Apartment manager claims sous-chefs are stealing his weeds

The apartment manager of a Southeast Portland apartment complex says he can't get employees from local restaurants to stop climbing his fence and picking weeds from his property. Martin Connolly thinks random weeds and plants are going into dishes because he lives around plenty of trendy restaurants.



"If you live in Portland, you have to know what comes with the neighborhood, and in this case, it's bands of sous-chefs," says Connolly. Around the back of the apartment building he manages is a fenced-in alley that is filled with wild weeds and greens, apparently ripe for the taking. "In some neighbourhoods there's coyotes, some have skunks – here, it's just sous-chefs and all the things that come with that," Connolly says.

He's seen them in the area before and has picked up their leftovers. "You can always tell they’ve been here: There's beard nets. I found this recipe lying back here the other day," he says. Connolly says he can even recognize their scent: "Sometimes smells like brisket." And his neighbour spotted one stuck on the fence on Friday. "Had a bag of what was probably chicory leaves," Connolly says.



He's left messages for a few places trying to tell them to stop, but he hasn't heard back. Now, he's putting up signs and getting ready with his own camera in case sous-chefs keep coming around. He doesn't want to call police, because it feels too silly. But he does want it to stop. But until then, Connolly had this advice: "Hide your dock, hide your mallow. No herb is safe." No employees from nearby restaurants said they were responsible.

With news video.