase a base with Character Points. For every 5 points you spend, the size of your base doubles. It's possible, without too much effort, to buy a base with grounds that cover the known universe. ("The Landlord bought it. He owns everything. And for another 170 points, you can buy 8 billion loyal followers (that's everyone on Earth).")

Theatre

• Gary Coleman (yes, that one) in Avenue Q.
• Benny from Rent.
• Mr. Appopolous in Wonderful Town.

Video Games

• It's said that Mario got his name from Mario Segali, the landlord at Nintendo of America.
• In The Sims 2, if your Sims have an apartment, they get a landlord who visits every day.
  • They can also call the landlord to have things in their apartment repaired. He or she actually shows up faster than the repair service for Sims living in houses does.

Web Comics

• Vladic from the webcomic Emergency Exit.
  • Who, curiously, is implied to have been summoned by the apartment rather than being the owner proper; to start with, there was no landlord, but someone commented on this deficiency and the maybe-sentient apartment complex obliged.
• The main characters from Absurd Notions eventually had Dr Ümlaut, the least caring professor ever, assigned as their landlord. He was also the least caring Landlord ever, not caring what the tenants did with their apartment.