Remember my lovely urban patio?

The one that I was so excited to grow my own herbs and lettuces and tomatoes?

The one that we even replanted for the summer to keep it seasonal and fresh?

Yep, it was lovely.

I say was because our building was sold about three months ago to a large corporation that owns hundreds of apartment buildings throughout Southern California and nationwide.

This new company has been renovating the building from day one.  Replacing the roofing, renovating a vacant upstairs apartment, inspections of our apartments weekly – if not more often.

I am not complaining about this.  In fact, we are all excited to see the building fixed up a bit.  And I’ve been very patient with the noise and the workers and the nails and roofing thrown all over the property and only sometimes being cleaned up.  I have a weird schedule were I am home during the day.  I understand that when I sleep, most people are working.  I’m a vampire, remember?

But two weeks ago we were given notice that the patios were now considered “common area” and it was necessary for tenants to remove all personal items from this area.

Including tomatoes.

And then a week later we received another notice to clear the patio area or be evicted.

Believe me, I am not happy about this.  And neither are the other downstairs tenants with beautiful plants and patio set-ups.  Although it seems like losing their patios is just the tip of the iceberg.

We won’t even go there.

So while us tenants band together, fill out all the paperwork, and fight this new management with Santa Monica Rent Control, our tomatoes and our patio furniture have found a temporary home at a friend’s house.

While I mourn the loss of fresh tomatoes off the vine every morning, the fact that they’re at a good home makes me feel a little bit better.  At least I know they didn’t get trashed.

Now our awesome patio space looks a lot like this.

I have to stop looking at that picture or I’ll get upset again.  Oh wait, it’s right outside the window I’m typing at which used to have hummingbirds and flowers as a view.  I can’t escape from it.

Sigh.

Hopefully next summer Brad and I will live somewhere that being green and making your living space look welcoming is accepted and encouraged.  And hopefully I will have another exciting tomato adventure to share with you.

For now, the Farmer’s Market will just have to do.  And I’m gonna fill out all these forms to fight for my right to tomatoes.

Yep, I sang that to the Beastie Boys tune.

xoxo