The SF Chronicle has a long history of shenanigans and bias. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case for this landlord story, but for sheer amusement, it's worth reading up on the Chronicle's founder, Charles D Young [1].

I first learned of this story after stumbling upon Charles's tomb [2] in Colma, just south of San Francisco. It's where they moved all the dead after the 1909 earthquake liquified the ground to the point of bodies popping out – Zombie apocalypse style. Every cemetery was moved except one veteran and one pet cemetery.

Charles and his brother started the Chronicle as a sort of tabloid. Charles had a long running feud with a reverend that culminated in Charles shooting him and then going on the run. The reverend survived and went on to successfully run for SF mayor. Not long after, Charles returned to SF and was promptly murdered in the Chronicle building by the reverend's son. It's the kind of crazy story just waiting to be turned into a Netflix or HBO series.

If you really want to go deep, dig around for the newspaper articles from the time [3].

[1] https://www.guardiansofthecity.org/sheriff/inmates/deyoung.h...

[2] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10617171/charles-de_youn...

[3] http://sfmuseum.org/hist11/murdervictorious.html