I've just lost the home and garden I built at the community where I've spent the last 15 years. We're talking major investment. We all bought in, but everybody who built a house was thrown out.

From that experiance, I would warn everybody not to give money to the community that you are visiting...At least not more money than you can afford to walk away form.

At my community, they acted nice and talked about the possibilities on the piece of raw cutover....piece of land with all the trees cut down. They talked about how they were in danger of losing the land if people didn't "buy" in. After getting all the money I had, the true colours of the place started showing through....and I'd allready made that huge investment.

15 years later, after finding ways to live with the very bad personal relationships...(by working on my own stuff and leaving everybody else alone) Having invested every dime I made over 15 years building my house with alternative power, buying plants and building a nursery that was ready to open to the public. I got a lesson on what it means in the bible about building on a rock, not building on the shifting sand.

The founder's son decided that he owned everything and told everyone that our agreement with the founder no longer counted for anything and we now had to answer to him (the founder's son) or leave. The founder permitted him to do this, signed the papers that told us to leave when we refused to go along with extortion, even went down to the courthouse and signed paper forcing me out of my home.

After that experiance, would I participate in community?

I'd be very careful about trusting. I'd try to avoid doing more for others than I could afford. It's nice to help people, but there's a lot of people who try to take advantage. Recognizing those people is difficult, because they've developed their skill to a fine art.

Being human is about being in some kind of community with other people, "no man is an island" and all that, we all remember the stories of the shipwreck survivers who lost the ability to talk and lived like animals in isolation.

When we have bad experiances, Nobody cares, nobody wants to listen or help. It's up to us to recognize bad situations before allowing ourselves to be hurt.

Thanks for the question, it's a complicated issue. Trust is the basis of community and it's important to be aware of how far we can trust those we're getting involved with.

Stone's experience is not at all unusual. I was flaked out on by people off and on over the last twenty years. I completely agree with him. That's why I developed my current effort to be a low cost, low effort alternative, so that individuals could prosper themselves first, then privately own (and rule) their own parcels "In community" rather than as a "commune". You can learn more about the structure I am referring to here.

Waystation

I would also be interested in comments anyone has. especially those with a more Commune- ist mentality. Refinement is the key to making these things successful, no matter HOW that turns out to be.

What they're now saying about me
Some people can not be trusted even when you get it in writing. I was sent letters in the mail telling me to get out. Letters were dropped off at my house telling me to get out.

They're making the claim that I chose to leave! My God! I Left a yard full of firewood when I was driven out in the dead of winter! I wasn't going anywhere.

Yonder's trying to make the claim that I endangered the community, causing a potential loss of the land.....He's been talking about losing the land since 1988! Reminds me of the boy who cried wolf.

Yonder's got a habit of telling workers that they're in the wrong location. He tried to get me to move up the hill above the water bank. When I offered to show him why that was a bad idea, he couldn't be bothered to look. He's never offered any evidence to support his claim that there was anything else that he needed that spot for... It would have been a very simple solution to have refunded my money back in 1988 if there was any truth to his claim that he needed my spot....

There is very few suitable spots for a garden out there.... Yet he's trying to show me as being harmful to the community for building a 2 acre garden there, an 800 sq foot house and two 16' x 16' out buildings.... my construction page

I wasn't the only one. We had someone begin a house well away from everyone, and Yonder demanded that he tear it down!

This community member made the mistake of going along with this demand. He then brought in a semi-load of building materials and built a beautiful house. He was evicted at the same time that I was.

Yonder justifies his actions claiming that it's his property and he can do anything that he wants. I brought in every stick of wood for my house, built it with my own tools without any help... and yonder lays claim to it!

While I was negotiating in good faith, my house was repeatedly broken into, plants were removed from my garden/nursery... And yonder claims to be in the right for treating community members like this.... That I had no call for trying to show the judge how Yonder was acting.

As far as his claim about not even being a community? Yonderfamily at fic He really should try to get his stories straight. Not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing is likely to get him in trouble.

Wow, man, are you gonna try to do anything about it? Can you do anything about it?

That's a damn rough deal, I'm sorry you had to go through it, and for so long.

Thanks, Nani,
Any suggestions are welcome. I've asked everywhere for help, I've also posted their emails to me online only to have them removed when Yonder threatened to sue my webhost.

How is it that he feels like he can say anything about me, but I'm not allowed to post evidence of my experience?

I think that a warning to all is a very important thing. If anybody had warned me what to expect, I could have avoided the whole mess.