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One building on the island served as the real estate office for her maternal grandmother, Bea Novak, Chapman notes. In fact, she says, Novak, who was one of the first women real estate brokers in Sarasota, and Norma Martin founded the Sarasota chapter of the Women's Council of Realtors. As Chapman pauses, her sister, Deborah, sums up the family history: "We were here before them," referring to Bob's Boathouse. "He's turned our property into valueless pieces of dirt, basically," Rickey adds. Although she has found no way to prove that, Chapman points out that her mother has lost a couple of tenants in cottages she has rented for years. "And I can't get [them] re-rented," Rickey says. The income was "very minimal," Chapman concedes, but it supplemented her mother's Social Security checks. "Over these last eight months, she's been going through every bit of her savings just to keep afloat." A neighbor down the road who has her house on the market recently had two sets of pro- spective buyers look at it, Chapman related. Both times, when they went out on the deck, they asked about the establishment across the creek. As soon as the neighbor responded that it is Bob's Boathouse, Chapman says, the people lost interest in the house. Yet, Chapman points out, it is impossible to prove that the business' proximity — and sto- ries circulating in the community about its loud music — have led to the loss of rental property tenants and potential home sales. Michele Chapman checks the ambient noise on a meter at the rear of her Montclair Drive property. Photo by Rachel Hackney Sarasota News Leader August 8 & 15, 2014 Page 46