I got a letter in the mail today from my landlord. He "has a use for" our apartment and wants us to move by the end of next month.
He loves us and wants to keep us as tenants however, so he has offered us another one of his properties that he expects to be vacant by that time. He says it has more room for us, a garage of it's own, a partially fenced in (and large) back yard, and it is a house in a neighborhood that he'll rent to us for the same price he is charging us for where we live now.
Thing is, it is in the most crime-ridden, rivaling gang infested, drugged, illegally armed, assault happening area of the entire town. Sorry, I don't think so. Not for my kids, not for my family. I would rather give up growing my own food and risk poisoning by some idiot corporation than risk my kids getting beaten, mutilated and left for dead on the street just because they were wearing the wrong color.
So next week, I will go to him and ask him what I can do to make him change his mind. Housing will happily pay more to him for the place I am in right now. If it's a money issue, we can make it happen. I do so love it here. The neighbors are (mostly) great, and my garden is just starting to flourish really well. We have regular customers coming to the farm stand every Saturday for treats. We're almost done with the fall planting, and I really don't want to leave, especially before harvest. *sigh*
I was getting ready to write up a press release for Buckets of Yum's open farm stand day next month so that our little farmlette built on nearly nothing can be an inspiration and a beacon of hope to everyone out there who thinks they can't do it, hasn't the money, or doesn't have the space...
Of course, now I'm sitting here on my thumbs, dangling in uncertainty, wondering what's next.
Should I give up on having a farm and just move into an apartment? Should I try to get a loan for a down payment on a house or some land with a well? I'd need a loan to move to a property my landlord didn't own anyway... A month is not enough time to pack, find a new place, move, and clean the old place to my move-out specifications.
*sigh* Can't I just ask for one measly year without live-altering challenges?
Sunday, July 29, 2007
A Letter
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4 comments:
This is awful. I mean having to move before you harvest all the goodies you've got growing is awful. Having to move in the hottest month of the year is awful. But..
I do think moving to a place with more land would certainly suit you well in the long term. While you have shown people that they can grow food with very little space, just thing of how much you could grow with more space.
You do not need a down payment to buy a home. We bought our house with zero down and the seller paid closing costs. We traded a rent payment for a mortgage payment and we couldn't have done it any other way at the time. The only real costs are the moving of services like the phone and cable and even they will bill it out over several months.
I was not aware that there were any areas in this town that were that bad. I've lived in Kansas City and I didn't even see gangs there, let alone here.
Andrea, there IS about a 6 block area that really IS that bad. If you go to the crimeseen site for the police department and click on "show all crimes" you can see right where he wants to put us pretty easily.
The chart they have up now is for the July, August, September quarter, and even right now at the end of July, it is crowded with general assault, illegal weapons and drugs. (along with other things that are spread pretty evenly throught the city like warrants, traffic accidents, cars, businesses and homes being broken into)
Not my kind of place for the kids.
Another friend lives in that area (a few blocks north) and warned me away from it because they hear gunshots pretty regularly between the rival gangs even at their house, and are in the process of helping the police to get as many of the gang members behind bars as possible, and soon.
I find it quite horrifying really.
Oh wow, K, that's terrible :-( I wish there was *something* we could do to help, but I don't know what. Hope everything works-out for you. *HUGE HUGS*
Thanks Rambleman. We'll do what we always do, get by the best we can. *smile*
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