Tenants Rise Up?

It's been stormy the last couple of days here in the city. Last night we came home to casualties, i.e. the Cuban oregano and the cactus both did nose dives off the window sill because of strong winds through open windows. The oregano lost a goodly chunk of foliage (Mojitos!), and the cactus lost a blossom. Poor guys; such is the rough and tumble of city life.

This morning I went down to visit Brownie the Puppy (G. comes back from vacation tomorrow, when we'll do the official transfer/adoption). There was a guy down there hauling out garbage from the yard next door. This is good, I think. He said that D., our landlord, hired him to clean it up. These signs of landlord concern do seem encouraging.

However, there's a stir among the natives here (or the non-natives, I should say). A number of the tenants who moved in early on when the building was first renting are up for lease renewals, and they received very significant rent increases. They are not happy. We all pay a little too much in the first place, considering the location. Our landlord may be spiffying things up, but he's doing so with the idea that he's making a Manhattan-type community here. And yet... the fact remains that we live out on the frontier, and there's nothing out here but us and the fumes.

There was some talk of a petition. These are good tenants, it makes no sense to price them out, not after the first year, not when things are still unstable around here. Come on, D. - you need to see the long view.