Recycled

Letters to the Summer Tenants

Renting to the wrong people.

Download the MP3 audio version of this story here, or sign up to get all of Slate’s free daily podcasts.

As the summer heat approaches its hellish apogee, thousands will flee their jobs for vacation spots near the ocean. Eight years ago, Jodie T. Allen’s “self-martyred landlord” wrote to the destructive summer tenants who had just left her house: “I did find a minute to relax in a rocker on the porch this morning, to watch the seabirds and admire what’s left of the garden.”