Minneapolis, MN — If a tenant comes knocking to pay rent, that’s usually a door worth opening. But when Mike Brown approached the office of property manager Tina Johnson, she didn’t answer. Instead, three maintenance workers showed up at his door demanding rent.

“Anytime you want to talk to management, they treat you with disrespect and they close the door [on] you,” Yasmin Isse, a renter, said through a translator at an IPG Union Press Conference in early October. “And they call the police on you. The office is never open to tenants. It’s always closed.”

These experiences are part of a larger pattern, according to residents at 2119 Pillsbury Avenue and 2735 Blaisdell Avenue. Over a dozen tenants there have formed the IPG Group Tenant Union, citing persistent health and safety issues, unresponsive management, and what they call retaliatory behavior by Johnson, their landlord.

The company is part of a vast portfolio overseen by IPG CEO Brian Fitterer. Public records of political contributions show that Fitterer has donated to candidates across local and national politics, including the Trump Victory Fund in 2020 and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in 2023 and 2024. Most recently, Fitterer has donated to City Council challengers Michael Baskins, Elizabeth Shaffer, and Lydia Millard—all of whom are running against incumbents (Robin Wonsley, Katie Cashman, and Aisha Chughtai, respectively) who were key co-authors of the ‘Stop the Slumlords’ ordinance that targets landlords like IPG.

The IPG-owned property on 2119 Pillsbury Ave. racked up 62 Tier 3 housing violations over the last three years, more than any other apartment complex in Minneapolis. Not far behind it was another IPG property at 2215 Blaisdell Ave with 42 violations.

Under the city’s tiered rental license system, Tier 3 is the worst classification, applied to properties with frequent, unresolved safety and health violations. Out of roughly 24,000 rental licenses in Minneapolis, only about 160 are Tier 3 — yet IPG’s buildings are consistently flagged for issues like broken security doors, pest infestations, and repeated maintenance failures.

But tenants say the issues go far beyond code violations — they describe incidents of retaliation, theft, and even violence. One of the most alarming events, they allege, happened when property manager Tina Johnson pepper-sprayed a tenant, Mike Brown, after he tried to pay his rent.

Valerie Mack, a tenant at 2119 Pillsbury Ave., recounted the incident during an interview after the IPG Union press conference. 

“Now we have to put in work orders online,” Mack said. “She just started that after she pepper-sprayed one of the tenants. Then she put out a letter saying we had to email or call for everything. I called today — no one answered. But I saw them in the office, so I came down and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this money for the rent.’ She comes back with a ledger and the money order and says, ‘No, we can’t accept this.’ I asked why. She says, ‘You owe eleven hundred something.’ I said, ‘You told me $11.’”

Brown played an audio recording after maintenance knocked on his door. 

“I got y’all on camera now,” Brown says.

“When does maintenance start collecting rent?” he asks. “They sent all of them over here to collect the rent check from me when I was over there 25 minutes ago. They didn’t open the door.”

Andre Holly, another tenant, said this kind of harassment wasn’t new.

“The other maintenance people they sent to work on my apartment stole money,” Holly said. “They broke my TV, too. I kept calling about the heat not working.”

Holly suspected that property management retaliated after he called 311, the city’s helpline for housing conditions.

“The next day, my work truck got towed—right after I called 311,” Holly said. He also claims that during a repair, maintenance staff stole thousands of dollars in cash that was inside an envelope.

As for the pepper spray incident, Mack described what she heard when Brown called her minutes later.

“My number was the first one Mike called. He said, ‘I can’t see, I can’t see.”

“I said, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘Tina fucked up.’”

“She was having a conversation with another tenant. Mike happened to walk by, and she just started spraying,” Mack said.

“I asked one of the guys who lives in the building, ‘Did you get sprayed?’ He said, ‘Nah, she missed me — but she got [Mike.] She got Mr. Brown.”

While tenants say the pepper spray incident involving Brown was the most visible flashpoint, it wasn’t an isolated event. Longtime resident Linnea Cavitt says the root issue is broader: IPG’s refusal to provide competent, responsive property management, and its repeated failure to maintain livable conditions for residents.

“The next step is to ensure that we have quality office management,” Cavitt said. “They’re focused on getting Tina [Johnson] up out of there, and then we just want to make sure we have quality staff running where we live.”

She walked through a recent discovery in one of the laundry rooms: an old, urine-soaked mattress and broken bed frame that maintenance staff had allegedly pulled from the trash and brought back inside, rather than pay the proper disposal fee.

“No, this is the one I put in the trash,” Cavitt said when asked if a resident had placed the mattress there. “They pulled it out and brought it back in here.”

“So they don’t have to pay for the removal,” she added. “This has been here for months, and that mattress just showed up again around the same time.”

“See that stain? That’s the dense urine spot,” Cavitt explained. “When it gets hot and humid, it just brings the smell right back.”

This, she said, is part of a larger pattern of neglect and obstruction. Maintenance requests are now tightly controlled, and even blocked.

“Now people are going down and having [Tina] sign a receipt copy, because they have so many days to fix something. But she locks the door. You have to call her — and she’s blocked some tenants. Not everyone here has Internet.”

“She’s out of control,” Cavitt said. “When I told her about the piss in the carpet, she said, ‘That’s not high on my priority list.’” 

Maintenance apparently stripped the floor after the words “Nasty” and “Stank” were painted on the carpet.

Mailboxes remain open and unsecured. A laundry room has a sink clogged with moldy water.

A recorded conversation between Cavitt and Johnson, obtained by Unicorn Riot, sheds more light on the deteriorating relationship between tenants and management — and Johnson’s refusal to take responsibility for key issues. Listen here.

“Still nothing is getting done, and they still want us to pay rent on time,” Cavitt told Johnson. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. I mean nothing is getting done.”

“It’s a shame because the guy who owns this is a billionaire,” Cavitt added.

The conversation turned tense when Johnson abruptly brought up a physical altercation.

“Oh, the physical assault on me,” Johnson said.

“Of course I don’t condone that at all,” Cavitt replied.

“The Minneapolis Police Department,” Johnson said in the video recording, “are looking into it.”

“There’s been a lot of break-ins in this whole South Minneapolis area. They’ve been breaking car windows. The homeless encampment on Lake Street was just dispersed because of shootings.”

Cavitt interjects, recalling one break-in attempt.

“One of my neighbors called to tell me there was loud banging on the third floor,” Cavitt said. “I came upstairs and there was a guy checking doors. He saw me and ran off.”

And still, the security door remained broken — something Cavitt said has been a problem for years.

“The security door is not closing all the way, every last time,” she told Johnson. “Sometimes it closes. Sometimes it latches. Sometimes it doesn’t. It needs replacing because this stuff affects us too.”

There are four reported code violations regarding faulty doors, according to city data.

“No, what needs to happen is people need to quit breaking it,” Johnson replied. “This is a city issue. Call 911, even if you don’t think the police will show up.”

Cavitt pushed back:

“You know what else would help? Functioning security cameras. We don’t have any that work in the buildings.”

“Because of issues with the police department not being fully staffed, they don’t have a lot of detectives,” Johnson said.

“That is not the police’s responsibility,” Cavitt responded. “That’s IPG’s responsibility.”

“There’s nothing that says we have to have security cameras in our building,” Johnson replied.

“I still find it interesting that the office has cameras, but our apartments don’t,” Cavitt said. “There’s so much that’s not getting fixed that could be.”

Johnson then shifted the blame back to the tenants.

“It would be helpful if residents quit running my staff off,” Johnson said. “It’s hard to have people stay when we’re being assaulted and attacked.”

“It’s extremely sad that this neighborhood isn’t what it used to be,” Johnson added. “We’re seeing more homeless start moving in again.”

But Cavitt said it’s hard to see any meaningful improvement.

“Still not seeing any progress—and it’s frustrating.”

“It is frustrating when we fix stuff and people keep breaking it,” Johnson said. “My staff is working extremely hard. You know how long it’s going to take to get this property where it needs to be? Probably a couple of years.”

“I want to see things get better for everyone,” Cavitt replied. “Maybe we could have a running list of what’s getting fixed or what’s on the radar.”

“I’m not going to do that for you,” Johnson said. “It’s dangerous for me and my staff to be here.”

“What about the assault I dealt with last fall?” Cavitt asked.

“What makes your safety trump ours?” Cavitt said. “Just food for thought.”

On October 9, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously passed the Stop the Slumlords ordinance (PDF) — legislation aimed directly at rental properties with chronic health and safety violations. Once it takes effect on January 1, 2027, landlords under Tier 3  — the worst classification in the city — will have to seek City Council approval to renew their rental licenses.

Supporters say the ordinance is long overdue. In testimony before the Business, Housing & Zoning Committee, tenant advocates and civil rights leaders described a system where bad actors have operated unchecked.

“Landlords in this city do not care about the tier system,” said Daniel Suitor, a tenant advocate and lawyer. “It’s all carrots. These supposedly annual inspections required under Tier 3? They’re not happening. This affects just 1.8% of units in the city — we don’t need to bend over backwards for the worst of the worst.”

A landlord can appeal if they lose their rental license. Renters may qualify for help with moving costs — up to three months’ rent — through the city’s Tenant Relocation Assistance program.

Suitor emphasized that Tier 3 buildings often deteriorate because of deferred maintenance, not costly overhauls.

“These are people who don’t pay attention to their properties and let them molder for years,” he said.

Andrew Fahlstrom, another tenant advocate, described one particularly harrowing moment during an inspection:

“I remember touching a small hole in a ceiling and an avalanche of roaches fell on my head. This was a Tier 3 building. And it had its license automatically renewed.”

Fahlstrom called on the city to coordinate more closely with tenants, not landlords.

“We know under the current administration, this won’t come from a directive of the mayor’s office,” he said.

“While we strongly share the council’s goal of holding negligent property owners accountable,” the CEO of the Minnesota Multi-Housing Association, Cecil Smith said, “MHA is strongly against the ordinance because the net effect does not help renters or address the issue.”

Cynthia Wilson, president of the Minneapolis NAACP branch, pointed out that many of these landlords live out of state and that the sheer volume of complaints her office receives is overwhelming.

“Some of these landlords don’t even live here. They live out of state. They don’t care about these folks,” Wilson said.

“This is an election year. We put people in to help us. Now one of them is standing here suited and booted talking about what we shouldn’t do,” Wilson said, referencing Smith. “Why? Because he’s one of them. If I stood here and said the same thing, you’d see right through it. This is about accountability.”

Tenant Emery Brush spoke to the failures of the current system and the motivations behind launching the Brentwood Tenant Union:

“We called 311 dozens of times. Citations were issued, but repairs didn’t happen,” Brush said.

“We later found out the fire safety equipment was five years out of code. That created dangerous conditions. Were inspections even happening at all? And if so, how thorough were they?”

Tina Johnson didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. IPG Vice President of Affordability and Compliance, Laura Rivera, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Edith Avarez, Regional Manager, could not be reached for comment.

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