Haaaate

[in_parentheses]

Upon coming home today, I noticed a silver trailer in the other driveway and broken bits of what looked like my back porch lined up along the wall. Uh-oh...

Turns out the landlord decided to re-do the back porch, which was sagging. In theory, this is nice. In practice? Fucking tell me first! My future tomato bed (and current chard bed, if the

Comments

[ruthling]

*Sigh* Sorry. That blows.

Even if you do own, you have to deal with the guys crushing your brand new gutterspouts with a ladder when they work on the roof next door. Many contractors are awesome, but not all are.

[ex_colorwhe]

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[chieur]

so: i know there are often ordinances that dictate that landlords have to give you x number of hours warning before entering your apartment, emergencies excepted. (i had an overzealous landlord in providence, so i learned the law. i imagine that whichever municipality you technically live in [camberville != a municipality] has a similar ordinance.) aren't there similar ones for non-emergency construction?

not that legal acrimony with your landlord is a good idea. but, um, that's just Not. Cool. damage done this time, but perhaps you could gently suggest, housing ordinances in hand, that next time around, it would be just delightful to get even 24 hours notice so you could clean up. (and in fact, i imagine the contractors would like that, too.)

[ams16]

As a former landlord, agreed.

I think you live in Somerville. Any material change to the property, inside and out, must have previous notice. There are fines that can be levied if this wasn't followed.

(I admit, we didn't always pay attention to this, but we are also friends with the tenants. And we didn't do anything rude, I think. At least, while I owned the place. :))

[in_parentheses]

Man, it would be nice to someday have a landlord who actually gives a crap about knowing rental law, and then follows it. Because the truth is, I care far too much about the peace and stability of my home to risk having a big fight with my landlord.

I did call and say, "Please give us notice next time." He said, "Sorry, this was last-minute. I've been waiting on this guy for a month, and he called this morning and said he could come today." To which I replied, "But we didn't even know you were planning on re-doing the deck! You could have told us a month ago." I don't think he got the point. He and his wife are lovely people, who just completely don't get why tenants would feel they have any claim to the property. *sigh*

[jjaquinta]

We're not doing much with our garden this year because we're planning on moving at some unpredictable time. Some beans, and potatoes in sunken pots. If you were going to tomatoes in pots you would be welcome to "park" them in the unused bits of our garden. We've got a 5x5 spot that gets full sun and isn't going to be used for anything other than grown the invasive grass.
[Due to prior bad experiences we are unwilling to countenance Swiss Chard.]
:-)

[in_parentheses]

Aww, thank you! I think the travel time to Medford wouldn't be worth it, but I really appreciate the offer! I think my tomato spot will be fine once it's cleaned up. Sawdust is ugly, but it isn't a problem for the soil (as far as I know). Fortunately I'd already dug a lot of the compost in this weekend, so it didn't all go to waste. Good thing I had such a productive gardening weekend!

[fairdice]

Actually sawdust can be a problem, depending on whether the 2x4s were arsenic-treated or not :-(. I think most places you buy lumber have switched to something safer by now, but I don't think it's a guarantee.

[in_parentheses]

This is an excellent point, which my roommate made as well. And so I have consequently given up on growing tomatoes, or anything else edible in that bed. I ceded it (along with the rest of the side yard, except the strawberry patch) to my roommate, who will put flowers in it. I am somewhat grumpy and defeated, but at least I have the front yard!

[hisly]

Unrelated to landlords but totally related to gardening, are you aware of TerraCycle? The are the new new awesome makes of non-toxic green friendly gardening and cleaning supplies that are packed in old reused soda bottles! Which you can then recycle! That's like 3x the environmental-friendliness.

http://www.terracycle.net/main_lawn_garden.htm

[in_parentheses]

Nifty! I'll see if I can find those around here.