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OK, so here is just some basic facts for those reading this site about how things work at the "Austin Art Farm". People wishing to live there pretty much have one choice and one choice only for living situations.... in a tent or a live in vehicle. See, back in April Adam and Deb moved out of his bus (where he has lived since moving there) and took over the entire 3 bedroom house for themselves, and have since relegated others coming there to living outdoors. When I first moved there in August of 2006 there were 5 guys living in the front bedroom which is 9x10, and there was another guy and his girlfriend living in the back bedroom which is 11x12, and the middle room between those rooms was being converted to a tattoo studio. The 5 guys in the one room were being charged $200 each to live like that, and the guy and his girlfriend were being charged $300 for one room, there was no hot water for showers so if you wanted to brave the cold water you could take one. The kitchen was always a mess and there was maggots, ants and roaches everywhere you turned. For my first month there I slept in the living room on the sofa which was not the most private of settings, and was told that if I wanted privacy I would have to make other arrangements. I soon cleaned out and set up a living space in the shed that is beside the studio, but even that was not private as I was forced to share that space with personal belongings of people that no longer lived there, and tools and other things that people would come in and use. For the privilege of living like that I was being charged $200 a month by Adam, BUT (and here is where this website comes into play), Adam made me a deal that if I create a website for him I could live there rent free, and he would take care of my food as well. You see, my normal charge for building a website is $25 an hour which is well below the market rate for such a job, and the hosting I normally charge $45 for 6 months which is once again below market rate for such a service. But, not only did Adam want me to build a website for the "Austin Art Farm" but he wanted me to build one for his drug paraphernalia business as well, and to host both of them on my account. It was about 2 months into all of this when Adam decided that he needed to change the deal he had made with me. I had already paid for the registration of 2 domains, created one of the websites and had it up and running, and was about 1/2 way through with the second site. This was very typical of Adam to make a deal and then later when he felt like it he would either change the deal or back out of it completely. I was told that even after all of this that I would have to start paying rent and supporting myself. Now don't get me wrong I am not opposed to doing this but that was not our deal, and to come up to me 5 days before rent is due and tell me that he was changing the deal put me in a bind. And that was how he played most people. At one time there were 6 people paying him $185 a month to camp there which came to just over $1,000 a month, and this is not including what he claims he was paying towards rent. When a couple of us sat down and did the math we calculated that between rents he was collecting from people staying there, and the income from his drug paraphernalia business that he was bringing in at least $2,800 a month. But every month there would be bills that were not paid and in the entire year I was there the electric bill was never paid in full. In fact people that are there now are paying for electricity that was used 4 months ago, and people that move in there in March will be paying for electicity used now. |
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