trash and burn (a tenant's woes)

we dream of owning our own house. like most middle-income families who settle into temporary homes that eat up most of their income for a piece of property that will never be theirs, yes, we too dream of owning our own home.

but more than that, we also dream of belonging in a community we can be proud of, and we’d care about, inasmuch as it would care about us. in this little subdivision where we’ve resided the past four years, we are, since we moved in, outsiders. a handful of tenants among predominantly homeowners. we are outsiders, tolerated, but never really accepted. we have no voice. being tenants, our concerns only have bearing when it is shared by homeowners or at the very least, our landlady. otherwise, it is dismissed as petty or perhaps too ambitious for people whose tenure is not really secure.

and so it goes. our attempts at convincing our landlady to impose garbage segregation among us tenants (they own ten apartment units) has fallen on deaf ears. ok, our landlady is a septuagenarian, but I think her auditory faculties are working just fine. we have channeled our attempts, instead, on trying to convince them to stop burning their trash in between garbage collection schedules. no matter that we started by handing them a copy of the law (tucked conspicuously in a free copy of a magazine) which clearly states it is prohibited. they still do it. whereas before they could take comfort in ignorance, i think now they have decided on acting on an informed choice. pity for the fledgling, environmentalist/tenant.

we dream more now of owning our own home. and hopefully be part of making a community we dream of.