Wall of Shame

Collected below is a gallery of Milwaukee’s top evicting landlords and their supporters. Is a landlord threatening or endangering you or someone you know? Join MATU and fight for safe, just housing in Milwaukee!



Always Towing and Recovery Inc / Jason Pehowski

Jason Pehowski

One of the biggest members of Milwaukee’s parasite economy that is allowed to suck money out of poor and working-class tenants, Always Towing and Recovery Inc. owned by Jason Pehowski is a regular collaborator with asshole landlords. Berrada Properties is one of their biggest collaborators.

Always Towing is hated by almost everyone who has been forced to deal with them due to their state-sanctioned grift, just look at its 200+ 1-star Google reviews. Underneath some of the comments, you’ll see Always Towing threatening that “false, slanderous, and defamatory claims and/or statements will be prosecuted” if the commenter alleges some sort of misconduct. Always Towing employs a law firm of dorks that refer to themselves as “legal gladiators” while looking like they just took their senior-year pictures.

Those with the misfortune of having their car towed and held hostage by Always Towing end up having to pay an outrageous $350 right off the bat to free it from their lot on 3700 W Wells St. Complicit in the grift, the State of Wisconsin allows Always Towing to demand these bullshit amounts through fees like a $125 “special equipment fee,” a $35 “service fee, and a $30 fee for every day a car sits on its outdoor lot. If you can’t pay these legalized bullshit fees, you’re out of luck, and after a certain amount of time, they get to keep it.

Like thieves in the night, Always Towing likes to do its dirt after dusk from 9 PM to 6 AM. Nighttime is prime time for Always Towing. Bet you can guess why.

And when you go down to their lot to free your car you’ll be met with barbed-wire fenced lots, barking attack dogs, goons with guns, and dozens of security cameras. Does any business that is good for the community act like this?

In a successful effort to prevent transparency of their practices Always Towing through its “legal gladiators” was able to strike down a city ordinance in Appeals Court that required them to report to the city the cost and the equipment used in every non-consensual tow. However, the city ordinance that allows the drop fee was upheld; although, Always Towing’s legal gladiators. 


But for now, the “drop fee” ordinance  (93-47-3) allows anyone to prevent their cars from being towed by Always Towing (or any other bullshit towing company) for a fee of $50 that can be paid by cash, credit, or debit if the car is only partially hooked up on public or private grounds. The tow truck driver must also advise the car owner of the drop fee if they are present when it’s only partially hooked up. If it’s not hooked up at all (and not being repossessed or directed to be towed by a police officer) the car owner can remove their car without any fee.

Always Bullshit from Always Towing.

Dr. Athlene Alexis

Dr. Athlene Alexis

A suburban slumlord, Dr. Athlene Alexis is the owner of EKCJ LLC, PMA LLC, and SYRCLE PROPERTIES, LLC. Dr. Alexis owns at least 26 properties around the North side of Milwaukee. Athlene is a medical doctor and anesthesiologist, but she treats her tenants terribly.

Athlene has filed 40 evictions since 2016 and has used eviction as a method of retaliation against MATU members who complained to the Department of Neighborhood Services about the condition of their homes.

Athlene has racked up dozens of code violations and work orders from the City of Milwaukee, with many still outstanding. At her property on 3818 N. 21st St. there are outstanding work orders for “Water damage/mold in the basement under the kitchen and bathroom sink,” and “Interior of Building in Disrepair: Gas leaks, bathroom and kitchen sink rotted, gnats, basement leaks causing mold, mice” (Reference Record numbers ENF-2022-09614 and ENF-2021-16181).

At her property on 3841 N. 21st St. there are outstanding work orders for interior and exterior disrepair. Mold has been sighted in the basement, the bottom of the toilet, and on the walls above it on the surrounding floor (Reference Record numbers ENF-2021-22910 and ORD-21-08535).

At her property on 3864 N. 5th St. there are violations for exterior building disrepair like a hole in roof with squirrels nesting, holes in gutters, and a water pipe not connected for outside water. Interior building disrepair such as missing screens on back or front doors, dining room windows improperly fitted. (Reference Record numbers ENF-2022-21278, ORD-21-08907, and ORD-21-08915).


At her property on 3146 N. Julia St., the garage and shed have collapsed and orders for their removal have been issued (Reference Record numbers ENF-2021-36358 and ORD-21-13128).

At her property on 2574 N 53rd St. an inspection found that the interior of the building was in disrepair (Reference Record numbers ORD-22-03883 and ENF-2022-10696).

Athlene Alexis operates an illegal rooming house from her property at 2834 N. 37th St. and is being taken to court by the City of Milwaukee (Reference Record numbers ENF-2021-33093 and ORD-21-11235).

At her property on 2841 N. 37th St., there are outstanding violations for “Roof leaking into pantry, kitchen and bathroom sinks leak, Mice and roaches, debris on the porch” (Reference Record number ORD-22-08292).

At her property on 2845 N. 37th St. Athlene Alexis is operating yet another illegal rooming house, for which she is being taken to court by the City of Milwaukee. There is also a violation for “Defective steps on front porch . Exterior of home is in disrepair,” (Reference Record numbers ENF-2021-33052, ORD-22-08494, ENF-2022-20538, ENF-2021-33052, and ORD-21-11038).

At her property on 6124 N. 37th St. the DNS found “Interior Of Building In Disrepair.” Inspector Ms. Gibson reports that “the plumbing is inoperable, the electricity is defective, and evidence of rodent and bed bug infestation.

Multiple current and past tenants of Athlene have alleged being scared of retaliatory eviction-filling from her.

Using the money taken from tenants living in her dilapidated rentals, she lives in a mansion at 1125 Ashbourne Ct. Brookfield, WI 53045 and can be reached at 262-993-2449.

“Slumlord Joe” Berrada

Descending from heaven as God’s gift to Milwaukee, Youssef “Slumlord Joe” Berrada has become the biggest and most famous individual landlord in the city. To begin his heavenly work of profiting from the need for housing, Joe established Berrada Property Management Inc (BPM) and around 111 registered  Limited Liability Companies (LLC), most of which bear his surname followed by a number; for example, “Berrada Properties 96 LLC.”

Altogether, BPM owns approximately 700 rental properties or 9,000 rental units. Additionally, he owns LLCs that don’t bear his name such as Falcon Crest LLC, 9632 W Appleton LLC, YB Silver Spring LLC, Meaux Park LLC, Willow Court Apartments LLC, Colonial Pointe Apartments LLC, Luther Haven LLC, and Mariners Pointe Apartments LLC. Joe has also spread his blessings to the cities of West Allis, St. Francis, and Racine where he owns rental properties as well.

 According to Youssef, BPM’s divine mission began in the predominantly Black Northside of Milwaukee, which is the land of milk and honey for a landlord. And he took that opportunity to make much of the Northwest side a part of the Berrada family out of a commitment to the community. Definitely not out of a commitment to making money despite what his Mequon mansion, eight luxury homes, luxury cars, private jet, yacht, and helicopter may make it look like. Berrada is all about service to the community and not profits, if you say otherwise you’ll get a letter from his lawyers.  

You can’t go far in the city without seeing a stretch of apartment buildings encircled with boulders. Berrada’s properties are famous throughout the city for their boulders. That’s why Joe has the cool nickname, boulder Joe. Berrada’s boulders are basically synonymous with the northside now. 

You may have seen allegations of infestations, it’s not BPM’s fault. BPM’s lawyers want you to know that “[t]he reality is that it’s the conditions caused by tenants that bring in bed bugs, mice, and other pests.”  It’s always the tenants’ or city’s fault and never Berrada Properties’ fault. If you say differently, you are violating Berrada’s constitutional rights, which are the most important thing in the world, and you will get a letter from BPM’s lawyers.

Some may think Joe is a gentrifier because of his purchase of entire swathes of northside properties and “renovating” them with boulders, weird pergola canopies, red doors, and ashy blue paint, but Joe’s no gentrifier. He doesn’t want to push the Black and Brown tenants out, to the contrary, he wants to keep them right where they are. So that they can continue to make a fortune off of them. ” And Berrada’s lawyers want you to know that “BPM is Home Depot’s largest customer, nationwide” due to all the “extensive renovations” they do.

When it comes to pushing out slumlords from the North side, BPM is without a peer, buying them out and picking up where they left off, profiting off of the poor. Joe’s formula for making profits off low-income tenants is truly on another level.  His lawyers also want you to know that BPM has a huge waiting list of tenants looking to rent from him. So, obviously, that makes BPM great.  Never mind how Milwaukee and Wisconsin’s laws and court system keep working-class tenants trapped in a situation where they are prey to profit-seekers.

If you say there are any code violations at BPM’s buildings, you’re lying even if you see them on Milwaukee’s Land Management System. If by a tiny chance, there are code violations for garbage, broken windows, or building disrepair, it’s the fault of the tenants. However, as BPM’s lawyers have explained, Joe out of the goodness of his heart promptly repairs all of the damages caused by their unruly and ungrateful tenants. These tenants should understand how good Joe is to them and how much better BPM makes their life.

Joe is facing a civil lawsuit from the Wisconsin Attorney General and the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) due to some ungrateful tenants. Who would have thought that charging tenants late fees not in the rental agreement, screwing a tenant’s door shut (ALLEGEDLY), doing “renovations” that make the building unlivable (ALLEGEDLY), tearing down and throwing away mailboxes with mail inside of them, and throwing out tenants’ property from storage areas for “renovations” would cause tenants to get angry, ALLEGEDLY? This is just how BPM “beautifies” their buildings, ALLEGEDLY.

Knowing all this about Joe and Berrada Properties, how could he not be seen as God’s gift to Milwaukee? If you think and say otherwise it’s criminal defamation, harassment, and communicating derogatory information, or so we’ve been told by BPM’s lawyers’ little letters. 

Alongside being God’s gift to Milwaukee, Youssef Berrada is the King of Milwaukee and you will treat his highness as such, anyone who questions his rule will face consequences.

An interactive map of known Berrada properties.

James Robinson

James L. Robinson Jr. AKA “Discount Store Eric Andre” is the In-House Counsel for Berrada Properties Management (BPM). He handles the vast majority of evictions for Slumlord Joe, contributing to severe housing instability in Milwaukee by facilitating BPM’s mass evictions. 

Robinson is paid to unhouse people using the court system and largely does so without opposition as around 90% of tenants who face eviction in Milwaukee County do not have legal representation. Without a lawyer, tenants are almost guaranteed to lose. 

Robinson is used as a tool to take advantage of an unfair legal process that is stacked against working-class tenants. According to court transcripts, he said that Berrada buys buildings and immediately sets out to evict the current tenants (pgs 41-42).

Robison stated in court “[I]t’s my client’s general practice to purchase a building, clear it out of the tenants, and gut it from stem to stern, top to bottom. When the tenants — and there’s really no other option.”

Such a slimy and arrogant statement shows that Robinson and his employer are unafraid of declaring their strategy publicly, bragging about the use of renovictions as a method for getting rid of holdover tenants. 

However, the few protections against this landlord behavior are rarely enforced in court by commissioners and judges, who favor the interests of landlords who use their economic and political capital to streamline their evictions.

Landlords who seek to carry out mass evictions can purchase the services of lawyers like Robinson who have no qualms about being sellouts. Robinson’s work allows his employers to use a legal system that favors landlords to evict and retaliate against tenants at will.

Todd & Shawn Brunner

Todd Brunner
Shawn Brunner

One of the most infamous slumlords in Milwaukee’s history, Todd Brunner wreaked havoc on Milwaukee tenants for decades with near impunity. His crimes against tenants include slum housing with innumerable code violations, bankruptcy and bank fraud, and alleged negligent electrical wiring in a house that led to the deaths of three children in a fire. 

Todd Brunner is the epitome of the slumlord, and his example serves as evidence of how the capitalist legal system abets in the exploitation of working-class tenants, and even their deaths.

A son of the suburbs, Todd Brunner started landlording and leeching off of Milwaukee’s Black and Brown working class at the young age of 20 in 1977. He would go on to own hundreds of properties around Milwaukee and nearby towns, many of which he bought through foreclosure auctions held by the county sheriff’s office. 

Brunner would use the money he leeched from tenants to buy mansions, boats, vintage luxury cars, and other ill-gotten goodies. Brunner’s lavish lifestyle outstripped the money he made from looting tenants through rent, as he would have creditors on his ass looking to be paid back.

Todd Brunner ran numerous schemes and shell companies with his son Shawn Brunner. Todd ducked and dodged creditors every which way, lying about being broke while having luxury boats and cars laying around his palatial home. Eventually, Todd and Shawn were arrested by the Feds after Todd’s mansion was raided. 

Despite the theater of a raid and indictments for fraud, all Todd Brunner was given was two years of probation and Shawn Brunner a deferred prosecution agreement which led to his charges being dropped. Todd was never charged for the deaths of the three children. Instead, the poor mother was given all the blame and charged and imprisoned. 

Currently, Shawn Brunner owns around 21 properties in Milwaukee, in predominantly Black and Brown working-class neighborhoods, and Todd serves as the “property manager.” A slumlord like his father Todd, one tenant alleged of Shawn, “Myself and my disabled daughter have been living with mold for 2 years. And he doesn’t fix anything water stays in the basement and gas leaks. I have been trying to get help. Now I’m looking for a place and that’s hard when he took the rent up twice in 1 year and a half from 865 to 1033.” 

Enabled by the system that upholds capital over people, Todd Brunner has the blood of three children on his hands.

Read the ProPublica report on Todd Brunner

A list of properties that Shawn Brunner owns:
4331 N 19TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 4582 N 24TH PL Milwaukee, WI; 5007 N 24TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 5480 N 27TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 2875 N 36TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 4338 N 41ST ST Milwaukee, WI; 4542 N 44TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 2869 N 46TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 4260 N 48TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 5315 N 49TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 3272 N 52ND ST Milwaukee, WI; 6427 N 52ND ST Milwaukee, WI; 2473 N 57TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 2911 S 60TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 4609 N 67TH ST Milwaukee, WI; 4709 N 71ST ST Milwaukee, WI; 5738 N 71ST ST Milwaukee, WI; 7010 W HERBERT AV Milwaukee, WI; 2991 S HERMAN ST Milwaukee, WI; 3300 W SHERIDAN AV Milwaukee, WI

Current properties owned by Shawn Brunner

Will Sherard

Will Sherard is the owner of Morocco Investments LLC (and other LLCs) and one of Milwaukee’s most notorious slumlords and accounted for about 10% of all evictions filed during the COVID 19 pandemic and economic crisis. Sherard is not only well known for owning over 50 North Side properties, but for his companies’ lack of upkeep and maintenance at these properties. As of 2018, Sherard owed almost $70,000 in building code fines, accumulated over the years for leasing out homes and units that were later determined to be unfit for human habitation. Even after being prosecuted for failure to pay these fines and being ordered by a state judge to cough up the money, Sherard appealed all the way up to the State Supreme Court.


Sherard continued to be a regular at the Milwaukee County sheriff’s sales where foreclosed properties are auctioned off to lenders, landlords, and slumlords, spending twice the amount he had been ordered to pay on new properties, while still refusing to pay what he owed. With his properties valued at over $1.5 million and his personal wealth a subject of speculation, it is clear that Sherard is only interested in accumulating profit at the least expense possible to him and will fight and claw relentlessly against having to pay fines or allowing people to live in his properties, even temporarily, without paying due to the ongoing crisis.

Investigative reporting by the Journal Sentinel has alleged that various Sherard properties have had electrical wiring problems. In October 2019, only days after moving in, two tenants were killed by a fire in a property owned by Sherard. Records show that the property had a history of electrical code violations. No charges or arrests were issued for Sherard, who denied culpability.

Sherard’s headquarters are at 2233 W Capitol Dr, Milwaukee, WI 53206 and its phone number is 414-444-5858

Sam Stair

Sam Stair, owner of S2 Properties, is one of the worst offenders in terms of evictions during the COVID 19 pandemic, filing for a total of 232 evictions against mostly low-income tenants since the start of the pandemic in March of 2020. Since 2016, Stair has filed 670 evictions against the tenants living in the 100+ properties he owns. 

Stair gives no leeway to his tenants and has filed evictions against MATU represented tenants for being only one month behind on rent or non-payment of late fees. This lack of leniency, his unwillingness to work with tenants, along with high late payment fees, makes S2 a mass evictor.In the winter of 2020-2021, while the pandemic was still raging and a massive snow storm hit Milwaukee, Sam Stair filed dozens of evictions before hopping on a plane to the Caribbean. 

Stair also had the audacity to appear on Fox 6 News in September of 2020 and complain about the CDC Eviction Moratorium, making the hyperbolic claim that “Basically, it’s just taking our properties away,” and pretending that the moratorium was a political ploy rather than an action by the federal government that was designed to keep people housed during the pandemic stating, “The scariest thing is it’s starting to become a go-to thing for the politicians.” 

MATU has been to every property owned by S2 and the vast majority are dilapidated, with multiple code violations apparent in the common areas, as well as in the individual units we were invited into. Sam Stair is a profit-hungry slum lord that does not care about the provision of quality housing and is only concerned with stuffing his pockets with the hard-earned wages of working-class people that do not own their own homes.

SUV Properties

SUV Properties, owned by Melanie Eden, currently owns three properties in Milwaukee and many more throughout Southeastern Wisconsin. SUV Properties also manages over 500 rental properties for other owners, according to its website. Many of the property owners live out of state, like 5860 N 81st Street, owned by Leonid Orlov who lives in California and 4540 N 60th Street, owned by Gigi Tang who lives in Hawaii. SUV Properties has had 44 evictions since 2016.

SUV Properties maintains 3.5 stars on Google, but the reviews are very divided. The one-star reviews use words like “unprofessional” and “slumlords” to describe the company. The specific issues that reviews allege are bedbugs, roaches, and mice in the units, the office never responding to phone calls, maintenance not fixing issues after requests were submitted, and SUV taking additional unauthorized payments from tenants.

One of the most recent reviews says, “These people pick and choose who to accommodate and lack communication skills. I hope in the future these people get better training and respect not just a select few clients but EVERY client they encounter. Reading other reviews has left me thinking if this is a racial thing, I’ve heard many stories from other races that are similar to mine.”

The five-star Google reviews for SUV Properties were left by mostly owners of properties that SUV manages and contractors for maintenance. These reviews say that SUV and Melanie are professional, very responsive to phone calls, the buildings are maintained well, and they receive great returns from Melanie. All of the reviews from the property owners and contractors were left in the same time period, with three of the reviews referencing a negative review left.

An assumption that one could make is that Melanie asked for positive reviews after a negative review suggested that contractors that SUV hires are not insured. The divide in reviews from tenants and property owners suggests that tenants may be treated very differently than the property owners. The property owner reviews mention the good returns they receive, but don’t mention the disrespect and neglect that tenants face. It sounds like the property owners care more about the money they make from tenants than they care about the tenants themselves.

Zolper Property Management

Nick Zolper

Zolper Property Management owns and manages around 300 properties on Milwaukee’s East Side, Riverwest, and Wauwatosa. The owners are the brothers Nick, Shane, and Henry Zolper, who are the operators of Zolper Property Management. Each brother owns several of the dozens of LLCs that are connected to Zolper Property Management and used to file evictions. Zolper has filed 58 evictions since 2016. Many tenants have come to MATU expressing grave maintenance concerns about the properties they are living in and the lack of responsiveness from Zolper about making necessary repairs. 

New tenants complained to MATU that the unit they were moving into was not cleaned properly and that the appliances were not left in working order. Broken stoves, refrigerators, laundry machines, and even the lights in entire apartments were not in working order at move-in. Water damage, leaking pipes, and the endemic growth of black mold seem to be routine in Zolper owned/managed properties.

Maintenance, rather than evictions, is the primary problem with Zolper, causing tenants to move out or become embroiled in conflict with Nick Zolper himself. Check out the Google reviews or Yelp reviews and you will see several complaints about Nick Zolper being confrontational or aggressive toward tenants. He doubles down on that by responding personally to bad reviews, even going as far as to threaten former tenants with defamation lawsuits.

There is also a widespread perception that Zolper takes advantage of young, first-time renters at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Many 18 and 19-year-olds are not aware of their rights and are not experienced enough as renters to know what to look for during an apartment walk-through or while signing a lease agreement. Renting to college students is a lucrative business and Zolper is the king of college rentals around the campus of UWM. The number of properties owned and managed by Zolper has grown significantly over the past few years and it is hard to imagine that an increased number of properties has led to better maintenance practices all around.

Patrick Roney and Evan Knupp

Patrick Roney
Evan Knupp

Patrick Roney and Evan Knupp are Milwaukee attorneys who aid various landlords around the city in evicting their tenants during a global pandemic. Rather than do the moral thing and refuse to offer services to landlords looking to mass-evict, they chose to enrich themselves by taking on as many eviction cases as possible. During this unprecedented eviction crisis, Attorneys Roney and Knupp chose to be a part of the problem for personal gain.

George Sessler

George Sessler is an individual landlord in Milwaukee who has been accused of being a slumlord by his tenants. Sessler operates almost exclusively on Milwuakee’s predominantly Black Northside, preying on low-income tenants according housing advocates. Sessler charges high late fees and has been accused by tenants of inflating amounts owed to him. To collect, he uses the courts as his debt collector.

From 2010-2013, Sessler’s properties racked up 569 violations, ranging from bedbugs; missing fire extinguishers and  alarms; missing smoke and carbon monoxide alarms; faulty electrical wiring; bad sewage connections; leaky walls; missing window screens; garbage pile up and lack of general maintenance.

He operates as a landlord behind his 5 LLCs: Sessler Properties; DLS Investment Properties LLC; GNT LLC; GEO Investments LLC, GLS LLC, and KNT Properties LLC. Sessler is tax delinquent on all but one of these LLCs according to the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions. Sessler has filed 797 evictions since 2016 and 225 evictions since the beginning of the pandemic. Sessler is a serial evictor as these nearly 800 evictions are only spread among 18 properties, making Sessler one of the highest evictors per-unit in the City of Milwaukee.

Nicholas & Emma Rezny

Nicholas Rezny

Nicholas & Emma Rezny own PayMyRent5 LLC, Skyforger LLC, MCRD Group LLC, American Community ReDevelopment Group LLC, RG CHARYO LLC, NTJ LLC, AE PROP LLC and dozens of other LLCs for property ownership all over the city. Most have been administratively dissolved or are tax delinquent according to the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions. Some of the more bizarre LLCs that Rezny has set up to front his business are I LOVE POPTARTS LLC, Shrek LLC, Why So Serious LLC, Opposite of Success LLC, AFART LLC, and of course Start With Gluten Free LLC. Their business office is located at 4812 W. Lloyd St. and their phone numbers include 608-213-6757, 414-544-3517, 414-937-0280, and 414-808-5389. Rezny has filed 302 evictions since 2016.

 In 2017, Rezny said he managed or owned around 225 rental units in Milwaukee. Rezny cut his teeth in real estate working for Russell Freeman, who is currently serving 17 years for securities fraud, and co-owned the real-estate firm Genesis Fulfillment Management LLC with him as well, eventually taking over all the properties owned under this LLC after Freeman went back to prison. In 2019 Rezny was held in contempt of court in a securities fraud suit in which he was being sued by his uncle, Greg Dahlman, to whom Rezny owed $329,333. Dahlman invested $260,000 with Rezny but was not repaid, which nearly landed Rezny in jail for contempt. Rezny has also been forced to repay other investors whom he has ripped off. The City Attorney’s Office has suggested that Rezny is running a Ponzi scheme stating, “It appears that Mr. Rezny purchases properties in the name of one LLC, takes out a mortgage from a private individual or IRA then sells that property to a different Rezny LLC for a profit to pay off the mortgage. The nature of these transactions seem to be akin to a mortgage ‘Ponzi scheme.’ ” While Rezny denies this, it is clear there is something amiss as Rezny has been the subject of at least 9 lawsuits since 2013, has been investigated by the FBI, and has been widely derided by former investors as a scam artist.

Aside from his questionable financial activities, Rezny also happens to be a terrible landlord and property manager according to some of his current and former tenants. Rezny has reportedly sped away in his truck when asked to conduct routine maintenance activities, like making sure tenants have running water. According to tenants, Rezny has also threatened his tenants via phone and text to evict them illegally using prohibited self-help and constructive eviction methods.

Pete & Jeanne Pacetti & Lore Hauck

Pete Pacetti
Jeanne Pacetti

Pete Pacetti is the owner of Edgewater Real Estate LLC, which has buildings on Milwaukee’s North Side, East Side, Downtown Milwaukee, and Shorewood. Jeanne Pacetti and Lore Hauck are listed as registered agents for some of these properties and are presumably related to Pete familially or via business. Michael Olson is a partial owner of two downtown properties. Their business office is located at 104 E Mason St #101 Milwaukee, WI 53202.

Pacetti registers buildings and files evictions using a series of LLCs including LBH 1 LLC, TAH 14 LLC, JMH 38 LLC, CAC 60 LLC, JMP 4 LLC, and City Hall Square Properties LLC. Among all these properties, 12 evictions were filed during the pandemic and 41 since 2016.

Tenants have complained about the neglected state of their buildings and have pointed out some clear code and safety violations. In one building, both elevators are continually dysfunctional and a safety hazard to elderly and disabled tenants. “My concrete balcony is crumbling. There is a big crack right through it and you can see the rebar. I’m afraid to even go out there, and I fully expect that it will collapse before my lease is over,” stated one tenant. “Under the previous owners the building was kept in such nice shape,” one longtime tenant in an Edgewater owned building said, “but now it isn’t taken care of.

There are structural issues and aesthetical issues and both need to be addressed.” “It took them three years to repair the roof,” another longtime tenant complained, “and during those three years a lot of water leaked in and did a lot of damage to the ceilings and cabinets in people’s apartments. Mold grew. It was disgusting.” Another tenant, who uses a mobility device stated, “One elevator doesn’t work at all and on the other, the doors open and close like the thing is possessed. Sometimes my cart will get stuck in the doors and I just have to wait until someone comes to help.”

Pete and Geanne Pacetti live in a mansion at 2325 Nagawicka Rd. Hartland, WI 53029. They can be reached at 414-255-2277. Lore Hauck lives in a sizable home at 3175 Cherry Hill Dr. Brookfield, WI 53005, an extremely affluent area of the suburb.

Daniel Katz

Daniel Katz is the owner of Katz Properties Inc, which currently has properties, mostly apartment buildings, predominantly located in Murray Hill and the Lower East Side of Milwaukee. Amongst Katz Properties’ possessions in Milwaukee are the Lodgewood at North Waverly Place, Prairie Oaks, and 1321 North Franklin. The business office of Katz Properties is located at 614 W Brown Deer Rd #300, Bayside, WI 53217. Using dozens upon dozens of front LLCs, Katz has filed 441 evictions since 2016 and 140 evictions since the start of the pandemic.

Tenants complain frequently about the state of Katz-owned properties, about the timeliness of response to work orders, and about the professionalism of Katz staff. One tenant stated issues with “pests, collapsing ceilings, [and] extreme fire hazards.” Another tenant stated “[Katz] charged me a $600 “rental fee” after I had paid through my 60 day notice. Why would I have to pay a surprise fee for you to lease your own apartment?” Yet another tenant states “The female building manager would get drunk and break into various apartments wasted and jump in bed with the tenants. She jumped into my bed at 2am one morning and got mud all over my comforter from her shoes.” This tenant goes on to state “She was fired/quit a year later. We never got another building manager for ~2 years.”

Daniel Katz lives in a lakeside mansion located at 6006 Le Lac Road, Boca Raton, FL 33496.

Daniel Bruckner

Daniel Bruckner is the owner of Bruckner Real Estate LLC has filed 514 evictions since 2016 and 148 since the beginning of the pandemic. He owns at least 28 properties, all of which are in oppressed neighborhoods on the North Side of Milwaukee.  Bruckner is a lawyer who has been registered with the Wisconsin State Bar Association since 1972, when he graduated from Marquette University Law School, and is currently in good standing as an Active Emeritus attorney. He is the owner and operator of Daniel W Bruckner Law Office. 

As a slumlord, Bruckner is well known for failing to maintain his properties and for a multitude of safety violations. In 2014, a porch at one of Bruckner’s properties collapsed while a person was standing on it, resulting in serious injury. In 2011, Bruckner was contracted by Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin to take in refugees from Myanmar, but because of a failure to conduct a background check, these refugees found themselves living in apartments infested with roaches and bed bugs, gas leaks, raw sewage leaking into the basement, and major electrical hazards. One Burmese tenant was hospitalized due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

“State and city records reviewed by the Journal Sentinel show Bruckner faces hundreds of city building code violations and four city lawsuits, owes nearly a half-million dollars in delinquent property taxes, and has seven felony convictions.” While this story was being investigated, Bruckner made a series of comments to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which are despicably racist, referring to the refugees as “very primitive people. When they come here, a lot of them don’t even know how to flush a toilet. One of the first things they do is they go in the Dumpster and eat, OK? That’s the type of people you have there.”

However, tenants living in Bruckner’s buildings prior to the arrival of any refugees, reported the same problems of pest infestations, poor building maintenance, and issues with sanitation in and around the buildings.

Bruckner isn’t much of a businessman either, as he is tax delinquent on several of his properties and LLCs and had to file for Chapter 11 reorganization and sell several of his buildings to pay outstanding debts in 2012, according to the Milwaukee Business Journal.

In a 2020 interview with the Washington Post, Bruckner demonstrated that he is more interested in contemptuous behavior toward poor, working-class people that were struggling during the pandemic, than he is in being entrepreneurial. “Bruckner said he considers himself more lenient than other landlords but says it isn’t out of generosity. ‘I work with tenants probably more so than most because I don’t want to re-rent the apartments. So if I can keep a tenant, I do,’ he said. Bruckner supports additional emergency aid but said the moratorium needed to go. ‘Right now if [tenants] don’t pay they can squat, and the government will back them up,’ he said. Bruckner is now doing what for him is usually unthinkable: keeping available units empty for fear the new tenants will not pay and he will have no recourse. Seven of his 88 units at the complex were recently available. ‘If they open up the courts, I will be more generous. I will start taking chances on people again.’”

Bruckner is also a convicted pedophile who was caught importing child pornography from Denmark in 1985. According to a 2011 story published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Customs officials in New York seized 23 pornographic magazines addressed to Bruckner’s Milwaukee post office box. Later, special agents executed a search warrant at Bruckner’s house, seizing 146 sexually explicit magazines, 978 photos and 1,784 photographic negatives, primarily of nude males and children, according to the criminal complaint.”

It appears that Bruckner avoided any jail time, despite being found guilty at a bench trial and having this conviction upheld after an appeal that went all the way up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court got denied. Bruckner was also able to avoid landing on the sex offenders registry and only ended up paying a $35,000 fine, which former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Ceci called a “slap on the wrist”. His license to practice law was suspended for only 5 months. Bruckner’s lawyer argued at sentencing that Bruckner was not trying to sell the material but was keeping it in his “private fantasy closet.”


He resides in a mansion at 6530 N Lake Dr. Fox Point, WI 53217 and can be reached at 414-305-5800, 414-351-5113, and tncprop@gmail.com.

Christopher & Collin Kappl

Chris Kappl

Collin Kappl is the owner of K2 LLC, K21 LLC, Titan Realty Group LLC, Aberdeen Court LLC, and K1 LLC. Christopher Kappl is the owner of Coachlight Real Estate Holdings LLC and 30 other LLCs which are primarily used to file evictions, potentially to keep evictions off the name of Coachlight Communities, which acts as the public facing front for their real-estate holdings. According to former tenants, the Kappl’s mostly rent on a month to month basis and hand out 60 day notices like candy to tenants who they don’t like or who complain too much. This potentially has the effect of allowing them to dispose of tenants without having to go through the courts as would be requisite with the use of 5 day notices.

The Kappls filed 14 evictions in Milwaukee during the pandemic, but own significant amounts of real-estate outside of Milwaukee in Greenfield, Green Bay, Manitowoc, Mayville, Mount Pleasant, Oak Creek, Neenah, Oak Creek, South Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, and West Allis, for which MATU is currently searching for eviction data. They also refused to work with his renters, ignored maintenance requests, issued countless 5-day notices, increased rent, and even pursued evictions throughout COVID and during winter, specifically targeting known tenant members of MATU.

The reviews left on the Google entries for Coachlight Communities, where it went 11 for 11 on one star reviews. Former tenants complain of slow to non-existent response to maintenance requests, endemic mold problems, and failure to deal with pest problems. One former tenant was allegedly told that  “We don’t update or replace anything until tenants move out.” Another tenant allegedly complained about the toilet clogging and was “encouraged” to fix it themselves or otherwise they’d have to pay for a plumber to fix something which it is the legal responsibility of the landlord to repair. Another tenant stated that Coachlight was “the worst company I’ve ever rented from. Their incompetence and lack of management skills are obvious. They don’t fix anything, and there is simply no standard of care on any level.” The most egregious example of the Kappl’s disregard for the lives of their tenants was when they forced out a pair of siblings after their mother, who they lived with, passed away. According to the tenant, “Me and My brother got Promise [sic] from the Property Manager that we would be Able to stay at The Cecil Garden Apartments after My Mom Died and when we Filled Out the Application and then got Told the Next day we Have 60 days to Leave the Place we call home for 18 Years.”

Zena Rubenzer

Zena Rubenzer is an individual local slumlord who operates mostly on Milwaukee’s Eastside, preying on college student tenants.

Zena is attached to multiple Limited Liability Companies such as Maple2 LLC, 2913 Farwell LLC, 2917 Frederick LLC, and others. Zena has been sued multiple times according to court documents

Zena’s alleged unethical practices against her tenants as gained her infamy among renters. She is alleged of lying to renters, charging renters fabricated fees, entering units without a proper 12-hour notice (ATCP 134.09(2)(a)1.), and having stolen a financial aid check from a tenant’s mailbox. 

According to Wisconsin court documents (CCAP), Zena has been sued 6 times.
Some of the properties she rents out: 3469-3471 N. Cramer Street; 2956-2958 N. Prospect Avenue; 2913-2915 N. Farwell Avenue and 3022-3024 N. Oakland Avenue.

Vinebrook Homes

Vinebrook Homes is a corporate, absentee landlord based out of Ohio that operates in Milwaukee. Through its LLCs VB One LLC and VB Two LLC, Vinebrook owns around 781 properties in Milwaukee with most of them being Single Family Residences (SFR). As of July 2022, Vinebrook has filed for 114 evictions (mke-evict.com). 

Like many “institutional investors” (connections to finance capital like Wall St.), Vinebrook buys up SFRs in markets with lower property values, looking to convert them into rentals and jack up rents to squeeze profits out of tenants. Common complaints against Vinebrook and corporate landlords like it are that tenants have a hard time contacting for maintenance and repairs and they have no local offices for tenants to go to solve issues. And this is if tenants even know that their building was sold to Vinebrook at all, as there are examples of tenants having evictions filed against them for non-payment of rent without them knowing that Vinebrook was their new landlord

When possible, Vinebrook looks to push tenants out of their homes so that can raise rents on new tenants. One of the favorite tools of corporate landlords like Vinebrook is frequent and automated eviction-filings, displacing tenants to increase profits.

Curtis Hoff & Matt Bayer

Curtis Hoff

Curtis Hoff is the owner of hundreds of properties on Milwaukee’s North Side and operates dozens of LLCs that all start with the letter ‘A’. Matt Bayer is the registered agent for Curtis Hoff, whose name appears in the records of the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions.

The LLCs owned by Hoff and operated under Bayer’s name are Action Properties LLC, Abuncha Properties LLC, Atunna Properties LLC, Anumbera Properties LLC, Alotta Properties LLC, Acme Properties LLC, Active Properties LLC, Atlantis Properties LLC, Absolute Properties LLC, Awesome Properties LLC, Accurate Properties LLC, Aloha Properties LLC, Anchor Properties LLC, AFC Properties LLC, Affordable Properties LLC, Aardvark Properties LLC, and dozens more. The LLCs listed above are only those with more than 100 evictions filed since 2016.

Among just the properties listed above, 3104 evictions have been filed since 2016, putting Hoff and Bayer alongside Berrada as one of Milwaukee’s top evicting landlords. Hoff and Bayer operate out of an office at 7120 W Good Hope Rd.

A 2021 investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that Hoff collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money in the form of emergency rental assistance and affordable housing subsidies, while routinely failing to correct code violations that the Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services had ordered to be fixed. Hoff owes over $200,000 to the city for unfixed electrical violations alone.

Hoff charges inflated rents for rundown homes that are full of unfixed violations and serious electrical hazards. The Department of Neighborhood Services has issued hundreds of repair orders, code violations, and work orders for properties owned by Hoff and Bayer. Meanwhile, Hoff lives in a “nearly 5,000-square-foot mansion in Mequon that is assessed at $842,900” located at 3915 W Mariana Ct, Mequon, WI 53092. He can be reached at 414-763-9997.

James Crosbie

Suburban slumlord James Crosbie has been a menace to Milwaukee enriching himself off of poor, working-class tenants’ pain and suffering, many of which are Black and Brown. 

Crosbie’s known LLCS, most of which are officially defunct, are 2929 W WISCONSIN LLC, 2904 W WISCONSIN LLC, 2535 JUNEAU AVE LLC, MARQUETTE JUNEAU, LLC, and 2848 W WELLS LLC. Crosbie is currently operating through Wells St. Investments LLC. It has been alleged that Crosbie used his LLCs to mastermind a $6 million fraud while letting his buildings fall into disrepair. The conditions were beyond reprehensible and had been allowed to continue for years before action was taken by the tenants themselves.

Crosbie fell into bankruptcy in 2010 for nonpayment of many fees, fines, taxes, mortgages, and utility bills that we left unpaid while making $200,000+ in profit while letting the buildings rot. In 2014, three Crosbie had three builds taken and auctioned off at a sheriff’s auction; however, he was able to flip the buildings back to himself at a discount through an LLC scheme.

For years, Crosbie had tenants in his building addressed at 2904 West Wisconsin Avenue living without heat, water, functional electricity, and even a proper roof. Numerous local, investigatory news stories (HERE and HERE) documented Crosbie’s slumlord activity throughout the past decade. 

Crosbie’s address is in Grafton at a Mcmansion. Social media shows that Crosbie lives lavishly with  BMWs, and vacations out of the country while his Milwaukee tenants lived in slum conditions.

Kasdorf Property Management

Kasdorf Property Management is owned and operated by Kurt Kasdorf who hides his properties and conducts evictions behind 25 different LLCs, including 26th Street Apartments LLC, Glen Oaks Apartments LLC, Port Road Apartments LLC, Harambee Place Apartments LLC, 1st Street Apartments LLC, Kasdorf Properties LLC, 7871 N 60th LLC, and Center Street 66 LLC.

Kasdorf manages properties on behalf of other landlords: JBMAL LLC and J&K Rental Group LLC owned by James Eric Leick; South Sixth LLC, North First LLC, and West Mitchell LLC owned by Cody Woelfel; AMSF Burleigh LLC, AMSF Capitol LLC, AMSF Humboldt LLC, and AMSF Management, owned by Anton and Martha Steigerwald; 2314 Wells Wisconsin Milwaukee LLC, Coalesce Property Management LLC, Fobes Properties LLC, and SMW Property Management LLC, owned by Carol Grob; Weston Home Improvement LLC owned by Samatha Weston and 1744 N. Pulaski owned by Alexander Drake and Albert Penney. 

Combined, this conglomerate has conducted 80 known evictions since 2016, most of them under the guise of 26th Street Apartments LLC. Kasdorf also has a poor maintenance record, with many of the properties having outstanding violations with the Department of Neighborhood Services, with 2237 N. Hubbard Street having violations for life safety and fire code ORD-22-12098, Insufficient Heat ORD-22-12098, and interior of building in disrepair ENF-2023-02742.

Tenants in this building have complained to MATU about radiators either not working at all or becoming so hot that they instantly burn the skin and make their apartments into saunas. Tenants have no control over the heat in the building and have to take what they can get. Kasdorf has repeatedly said that they do not plan to make any changes or repairs to the heating system.

Kasdorf has allegedly accused tenants of causing water damage to the building and made false statements to tenants about their actions. Kasdorf has allegedly misrepresented their own actions in terms of making repairs and sending workers into units. Kasdorf told one tenant that a plumber had visited their unit and determined that the radiator was not leaking and that it was the shower that was causing the leak, even though the tenant was home all day and no plumber ever came.

Various Milwaukee tenants believe that Kasdorf Property Management has been run in a disorganized fashion and that it has failed repeatedly to provide adequate housing for them. Kasdorf has been alleged to have also arbitrarily raised rent on many of its tenants. Neglectful management, arbitrary rent increases, and subpar living conditions have led tenants from multiple Kasdorf-owned or managed properties to reach out to MATU.

Kurt Kasdorf currently sits on the board of directors of the local landlord group Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin (AASW).

Sam Leaf

Sam Leaf and Leaf Property Investment are named as defendants in a DOJ discrimination lawsuit. “No tenant should have to choose between having a stable residence or enduring sexual harassment from their landlord or property manager,” U.S. Attorney Richard G. Frohling for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in a press release from the Department of Justice.

A tenant filed a complaint of harassment and assault with the Department of Housing and Urban Development after being targeted by a property manager of Leaf Property Investment for his sexual orientation and disability. More information about the lawsuit can be found here.

Owned by Sam Leaf, Leaf Property Investment has 12 properties in Milwaukee which hold 61 different units. Since 2016, Leaf Property Investment has evicted 21 people. DNS violations for the properties include no water, no heat, buildings in disrepair, roof leaks, and mold. Sam Leaf also owns two bars in Bay View- The Backyard and Sam’s Tap.

Barbara Holzmann

Barbara Holzmann, owner of Holzmann & Associates, is a real estate and small business law attorney. According to her website, she specializes in legal services for landlords, including evictions, collections, closings, Neighborhood Services defense, and landlord defense. Barbara is also a landlord, herself, and manages numerous properties beyond what she owns. She owns nine single-family homes, three duplexes, and one multi-family house that has four units.

While Holzmann & Associates Property Management maintains three stars on Google reviews, many of the reviews are telling of how she treats the properties and the tenants living there. Reviewers refer to Barbara as a “slumlord” and talk about maintenance issues that don’t get addressed. One review stated that brown water was leaking from an empty upstairs unit for 7 months and that no one from the property management company had been helping. The reviewer said she is leaving when her lease is up and “hopefully my kids don’t become sick from all this.”

One five-star review from Stan Miller refers to the people who wrote bad reviews as “malcontents who have an axe to grind” and that they must be “ignorant” based on some spelling and grammar errors in a few reviews. According to Barbara Holzmann’s Facebook, Stan Miller is her son. One property at 4673 N 49th Street has had complaints of leaks in the house since at least 2018. Violations with the Department of Neighborhood Services include ORD-21-00394, ENF-2022-20027, ADV-22-01158, and ORD-18-12324

Brittain Brothers & Eagle Moving & Storage Co.

Owned by Jim Brittain, and run by Jim, Tom, and Dave Brittain, Brittain Brothers owns 21 properties. It’s a mix of residential and commercial properties, with a total of 54 residential units. Google reviews of Brittain Brothers allege that issues start before lease agreements are even written up as they have no-showed scheduled apartment showings and lacked communication through the rental process. As landlords, allegedly, Brittain Brothers seem to do the the bare minimum to fix maintenance issues as well as place the blame on tenants for the deteriorating condition of their properties. Brittain Brothers have had 32 eviction filings since 2016.

The Brittains also profit off of local evictions with their moving company. Eagle Moving & Storage Co has specialized in moving for evictions in Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, and Winnebago counties for over 50 years.

The Eagle Moving website lists resources for landlords wanting to evict tenants and contact info for law enforcement for the counties they serve. The website also lists their media mentions, which include two New York Times articles, about the people affected by eviction in Milwaukee, detailing how Eagle Moving plays a major role in perpetuating housing insecurity in Milwaukee.

“When you see the Eagle movers truck, you know it’s time to get going,” said a person witnessing the 2010 eviction of Shantana Smith. In another article, Jim Brittain bragged about evicting people with mental illness stating “I’m seeing this more and more. One out of every five people we move, it seems like, have mental health issues.” Those articles can be found here and here

Eagle Moving is part of Milwaukee’s parasite economy, serving to protect the interests of the landlords and facilitate the oppressive state regime that allows for the eviction of thousands of people every year. MATU has spoken to tenants who have had Eagle Moving conduct their evictions and have alleged that Eagle Moving staff has used tactics of force and intimidation to conduct evictions, sometimes without the supervision of Milwaukee County Sheriff’s deputies.

Their website brags about being experienced in handling the “volatility, liability and potential hazards of this type of move”. Further, if tenants chose to have Eagle Moving store their belongings at their warehouse at 929 W. Bruce St. the costs of storage are often more than the rent tenants were paying for their house in the first place, with tenants sometimes paying over $1000 a month to keep their items from being auctioned off or just thrown in the garbage. According to a recent article by the Cap Times, Eagle Moving conducts over 800 evictions a year, making them the largest eviction moving company in the City of Milwaukee.

Their name and trucks are synonymous with losing your home, and the Brittain Brothers are just fine with having this reputation. Tom Brittain used his public Flickr account to post pictures of evictions, including belongings stacked on the side of a road following an eviction.

Becovic / Sal Becovic

An active gentrifying force on the north side of Chicago, where a good portion of its portfolio is located, Becovic slithered up to Milwaukee in 2021. The real estate and management company purchased 14 properties along Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee’s central city area/westside. A working-class area that is being primed for gentrification by the city government, Marquette University, and the corporate-founded “neighborhood” group Near West Side Partners (which Marquette is one of the founders of).  Possibly seeing the opportunity to take a ride on the gentrification train, Becovic seems to be a willing participant in the displacement of poor and working-class tenants from the central city area.

Operated by Sal Becovic, the company plays an active role in gentrification on the north side of Chicago. Gentrification is a process by which poor and working people, especially Black and Brown people, get forced out of entire neighborhoods and cities by a rising cost of living. Becovic is partaking in this process as the company has issued a wave of “renovictions”– the use of superficial renovations to move out tenants and then put new tenants at a higher rent. Becovic is renovicting many working-class tenants in waves at the Sheridan building on 2435 Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee. 

Becovic has multiple arms: Becovic Holdings Corporation; Becovic Management Group; Becovic Chicago; and Becovic Milwaukee. On top of that, it plays the “LLC shell game” and numerous generic Limited Liability Companies are listed as the owners of its Milwaukee portfolio. As a manifestation of real estate capital, it exists (or at least portrays itself this way) as a higher-end real estate company/landlord.

Becovic also owns rental properties in Rockford, IL; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Tallahassee, Florida

While seemingly operating as a gentrifier in Milwaukee, former tenants in Chicago have accused the company of being a slumlord. One person alleged of dealing with bedbug and roach infestations in their apartment.