Landlord-tenant relations have always been a two-way street, but too many renters in Jason Cohen's properties find living there a dead end.

Mr. Cohen is the young real estate owner, age 27, who bought up more than 30 properties in Allegheny County since 2003 at a cost of $8.5 million. While his company has operated under at least four different names -- JLB Property Group, JLB Investment Properties, Elrod Investments and Trends Capital -- the names that his tenants call him can't be printed in the newspaper.

That's because Mr. Cohen has a reputation -- borne out by Pittsburgh building inspections, county health department violations and a district judge who slapped him with a $200,000 fine -- of being a problem landlord.

As chronicled by Post-Gazette staff writer Paula Reed Ward last Sunday, there is no shortage of complaints by Mr. Cohen's tenants about the trash, vermin, disrepair, hazards and frustration of living in one of his apartments.

District Judge Gene Ricciardi fined him last month for dire conditions at a building in Oakland, which had been the scene of a fire and four days of city inspections in two weeks. Tenants at some of the landlord's other properties complained about nonexistent maintenance. A former maintenance worker with Mr. Cohen said the bedroom ceiling collapsed in a Mt. Lebanon apartment and "could have killed [the resident] if she were in bed." One tenant in Dormont said the gas company red-tagged her stove, but that the landlord's maintenance worker later removed the tag, saying nothing was wrong.

The litany goes on, but so does the list of Jason Cohen's apartments, unfortunately.

When laws can't stop business people from buying more rental properties than they can reputably manage, it's up to government inspectors to become the tenants' first line of defense. That's why the city of Pittsburgh crackdown on problem landlords, particularly in Oakland, is important and why county health officials play a critical role, too. Without them, clearly, someone could get hurt.

Plenty of renters can give landlords headaches by creating their own safety problems, filthy conditions and property damage. But the operating history at Jason Cohen's buildings is decidedly one-sided. The record he has compiled at too many apartments, in a very short time, at such a young age, should serve as its own consumer warning: Tenant beware.