This neighbourhood used to be pretty good. Not high-end, but not “ghetto”, either. The neighbours were mostly older, and other than occasionally seeing them out doing yard work, you’d never even know they were there. That’s all changed now, though; of the “originals” who were here when we came almost seven years ago, only the old couple across the street who very rarely go outside at all, and “creepy guy who won’t let anyone forget he’s a home owner, not a renter” remain. Ted was an awesome neighbour, but he got married (no mean feat for a 500 lb. man who is now dead though he was only a little older than me) and now we have Yard Sale Guy. Well, Yard Sale Guy and Co., since there’s always at least a couple of his low-rent white trash relatives hanging around over there, just waiting for him to finally have the heart attack that kills him (he’s had two or three already). There used to be an older couple in the house across my back yard, but then their grandson moved in with them because his mother could no longer tolerate him, and he broke into at least one house (Ted’s–he had nice Apple computer equipment stolen), and the whole thing just went to hell, so they picked up stakes and left in the middle of the night without paying the two months’ back rent they owed. They were replaced by Stephanie Whatserface, that fat-arsed, big mouth skank ho who claimed to have a husband serving in Iraq who would pay the rent for her and her baby, but the only “serving” her man (not a husband) was doing involved a prison sentence, plus his crack-dealer pals hung around there all of the time. They punched holes in the screens (new windows) so they could open them and get in the house when she wasn’t home. Practically trashed the house in the month that she was there; I know that because I went over to help G&D clean it up (they’re old, so I volunteered). We finally got rid of her–she was to be evicted in spite of her threat to claim racial discrimination because the guys hanging around were black, but was arrested on a retail theft warrant the morning she was due to be put out–and she was replaced by Brianne. Brianne is a single mother in her late 20s with two young kids, but although the boyfriend doesn’t live with them, he is in fact the father of both kids (imagine!), and he does pay support/help out with them. Brianne works, her mother looks after the kids when she can’t, and her dad helps with yard work. Nice folks–her dad is especially cool–and she’s a wonderful neighbour because when her kids go outside to play, she goes out to watch them. I don’t like kids, but as far as these ones go, I like them fine because they’re never around without supervision, unlike the passel of little bastards from various houses who run loose all over this street. P. says it’s like navigating a minefield just to get to our house without hitting one of them with the car because they don’t pay any attention, and most are on bikes. Anyway, Brianne’s kids won’t be here much longer and neither will she, because they’re moving at the end of the month. Can’t say I blame her for not wanting to stay, but I shudder to think what’s going to move in there afterwards. I hope G&D do a better background check than they did with the skank ho. In all fairness to them, her references did lie, and one of them was her former landlady, whom G’s father knew well!
Betty next door was cool; she’s the only one who introduced herself when we were moving in, and it was awesome to see her and Wayne go out dancing on weekends because she was pushing 80 and he was past it. Wayne died over a year ago, and Betty had a heart attack, though, so she went to live in a retirement home in Colorado. Her snarky bitch daughter from St. Louis (the one P. hates for cutting down the trees and displacing his squirrels) sold the house to what I had been told was a young couple with a couple of kids, but is in fact a single mother with a few kids and a boyfriend who’s a truck driver. I just love it when they have their friends over all the damned time to swill beer and barbeque in the back yard, and it’s especially nice when the boyfriend is there as well because he parks his gigantic fucking truck on the street. Yay. The yellow house we had looked at a year or so ago finally sold, and to a family that has at least four small kids, plus whatever other strays wander over at any given time from somewhere in town. The people who bought the grey house have teenagers, and now that it’s cool enough to have windows open, I get to listen to them hanging around in their front yard. I’d think at least some of them are supposed to be in school, but nope! Their friends have lots of cars, too, which really looks nice since they don’t have anywhere to park except on the street. Some of the cars even have functional mufflers!
Honestly, it’s almost like a goddamned housing project. It used to be a quiet, middle class neighbourhood, but it’s sure not that now. I took this picture this morning; the dog belongs to friends of the people in the grey house. Yup, this sure looks like prime pit bull breeding stock, and I’ll just bet these people are registered with the APBT association, too! Yes, they are obviously reputable breeders. Wrong! They’re fucking white trash backyard breeders; fuckers are all over the place in this town. Oh, and the house next door to the grey one is now for sale. I can well imagine what–not who–is going to move in there. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here; I think we’ll move to Mt. V. when our lease expires next March. It’ll be a pain in the arse, especially with seven years of P’s “treasures” (read: junk) and my fish tanks, but we can at least be thankful we didn’t actually buy a house in this rathole.
