Blog / Gary: Landlord of the Flies

"In the world according to Gary, no case is a civil one."

"I am making this site to chronicle the craziest living situation I have ever taken part in. In the month that I subletted a room in this house in St. Charles (a suburb of Chicago), the police have come 5 times, my landlord has been handcuffed twice, and one roommate has been hospitalized. The focus is on my crazy landlord, Gary."

—From the blog's very first post

Gary: Landlord of the Flies (also known as Stranger Than Eviction) is a Tumblr blog that began in the summer of 2009 and was updated until May 2010. Its writer, Gabriel Dunn, moved into a house in a Chicago suburb that came with surprisingly cheap rent... only to learn that its landlord, Gary, was a deeply unpleasant character. The blog is effectively a record of the many bizarre events Gary caused during and after Gabe's month-long stay, most of which are related to his paranoia and antagonism towards his tenants. In particular, after Gabe refuses to help him evade a police investigation, Gary outright evicts him in early July 2009 and refuses to give him his security deposit back. This sets the stage for most of the blog, as Gabe attempts to negotiate with Gary before escalating the situation to small claims court – with Gary fighting against him every step of the way.

---

This blog contains examples of:

• The Alcoholic: Gary is said to drink frequently, which leads to a number of his less coherent and amicable moments.
• Anti-Climax: In a tongue-in-cheek fashion, Gabe expresses his disappointment in how the trial went in his final post. In lieu of a dramatic legal showdown, Gary's defense turns out to be as weak as one would expect, and the judge quickly rules in favor of Gabe after going over evidence of Gary's unsavory behavior.
  "This whole time I had been hoping it would all play out like an epic courtroom drama, where Gary had come up with some sinister web of lies and in the end he calls his surprise witness; James (the tenant he stole from), Dan (the other tenant he evicted) or Mat (the Indian friend he called a 'spic') to the stand and unravels my entire case. Sadly this is not how it played out."
• Bold Inflation: Several of the email exchanges between Gary and Gabe have moments where Gary bolds certain words for emphasis. Gabe notes that they were originally red and in a much larger font.
• Character Title: Gary: Landlord of the Flies centers on Gary, a particularly nasty and insane landlord.
• Cranky Landlord: Exaggerated with Gary, whose relationship with his tenants is almost always deeply strained. He viciously insults several of them with little prompting, attempts to prevent them from retrieving their belongings when they leave or are evicted, and steals one tenant's luxury goods while he's in the hospital. Naturally, partway through the blog, it's noted that everyone had moved out of the house after hitting their breaking point with his behavior.
• Deadpan Snarker: Gabe tends to make sarcastic comments and quips about Gary's dubious sense of logic. This post provides a good example, where he spends a full paragraph breaking down Gary's inexplicable formality in a simple written note about not going to jail: "I am amazed he didn’t take the time to get it notarized."
• Didn't Think This Through: Gary has a habit of failing to think ahead before he acts.
  • When the police come to investigate a report of him stealing a tenant's luxury goods, he continuously lies and says he has no clue where they went – even after the police begin finding them, one by one.
    "This is the first, and a prime example, of Gary’s inability to plan for future events. One could assume that after finding the TV, they would likely continue to search. Unless you have thought of a really unique hiding place, just fess up, because they’re probably going to check your desk and under your bed."
  • Gary attempts to screw the house's door shut to prevent Dan from retrieving his belongings, failing to consider that he could call the police and get in through a window.
  • Gabe's account of his trial notes that Gary's defense for his actions never amounted to much more than "I was angry at the time", without any logical explanation for why he would act unnecessarily belligerent towards Gabe and the police.
    "The whole trial reminded me of when you get in trouble as a little kid, and an adult asks, 'What were you thinking? No really, I want to know what you were thinking.' And you never had an answer other than 'I don’t know/I was angry/I was really drunk.'"
• Flipping the Bird: This post briefly mentions Gary flipping off Gabe and his friend Mat when they come by to retrieve some of Gabe's belongings.
• Hypocrite: Gary tends to criticize others for their perceived shortcomings, despite frequently indulging in the exact same behavior.
  • He frequently calls Gabe a "coward" during the security deposit feud, even though he habitually attempts to prevent any kind of confrontation in person (both before and after the eviction).
  • In this email exchange, he criticizes a minor grammatical mistake of Gabe's while ignoring the fact that his own writing is significantly worse (including excessive punctuation, texting shorthand, and Bold Inflation). Gabe lampshades this by calling him a "hypocritic".
• Irony: As Gabe points out, Gary's eviction notice calls him a "coward", even though he refuses to answer the door when Gabe comes knocking to get his security deposit back.
• Joke and Receive: In this post, Gabe returns home and quips that "the cops aren't here, so that's a good sign." He's immediately told that the cops were just at the house, investigating Gary after he broke into a tenant's car.
• Misaimed Stereotyping: When Gabe comes to Gary with an Indian friend of his, Gary insults him by calling him a "spic"... a racial slur for Italian people. Much to Gary's frustration, both of them find it hilarious instead of offensive.
  "Wrong ethnicity, but I guess it’s the spirit that counts."
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: In this post, Gabe reprints an email from Gary where he attempts to intimidate him by calling him "'GIRLIE-BOY'..... :) B)". The emoticons are so inexplicable that Gabe stresses that they were in the original message as written:
  "I swear on my life that I have not added in the smiley faces."
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title:
  • This post is titled "A Farewell to my Armoire", riffing on A Farewell to Arms.
  • The blog's final post, "The World According to Gary", is one letter off from The World According to Garp.
• Portmanteau:
  • The post "Email Exchange with a Hypocritic" uses a combination of "hypocrite" and "critic", owing to Gary criticizing Gabe for a minor grammatical error while his own writing is far less proper.
  • This post's title refers to Gary as "Emoticonvict", referencing his offbeat use of emoticons in the email exchange it reprints alongside his penchant for criminal behavior. (The subtitle admits that it's a bit of an awkward portmanteau.)
• Pun-Based Title:
  • The blog's proper name is a play on "Lord of the Flies", a traditional epithet for Beelzebub.
  • The blog's URL, "Stranger Than Eviction", references the common phrase "stranger than fiction."
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Lampshaded when Gary leaves an informal eviction notice for Gabe that read "YOUR ARE EVICTED!" When Gabe first writes about this incident, he makes sure to leave a (sic.) after the improperly-used "your."
• Shout-Out:
  • The blog's avatar is a screenshot of Jack from The Shining.
  • This post has a brief aside alluding to You Got Served:
    "As it turns out, Gary has been dodging the summons for the past couple weeks.  Serving someone turns out to be nowhere near as easy as the 2004 street dancing film suggests."
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: When aggravated, Gary tends to pepper his speech with F/C-bombs. It doesn't help that it takes little for Gary to get aggravated.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Exaggerated with James, one of Gary's tenants. The blog never mentions him doing anything wrong to Gary, yet the latter despises him on a deeply disproportionate level – going so far as to steal his TV, break into his car, and viciously insult him over the phone.
• Title Drop:
  • The post where Gabe is evicted is titled "Stranger than Eviction", the blog's URL. The first line lampshades this:
    (I always get excited when a movie says its own title in the movie)
  • The post where Gabe learns that all of Gary's tenants are either gone or plan to move out is titled "Landlord of the Flies... and not much else", referencing the blog's proper title.
  • The final post, titled "The World According to Gary", concludes with the sentence "In the world according to Gary, no case is a civil one."
• Tempting Fate:
  • The first proper post has Gabe marvel at the low cost of rent, noting that the landlord "seems a little lame, but nice enough." Naturally, the rest of the blog focuses largely on just how unpleasant said landlord really is.
  • When Gabe comes back with a friend post-eviction to retrieve his desk, he internally worries that Gary will be more subdued than normal (thus depriving his friend of a chance to witness just how crazy he truly is). As he thinks this, he notices Gary screwing the front door shut right in front of him.

---