Efforts to stay

There was considerable panic in the yard. 30 DAYS!!!! How could anyone get out in 30 days? What kind of crap was this? The notice was signed by a company that does the prep work for property development.

Because the land was swampy, they have to compact it. To compact the land, they pile sand on the land to a depth of 20 feet. The sand sits on the land for a certain number of months, determined by the amount of land compression. It was thought that it would take at least a year of compaction for this land to be usable, and another year for services, so lets get rid of the boat builders now.

Meetings were held in the yard. Anger was expressed at the guy who collected the rent. Did he know this was coming? He said he didn’t. What to do now. We decided to have someone contact the prep company to get at least a couple of months extension so people could prepare to move their boats and get organized.

The prep company would not even talk to us. Their only comment was “You now have 27 days to get out before we bulldoze your junk.” “JUNK…JUNK, who the hell do you think you are to call my boat junk? I’ve spent the last 5 years building my dream and you think you are going to bulldoze my dream? I don’t think so.” 

Now the real panic set in. People were running everywhere, trying to find some way of stopping this. Contact a lawyer… no we do not have any money for a lawyer, call the police… they are not interested, but make sure YOU do not do anything that might be considered illegal. 

No one could agree on any form of action. One just wanted to get out, another wanted to fight, but didn’t know how, some would not say anything, some would not shut up. If this is how a co-op works, it sure sucks in an emergency.

It didn’t take too long for the whole thing to fall apart. There was no agreement on anything. There was not going to be any support for anyone from anyone else. You are on your own.

I went to a lawyer myself. No problem he says. Just give me a 1000.00 deposit and I will look into in a few weeks. No sympathy here. Now what?

I was running out of options. I didn’t have anywhere to go, no money to stop the eviction and my boat needed at least two months of work to make it capable of being outside in the elements.