Media elites would like you to believe awards season ended last Sunday with the presentation of the Oscars, Hollywood’s annual masturbatory glam-fest at the Kodak Theater – also known as the secret docking station for Ryan Seacrest’s Xenu mothership.

Well, excuse me, Wolf Blitzer, but this columnist doesn’t cash in his chips until someone gets named “Best Landlord.”

A bit of service journalism for the hopelessly out-of-touch: nestled in the pages of Monday morning’s Badger Herald was the independent newspaper’s eagerly awaited 2011 Student Choice Awards.

Every year the campus scrawl invites the Madison community to provide its choices in such illuminating categories as “Best Sweet Tooth Curer” and “Best Bookstore” (this year, Campus Candy and University Bookstore, respectively, and obviously). The results are tallied and eventually released in an advertisement-laden print booklet.

Now, whatever you might say about the veracity of the awards’ various categories – favorite pizza joint, best upscale restaurant, best bar on State – no question is as flagrantly unnecessary, or toxic, as “Best Landlord.” In unveiling its list of student choices, The Badger Herald apparently wagered that University of Wisconsin students have a beloved collection of bloodsucking, greedy scumsters.

And a whopping 38 percent of voters responded that Madison Property Management was, in fact, the Best Landlord/Property Manager in Mad Town. Yes, that MPM. A quick Google search of rental reviews revealed the following choice quotes condemning Madison’s “friendliest management company”:

“Do everything you can to not live in one of their rentals.”

“If you are a renter who expects to be treated with respect, stay away.”

“Avoid this company like the plague; they will take your money & they do NOT care about their tenants.”

“They neglected to tell us that the landlord who has keys to the house is a convicted sex offender that tried to rape a young lady at knifepoint and drugged her with ether.”

Admittedly, these critiques were culled from the Internet, where your chances of finding wholesome praise are about as good as your chances of MPM returning your entire security deposit. Still, they signal a devious trend in MPM’s rental tactics: deceive, neglect, mistreat and eventually profit off of defenseless students.

For most of us at the University of Wisconsin, this information is completely unsurprising. So why is the student-run Badger Herald asking its peers to elect Madison’s Best Landlord?

Dolla Dolla bills, y’all.

This year’s Student Choice Awards were sponsored by The Apartment Association of South Central Wisconsin. AASCW issues advice and counseling to rental property owners and other parties associated with Madison’s housing industry. If MPM is the filthy, parasitic bear cub refusing to fix your toilet, then AASCW is the Mama Grizzly that encouraged it to initially install faulty pipes.

You’re probably wondering, “Why does any of this matter”? Or perhaps, “God, I wish Thursday crosswords were easier so I didn’t have to read these stupid columns.”

Well, this year marks the first time UW students were even asked to select Madison’s best landlord. Imagine Domino’s sponsoring an awards program and asking you to select the “Best 5-5-5 Medium, One-Topping Pizza Deal on Campus.”

Just like the Academy Awards, the whole thing is, well, masturbatory.

In case you’re wondering, MPM is listed on AASCW’s website as an associate member. According to AASCW, associate membership benefits include “advertising with publication of your business name, contact information and your services, in the category of your choice on AASCW’s website.”

There isn’t a “Best Landlord in Madison as voted by UW students” category just yet. But there will be. Just wait.

Full disclosure: I took the MPM bait. The estate I currently call home is listed online as “quite a deal” with a “unique floor plan.” “Enjoy large, carpeted bedrooms,” promises the Machiavellian website. Of course, these descriptions are a distant reality. I pay nearly $500 per month to share a 576 square foot prison. My supposedly large, carpeted bedroom just barely fits my bed, desk and dresser.

As for the “unique floor plan”? To enter my flat, you must pass through one of its two bedrooms (Hooray, privacy!). Earlier in the semester my walls literally began falling off. It’s a nightmare.

Alas, the grinning agents at MPM are the Freddy Kruegers of my dreams. Twenty times this semester they’ve held showings in my paltry penthouse. And twenty times students have said, “Jeez, I don’t look that stupid, do I”? Well, MPM pulled a fast one on UW students last September when they convinced Madison’s City Council to table a proposal restricting landlords’ ability to show apartments.

As the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” The scheming, slimy bastards at MPM duped us yet again. They’re officially the student-voted “Best Landlord” on campus.

(Lynette, if you’re reading this, please don’t turn my water off.)

Eric Carlson ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.