How you improve the neighborhood

Sometimes all you need to do to improve your neighborhood is to yell at a priest.

My brother and I own a 16 unit building on Reno St (the one from this story) that’s across an alley from a new church, one of those Latin Pentacostal deals.

The street itself isn’t the nicest one in LA, but it’s not terrible. We try to do our part by making sure that the strip of grass outside our building looks like this:

And here’s how the same strip of grass looks outside the church:

The last time we had our building appraised, I was literally on my hands and knees picking up trash up to the minute before the appraiser arrived because I was so paranoid about the impression the trash would leave on her. (See how glamorous it is to own a building?!)

I’ve been steaming about the trash for months.

Finally, the other day, I was at our building picking up the laundry money (again, the glamor!) and decided on a whim to call the church. I figured I’d get some voicemail, leave a message, and no one would ever do anything about it.

Turns out I was wrong. The minister got on the phone right away and spoke to me (in Spanish). He was super nice and understanding. He assured me the church would clean up. And they did.

Now our litte corner of “Silver Lake -adjacent” is a little less gross. I wonder how many other owners out there would benefit from doing the same thing.