(This is post 3 of 7 in a series, to see the post about the series, click here.)
I hear them over and over again, stories beginning with “The landlord won’t let us…”
As many of you have already discovered, it can sometimes feel like a crapshoot asking a landlord if you can do something as logical as digging up a neglected lawn to grow food. One of Holmgren’s permaculture principles applies particularly well when working with landlords: start with slow and small solutions. Instead of asking if you can tear up the entire lawn a week after moving in, you might consider asking if you can start with just a small portion, or maybe even just planting a few vegetables into areas that are already landscaped.
Once your landlord sees that you’re responsible and able to make good on commitments, they’ll feel that they have less to worry about when you want to scale up. Work your way up incrementally, building trust as you go.
Here are some other ideas to consider:
Quality of Relationship is Critical
When working with landlords, it is useful to adopt an attitude of genuine respect and even friendliness toward them. Due to the power dynamics, this can sometimes be difficult to muster, but it is generally a prerequisite for a trusting relationship in which you’ll be given the green light to initiate a project.
Other prerequisites include (these should be no-brainers): paying rent on-time, keeping the place reasonably tidy, not causing neighbors to complain, etc.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes
Poorly presented, your visions of a veritable paradise will sound like trouble to a landlord. Anything that looks or smells like it could end in a lawsuit (e.g. “Your rainwater harvesting system could flood the neighbors basement!”), interfere with future rentability (“How do I know you won’t move out and leave the yard a mess?”), or lower the property value (“Your rooftop gardening might compromise the strength of the building.”), will raise an immediate red flag. In one way or another, you need to convince them that none of these three things will result from your actions.
Education
Any landlord that wouldn’t want you to turn their property into an abundant garden of eden is clearly in desperate need of a re-education. And who better to teach them but you?
A tip: appeal to their bottom line. Here’s one way:
In most North American cities (and probably elsewhere), demand is increasing for rentals with ‘green‘ features. You can state a strong case to your landlord that the addition of food-growing, water-harvesting, natural finishes, and other regenerative features will increase their property value and future rentability. Try looking up comparable apartments or houses on craigslist that advertise the features you want to implement, and show them what those are renting for. (There is always the chance this tactic will backfire when they want to raise your rent accordingly!)
Here are some other things to try:
- Email your landlord this blog post about ‘greenlording.’ (’Greenlord’ being the opposite of ’slumlord’.)
- Send them articles about developers in your area profiting from ‘sustainable features’.
- If it’s gardening space you’re after, offer them a portion of the produce. And be specific, ask what you can grow just for them.
Good luck!
Tags: Working with Landlords
This is some really solid advice. Let’s hope the “seeds” we are planting on both sides of the landlord-tenant equation grow into expanded permaculture practice. And thanks for the link back to our greenlording post.
Good advice Leonard…practical and sound. Small steps incrementally building up; patience. The building that I am in has a a great roof top area. Last summer I put to our neighbors about planting vegetables up there. A lot of the planter boxes are already full with small shrubs and trees, but a couple were empty. One of my “selling points” was to encourage neighbors to help themselves to the produce. There wasn’t much take up on this, but one neighbor joined me in my roof top endeavors. I really sense that last year was a trust building exercise. “Would he follow through with looking after the area the he was being given?” Larger projects could build on that - hey, already there has been discussion about keeping chickens on the roof, but my guess is that we would have to work with the city on that one!
Sounds like fun David. You’ll have to take me up there for a look at some point. Rooftop chickens with the Portland skyline in the background would make for some amazing photos!
[...] Choose your living situation wisely. 2. Changing behaviors. 3. Work with your landlord. 4. Work around your landlord. 5. Find public or private land to steward. 6. Creating symbiotic [...]
This is a great series.
One thing that I think has helped in our case is to try to think in terms of “The problem is the solution.”
In our case, we thought about what the back lot meant to our landlord. It was a fire hazard that he had to pay to mow every year. When I asked him if we could start using part of that for some fruit trees, I asked about the mowing and offered to take that on for him.
I’m a big fan of “it’s better to ask forgiveness than to beg permission.” But sometimes you need to ask in advance. If you can think of a way to frame the request so that it helps the landlord in someway, it might make a big difference.