In Miami, a Woman Is Fighting to Keep her Treehouse a Home

[merrybigboy]

On the outskirts of Miami, behind a wooden gate hedged by wild green bushes and leaning sea grape trees, sits Shawnee Chasser’s lush garden paradise. Her home comes complete with a treehouse, a swimming pool and a tiki-style hut.

But in this case, one woman’s personal Eden is a local government’s clump of unsafe structures.

In late August, officials in Miami-Dade County told Ms. Chasser, 65, that most of the structures on her one-third-of-an-acre lot would need to be demolished within the next 120 days. This was the latest step in a saga that began nearly a year ago, when someone called the county, complaining that the living areas on the property were unsafe.

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Ms. Chasser, a self-described “barefoot hippie” who has been living outside for over two decades, will not go quietly. In fact, she said in an interview on Thursday, she’s planning not to go at all, “whether I’m going to chain myself to the treehouse or do it like they want me to do it.” Fixing things the county’s way would entail obtaining the correct permits for the property’s structures and bringing the plumbing and electrical wiring up to code.

In a statement relayed through a spokeswoman, Miami-Dade County government said the issue was about keeping the surrounding area safe: “Substandard construction and improperly running electricity and plumbing on a property present a hazard not just to those on the property, but also to neighbors.”

Ms. Chasser called this concern “ridiculously absurd,” and added that she had already paid some $10,000 of the over $30,000 she said she been fined by the county. She estimates that getting everything up to code would cost $100,000.

That’s where the internet comes in. After The Miami Herald wrote about the woman who calls herself a “purple-haired grandma” defending her homegrown castle, a petition and aGoFundMe account, the latter operated by Ms. Chasser’s 40-year-old daughter, Wren, both quickly materialized. Over $2,000 has been raised so far.

“This is the first time in a year I feel hopeful and happy,” Ms. Chasser, a mother of three and a grandmother of two, said of the virtual support. “This site is about everybody who is not allowed to do what they want on their own property.”

 

To build the Eden she wanted, Ms. Chasser had enlisted a “conglomeration” of local carpenters to help add structures, including atreehouse, to a home her 32-year-old son, Joshua, left to her family after he died of a heart attack in 2010. This is actually her second tour of treehouse living — the first structure was erected on her brother’s property nearby over two decades ago.

Over the years, she said, she has forged loose rental agreements with a rotating cast of temporary residents who sometimes stay for months at a time. Ms. Chasser said that about eight people are living on the property with her now. (“I tell people to stay until it doesn’t feel good,” she said.)

With an aim to supplement the income generated by her organic popcorn company, Ms. Chasser also rented the property’s various structures out on Airbnb until about five months ago, when the company stopped allowing her to host. On Ms. Chasser’s Airbnb page, many of the reviews, written by people who have pitched tents in her yard or paid about $60 to spend the night in a trailer, are positive.

“It really is a magical oasis, and in the middle of a very normal-looking neighborhood,” wrote one customer.

Others were not so satisfied.

“Fleas. Our room had fleas,” another reviewer wrote. (Ms. Chasser denied this claim, and instead blamed the mosquitoes.)

With her short-term rental earnings gone, Ms. Chasser said she was still researching her legal options and hadn’t formally responded to the county’s demolition order yet. She’s also looking to obtain a medical diagnosis showing that she is claustrophobic and unable to live indoors, which she thinks might help her case. Either way, she said, local government officials should be compassionate about her lifestyle as a literal outsider.

“I can’t live indoors,” she said. “So I’m saying to them: What do you want to do with me?”

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-miami-a-woman-is-fighting-to-keep-her-treehouse-a-home/ar-BBweTy6