SLIP UP!

After moving to Ottawa and paying full-market rent on the private market, I applied for a subsidized apartment in a co-op under construction.  How comforting it was to move into such a beautiful apartment and building in general.  The building was 100% accessible and what I loved about my apartment was the shiny black wall-mounted oven.  Everything was so clean, sturdy and upbeat.  Above all, I felt secure.  I loved my new home and I really enjoyed meeting so many wonderful people and learning about disability issues.  

I met my future husband through the co-op movement.  He was one of the developers of the co-op and other co-ops throughout the city.  Things were progressing normally until one day I received a notice under my door.  Here's an excerpt from my blog posting dated January 16, 2009 entitled Evictions Part I:

... a husband and wife were on the Board of Directors together. They ran duct tape across the office floor near the entrance and a sign on the counter read "DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE". Well, I guess I transgressed this new principle in law, because a Notice was slipped under my door informing me that I had to attend a Hearing at the next Board meeting and that they were charging me with being a nuisance. A review of the By-laws quickly indicated to me that this could lead to eviction, so I contacted a lawyer. The lawyer advised me to invite ALL the members to attend my Board Hearing. At the next General Meeting, I stood up in front of the members and invited everyone. A short time later a Notice was distributed to members, indicating that this so-called Hearing had been postponed, not dropped. I wanted to pursue this further, as I knew how vulnerable people could be to this type of abuse. I asked the Board to hold a meeting to allow my lawyer to speak to the members about their rights. The Board refused, so I booked the hall in my own name and invited the lawyer. The meeting was very well attended, appreciated and a real eye opener for all.

Co-ops can be insular and cult-like. It's healthy to keep a foothold in the real world.

This was a foray into how twisted and dangerous co-ops can be. 

Enlightenment

During the early 1970s Montreal was much abuzz about a 14-year old Guru, who was about to liberate the world.  His name was Guru Maharaji and I was about to become intrigued about his organization - Divine Light Mission - for many years to come.  The Hari Krishna movement paled compared to the charisma this whole movement offered its followers.  Vegetarian restaurants and meditators went hand in hand.  I attended a free information session at a Hari Krishna ashram one Sunday afternoon, but I never attended a DLM Satsang in Montreal, where one would share their meditation experiences.

When I moved to Prince Edward Island in 1975, Premies (followers of Guru Maharaji), were in abundance, along with the back-to-the-earth hippies.  I chose instead to link up with a Transcendental Meditation facilitator in a group setting and received a personal mantra (for a fee).  I still remember the pronunciation of the mantra, but I did not practise TM.

In the late 1970s I moved to London, Ontario for personal reasons.  As a single parent, I felt even more isolated than I did in P.E.I.  I got in touch with a group of Premies from Divine Light Mission and I was welcomed into the fold.  I moved directly across the street from the Premies' male and female separate ashrams. I attended Satsang almost every night and weekends were highlighted by a potluck dinner at the guys' ashram.  

I longed to receive Knowledge (four techniques of meditation), so I became an Aspirant.  In order to receive Knowledge, one had to be 'ready' and open for this experience.  I tried to prepare myself as much as possible by going to as many Festivals as I could afford.  This entailed selling at auction a very beautiful gold ring I had custom made in Montreal.  (I still remember the ring - it had a wide V-shaped band, antiqued black with inset pinkish opals.)  I attended Festivals in Miami on several occasions, Philadelphia, Tucson and Cleveland.  My young daughter came to all the Satsang sessions with me, as well as to all the Festivals.  I finally received Knowledge from an Initiator in the Laurentians in Quebec.

Premies were told to ignore their minds while meditating.  I couldn't.  My common sense told me that my daughter did not want to be bundled up every night to be taken to Satsang.  Things came to a head when we were called upon to attend an emergency Satsang one Sunday afternoon, because Guru Maharaji had some important news to share.  We gathered around a TV, outfitted with a Beta VCR, and watched Guru Maharaji give an urgent Satsang about his need to have Premies outfit his new jet with a shower and other customized perks.  Premies saw this as Service and so anyone with plumbing or carpentry experience applied for the job.  And yes, he was also asking for large cash donations to make this all happen.

I began to ask questions.  Premies were 'blissed out' that Maharaji had called upon them for Service and I saw it as blatant manipulation for money.  I remember asking Premies how they could afford to go to all these festivals (even though we shared rides in vans).  They simply said 'Maharaji will provide'. The truth of the matter was that they would borrow money from their parents or friends and never pay them back.  Everytime a Festival would be announced, they'd up and quit their jobs.  I eventually became ostracized in this community of 40 or so Premies and no more so than when I bought meat in our local supermarket alongside the vegetarian Premies. 

I got in touch with InfoCult in Montreal about brainwashing deprograming.  I received an invitation to be interviewed for a film to be made by the National Film Board.  The NFB paid for my train ticket to Toronto and I was interviewed at the Royal York Hotel.  As part of my 'coming out' session, I remember being 'royally' served tea in a silver teapot on a silver tray and being in the presence of 'real' people.  Gone were the words like Darshan and phrases like Bolo shri satguru dev Maharaj qu Sha. The interviewer said that I did very well in the interview, revealing the four secret techniques of meditation called Knowledge.  He also stated that they were interviewing ex-members of the Children of God and the Moonies. Somewhere in the archives in the NFB lies this 1981 film on ex-cult members, but I have yet to find it.

In 1982 Guru Maharaji ordered all the ashrams closed because he did not want to be stuck with the medical costs of aging Premies.  The Initiators were let go.  These people had dedicated their lives to Guru Maharaji. Everything to do with Divine Light Mission was dissolved as if it had never existed in the first place.  Only the stories remain on the web.

It was around this time that I first heard about housing co-operatives.  The local co-op sector office was in Old South London, very near to where I lived.  A co-op staff member whose daughter also went to same daycare centre, asked me if I wanted to move into the housing co-op where she lived.  The renovated apartment building was nice enough, but I declined, choosing to stay put in a shoddily built addition to an old brick house.  I did not want to get involved in any organization.
 
I moved to Ottawa in 1982 and the concept of co-operative living once again became a factor in my life. 

More to come ...

Sunday Fun

Sweet & Sour Smoke

Conservation Co-operative Homes here in Ottawa has banned cigarette smoking on their premises. This co-op has been touted as being 'green' and 'energy efficient' in all things, including a healthy lifestyle, so it's ironic to read that another kind of smoke has been spewing forth from the building for years - unabated:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/07/24/ottawa-no-smoking-condo-co-op.html 

If members do not co-operate with this new by-law, there are consequences:

As for enforcing the new rules at the Conservation Co-operative's apartments, anyone caught smoking in the building could be subject to membership reviews with the board. But the co-op is urging members who still smoke to consider quitting.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/ottawa-non-profit-housing-group-first-smoke-free-223305494.html 


And I thought that members would only be penalized if they used too much plastic wrap!*

*The comments from readers on the CBC site are very telling as to how ridiculous this by-law is. 
 

DRIPS

This is a bedroom window pane in our unit, minus the mold which accumulates at the base of the frame.  The humidity in our unit reads between 70 to over 90%.  The voile curtain which normally hangs over the window was drenched, so I removed it for now.  This unit has historically been known for its humidity and the Board of Directors has supplied previous members with dehumidiers - not for us though.  This is in keeping with their denial that the basement floor has cracks, even though photographic evidence proves otherwise.  

Juxtapose this with the total window and patio door replacement of the ex-President of the co-op's unit, while other members' windows rot in their frames.  The evidence is quite clear.

STUCK

During the first week of December, the co-op had the sewer lines from individual units cleaned out to our private little streets, and they, in turn, were flushed out to the main road.  It was not a thorough cleaning as no water blasting was done from inside the units and no vacuuming was done in our street sewers. 

On December 7, 2012 I wrote the following email to the Board of Directors:

We installed a one-way check valve in our basement floor drain when we moved into this unit. We would pour water down the drain every month because of sewer gases coming up through the drain, at which time we'd also inspect the check valve.  After the sewer maintenance person left, we noted that the check valve was broken.  The rubber float has disappeared and the spring plunger is bent.

As the sewer contractor installed another one-way valve on top of ours and destroyed our valve in the process, I would imagine that the contractor did the same in many other units which had check valves installed.

Kindly have the maintenance staff install another one-way check valve in our unit.

Prior to writing this email to the Board of Directors,  I met up with a sewer maintenance fellow and asked him if he had noticed that our check valve had been destroyed in the process.  Our Property Manager who just happened to be close by, quickly intervened and instructed the sewer maintenance person NOT to speak to me - that SHE would deal with it.

Well, to date I have not yet received a reply to my request for a replacement check valve to be installed.  In the meantime, we've been smelling sewer gases in our basement and have been dutifully pouring a cup of water down our drain to deter the gases. 

The sewer maintenance company has been back twice this week trying to unclog a blockage in our roadway sanitary sewers.  Weren't they supposed to have done this when they first cleaned out our sewers in early December? 

Are my headaches being caused by sewer gases seeping into our unit?  I was going to notify our Property Manager about this prospect — BUT!

GROOMING

The Agenda for an All Members Meeting to be held on January 16, 2013 is ambiguous and precise all at the same time.  We are to arrive at 7:00 p.m. SHARP, at which time there will be a Call to Order and Approval of Chair.  At 7:00 p.m. as well, members are to approve the Agenda.  At 7:05 the Rules of Order will be read.  At 7:10 Minutes of July 5, 2012 will be approved.  At the same time (7:10) Minutes of September 27, 2012 will also be approved.  At exactly 7:15 Minutes of November 22, 2012 will be approved. 

Moving on to 7:20 p.m., a Planning Session will be held based on results of 'completion of survey results'.  Members have not received a survey to fill out, so it seems that this tidbit of information is simply to lure members out to the meeting to satisfy their curiosity.  The secret survey could be CHF's The Sound Management Test completed by various Boards of Directors and/or Managers of housing co-operatives across Canada in 2012, the results of which were quite concerning.  In November, 2012, I registered for the CHASEO workshop Take The Sound Management Test because I, too, was curious as to the results of this survey (as were others in the workshop).  One can access this survey under Resources on CHF's web site.

http://www.chfcanada.coop/eng/pages2007/yogmrresources.asp

I wonder if we'll be divided up into pods for this Planning Session for our final conditioning exercise.