On June 30, Peter Paladino sold his property at 12th and Walnut to Cheryl Underwood of Aronis & Underwood, the 25-year Bloomington real estate mainstay.

The following morning, every tenant at 825 N. Walnut found a letter from Aronis & Underwood Realty in their mailboxes.

The letters were addressed to each of the three tenants: Ransom Haile of External Design Tattoo Parlor; Bethann Knox of Giggles and Gifts, an adult lingerie, floral and massage therapy store; and Lowell Hoover of Polyphase Microwave, a microwave instrument retail store.

The first sentence of Haile's letter stated, "As your lease is a month-to-month lease, we are giving you 30 days notice to vacate the premises you lease."

Knox's began, "Your lease expires on August 30. We would like for you to vacate the premises and arrange the move-out inspection for that day."

The tenants were stunned.

"It's just hard to be nice in describing this," Haile said. "I didn't even know the building was for sale until about a week-and-a-half before I got this 30-day notice saying, 'You have to move.'"

Underwood has been in the business for 25 years and said she knows the code.

"We followed the proper procedure," she said. "The law requires you to give tenants 30 days notice, which we did."

The tenants still felt a blow.

"We were in shock," said Knox. "We didn't get any, 'Hi we're your new landlords.' It just would have been different if they had let us know, 'We're moving everybody out, we'll give you free July rent while you're moving.' It just would have been more business-like."

Knox's shop, Giggles and Gifts, had a six-year history at the location best known as the Ekimae property. She sells adult gifts and lingerie, as well as floral designs, massage therapy and sexual energy counseling.

"My store was different," said Knox. "It is my passion in life to help women who are coming from rape and molestation to have a comfortable place that is run by a woman who they can talk to."

Haile's store was a tattoo parlor that had been at 825 N. Walnut for more than seven years, catering largely to a clientele he considers "more intellectual," grad students and Ph.Ds.

"It might be a career change entirely for me at this point," said Haile. "I could probably go to Skinquake or New Breed, but I don't think my clientele would follow."

Haile and Knox felt they were asked to leave because of the nature of their shops. Underwood said she wants the property for her own uses and that the rent Haile and Knox paid wasn't enough to renew either's lease.

Before Knox received her letter, she had a conversation with customer and real estate businessman Bill Holderman. During the conversation, Holderman told Knox that the property was up for sale.

Shortly afterward, a week before she received her own letter of vacation, Knox heard that Hoover of Polyphase Microwave had been asked by the soon-to-be owner to vacate his shop.

"I saw Lloyd and said, 'I hear you have to move,'" Knox said. "And he said, 'Yeah, you do too.' He said that Cheryl Underwood had offered him my property."

According to Underwood, she initially did not know her intentions.

"When we first bought the property, we weren't sure what we wanted to do with it," she said. "(Hoover) paid considerably more rent, but he said that wasn't enough space for him."

Knox's lease contains a clause that states "the tenant shall have the option of renewing this lease for three consecutive one year terms."

Underwood said she did not consider renewing the lease because she would like the location to be a jazz club.

Shortly after Haile received his letter, he tried to contact Underwood to negotiate the terms of his lease. He caught up with her in the parking lot one day.

"I told her I've been here about 10 years now," Haile said. "And I've never been late on rent once. Basically I've been an ideal tenant. I've even spent my own money on external repairs. ... I'd really like to remain here. And she said, 'Well, you know, we don't want this kind of business here,' ... And then she changed it to, 'Well we don't know what we're going to do with it.' I think she caught herself."

Underwood and her partner Tariq Khan disagree.

"The rents they paid were minimal," said Underwood.

Khan added: "The previous owners were losing money. The rent didn't even cover the taxes we pay on the property."

Knox also claims to have had a conversation in which Khan said that "Cheryl just doesn't like our kinds of businesses."

Knox is trying to keep the situation in perspective.

"I just try to be at a higher self, but I'm really struggling with this spiritually," she said.

The experience is "emotionally draining," she said. Besides the investment of emotion that running a small business demands, Knox too paid for renovations and repairs of the building. She is still paying off a $2,000 floor she installed in the building she no longer leases.

"I toss back and forth with the fact that if I don't stand up, then these kind of people are just going to keep running people over," said Knox. "I would at least like compensation for my floor."

Haile fell while moving out, injuring his knee and foot.

"When I was moving my equipment out, the staircase broke, and my equipment fell and I fell," he said.

When it comes to the expenses of moving a business and restarting, neither Knox nor Haile feel they can do it, emotionally or financially.

"It just feels like somebody has control over your life, not your life completely because I do believe that I can live above the bad," said Knox. "But for people like these who just don't think about other people, I think that's not right."

Underwood said that the option in this business went both ways.

"If they had decided for their purposes that they wanted to move, they could have," she said. "They had no leases. We both had the right. They can terminate them or we can terminate them."

Haile said he hopes something good comes out of it.

"Maybe this will set some kind of standard where maybe they'd think, 'Maybe I shouldn't do this, maybe those people's lives have some value where they're at,'" he said.

"I don't think I could do to somebody what Cheryl Underwood did to me. Even though I could do it legally and make some money off of it, I just don't think it's right."

Elizabeth Dilts can be reached at edilts@indiana.edu.