In a recent article (When Not Renting Is Sheer Lunacy) I complained about a landlord who refused to lower his rent in the past ten years and as a result kept his store empty of a tenant.

Reader Chris took the side of the landlord saying that if the landlord doesn't want to rent out his property and continue to suffer severe loss then that's his personal choice. Chris is wrong. What another landlord or retailer does on a street is my business if I also own a business on that street.

Consider the following: suppose that I own a business downtown and a bunch of stores uptown are my heaviest competition and you are a store-owner on that block. In order to ruin my business you decide to rent on my block and make your store into an eyesore. In addition, you allow your pet dogs to defecate inside your store and then vent out the foul odors into the street. You allow graffiti to accumulate on your windows and you hire mean-looking youths to hang out in front of your store. They do nothing illegal, they merely stand around looking like they will rob anyone who walks nearby. All this in an effort to destroy my business.

Do you really believe that this is merely your personal business? If the other store owners are not complete morons they will quickly sic the city's Quality of Life Officer on me and rightly so.

In my town we had a similar situation. The owner of a business called London Shops at 525 Broadway is an idiot and a danger to the community. He does not mean to purposely destroy the business district, he just can't help it because he has a mental illness: he has compulsive hoarding syndrome. He never opens the door to his store for business - his only activity is filling up almost every inch of available space inside his store with merchandise, children's clothing.

After complaints from me and other merchants, the fire department declared his store a fire hazard and he was forced to throw away most of his stuff into a dumpster.

But he quickly filled it up again. One day his store and the surrounding buildings will all go up in a great ball of fire. It's only a matter of time.