SITUATION UPDATE

Having received no response to our letter (posted below), today we have had a call from our agent saying that, as part of her formal role as agent acting on behalf on the landlords, she had to visit us on Monday to see whether we had complied with the breach notice. That is, she was required to confirm whether or not we had removed the entire garden and replaced it with lawn within the 14 days specified in the breach notice we received Monday April 24.

In what then evolved into amicable conversion between the agent and Dan, the agent reiterated that the landlords don't want us to leave or to kick us out or anything like that. Their concern is what happens to the garden when we do leave.

We explained to the agent that we understand and respect the landlord's concerns, and that we are committed to working together to ensure that the landlords do have piece of mind about what will happen to their property when we move on. As an indication of this commitment we explained that we have added to our original two a third proposed resolution for their consideration, which you can read in the below post "Recapping and Extending Our Strategy" which we completed this morning shortly prior to receiving the agent's call.

We also explained that for us there is also a bigger picture, and that while we appreciate the landlords don't necessarily share this bigger picture, that we have had some public interest in this issue. The agent said that yes, she had received a few calls about it and was aware that we have made some public statements. We stressed that in all engagement with the public and with media we have no interest whatsoever in making anyone look bad, and are stressing this as much as we can to avoid any spin of opposition or a context of "us vs them."

Given we want to clear this up as soon as possible, we asked if there was any way we could meet with the agent today, but unfortunately this wasn't possible. So we agreed on a time to meet on Monday. The agent said she would talk with and confirm the landlord's position and preferred outcome with them prior to the meeting. We agreed that we will bring our two existing and our third new proposal to the table. The agent expressed that in the meeting we should be able to come to "a happy medium" - i.e.,e a mutually satisfactory outcome. So things would appear to be looking very promising, we are happy with this development, and we are hoping to be able to report some good news on Monday.

We also let the agent know that we are planning to have an open garden on Sunday. The agent responded that she understands we are entitled to quietly enjoy the property we are renting, and that having people over to see our garden was fine and well within our rights. On this, by the way, we have let the Clayton police station know about the day and we have distributed fliers throughout Thomas and neighboring streets as well as personally invited our most nearby neighbors.

Over and out,
Dan, Cat and Adrian.