Hell Froze Over

Our next door neighbors finally got the Ginormous POS Totalled SUV towed out of their front yard.  (You may remember I wrote about its arrival in this post last November.) It may have something to do with that little call to the city that Kurt made and the subsequent visit from Code Enforcement, but after an entire YEAR of looking at this literal piece of junk from our kitchen window every day, I was delighted to see Mr. Tow Truck driver take it away this morning.

You can't fully appreciate the horror of this thing with this iPhone snapshot.  Suffice it to say it made our neighborhood look like trash.  Last October (yes, that would be a year ago) I sat having breakfast on a Sunday morning with my Mom who was visiting while Kurt was out of town.  We heard this rumbling noise, and I looked out the window to see the neighbors' adult son DRIVE this thing into their driveway and park it on the front lawn.  That's right, he drove it.  How, do you ask?  The roof is completely caved into the driver's seat.  I still don't know how it was possible to drive it on the road or how far it came from, but I saw him do it with my own eyes.  Then, they proceeded to cover it up halfway with a tarp  (there.  nobody will notice.) and left it to rot for the past 12 months.  I'll admit the lovely canvas tarp made it a little less noticeable, but still.  You have a JUNK CAR in your front yard, people!

A month ago, the tarp blew off in a terrible rainstorm and they never bothered to cover it up, so Kurt finally had enough, called 311 and not a week later, code enforcement left a big orange "move it or lose it" sticker on the back, along with all the hunting and ammo bumper stickers that already littered the rear window.

Also noted on the picture above is the fine job they did painting their trimwork.  They hired some local neighborhood criminal to paint the trim.  He painted the front of the house, (well, parts of it) and then painted about a foot up the side of the house, leaving the rest to continue peeling and rotting away for our viewing pleasure. When we put our house on the market we are going to have to sneak over there and paint it ourselves or no one will want to move here.  They would never notice.  They only venture outside to sit in their carport and smoke, unless there's some neighborhood ruckus in which case Ms. Gloria will shuffle out in her housecoat and slippers to see what's going on.  The thing that drives me crazy is, these people are not that old.  In their early seventies, I'm guessing. 

I assume that the city had to arrange for the tow truck.  Initiative is not their strong suit.  These are the same people that STILL have their Christmas tree up from last year.  It's in their front picture window.  They don't light it of course, guess they save that to make it special for the holidays.  The rest of the year it's just the dusty tree in the living room.  Or maybe they decorate it for every season...throw a few flags on for 4th of July, hang gourds from it for Halloween and Thanksgiving.... doubt it.  I suppose once they hit the 6 month mark they considered themselves early for next year.

For now, I'm just happy that the heap of twisted metal is out of sight.  I can only imagine what will take its place now that there's space freed up in their yard - broken 4 wheeler?  Old bathtub?  Place your bets!

The neighbors are at it again...

Yesterday morning I hear a ruckus next door so I look out the window to see my neighbors' worthless grown son in the front yard drinking a beer (at 10:42 AM, really?) and watching his son who could not be more than twelve ON THE ROOF with the blower clearing leaves.  Hello, DSS?  Isn't that child endangerment?  The house has a walk out basement so while the front may not be terribly high, if he went over the sides or the back of Grandma's house he would most certainly be paralyzed or worse. Idiots.

The only reason we are hoping our neighbors don't succumb to lung cancer anytime soon (they spend all day smoking their carport) is because if they kick the bucket, you can guarantee this classy guy would move in.
He doesn't even live there, yet he brought a totaled piece o' crap truck over and left it in their front yard.  (Been there a month now, not that I'm keeping track or anything.) The vehicle does not have a roof - it was completely caved in, yet he managed to drive it over to dear old Mom and Dad's house.  But he put a tarp halfway over it so it's ok.  I am not at all bothered by staring out the kitchen window into a junkyard as I sip my morning coffee.  Why the heck did he bring it over to his parents' house anyway?  Do they not allow junk cars at the trailer park or extended stay motel where he surely resides?  Or maybe he's trying to hide evidence.  Whatever the reason, it's got to go. 

Tales from the 'Hood

I think I've alluded to the fact before that we live in, shall we say, a transitional neighborhood in Charlotte.  Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful neighborhood for the most part on the fringe of Cotswold.  Only 5 miles from Uptown (downtown), lots of beautiful old oak trees (we have 35 on our .4 acre lot) and nice solid, 1960's ranch homes.  And you can't beat the value for your money anywhere else this close to town.  Most of our neighbors are great and we see a trend of houses being fixed up and professional people moving in.  However, it's got it's share of questionable characters.  Now we don't have gang warfare or drug deals on the sidewalk or anything, but there's likely some illegal activity in the park across the street, and a few blocks away there is some cheap housing that should be firebombed.  I'm just sayin'...

To explain my desire for Rambo to show up with a flamethrower, let me describe things further.  Our street?  Just fine for the most part.  The street around the bend?  Even better.  The short block between us and the nice neighborhood around the bend?  Not so good.  There are (or were actually, I'll get to that) 5 crappy rental houses that have a variety of short-term occupants.  Envision dogs chained up in yard, big wal-mart 4 foot by 12 foot plastic pool in the side yard, which is also adorned with laundry hanging from anything that doesn't move.  Lots of random furniture, outdoor and indoor, littering the front.  You get my drift.

Next to these houses are the Pink Apartments.  Well, there's not actually pink anymore because they painted them beige but didn't use primer so they are a pinkish beige now.  We still lovingly refer to them as the Pink Apartments.  We got all excited last year because they put up a tall chain link fence and we thought surely this meant they were tearing them down.  Oh no.  They just decided to put up the fence to keep the riff-raff out  (or maybe in?)  Lovely.  The apartments across the street do not have much better of a clientele but they are brick so they look decent, at least, except for the pants-on-the-ground hood rats hanging out on the front porch with their gold teeth and hats cocked to the side.  We'll call these the Crappy Brick Apartments for simplicity's sake.  I firmly believe that if we could rid ourselves of these few dwellings, our neighborhood would improve tenfold.

Ok, now that you know the lay of the land, let's play a little game called Good Sign/Bad Sign.  Kurt and I play it all the time, wondering if a given incident in the area means an increase in our property value or a decrease.  The first few are easy.  Jury's still out on the third.

Good Sign  :)

The other day I drove through the Ghetto on the Bend heading to the grocery store.  They were paving part of the street which was annoying but nothing else out of the ordinary.   An hour later, heading home I was shocked to see one of the dreaded rental homes had been completely demolished!  There was nothing but a pile of sticks and a proud yellow bulldozer sifting through the heap.  This has got to be a Good Sign right?  I only wish I had gotten to see the destruction firsthand. 

Bad Sign  :(

You know it's going to be a bad Friday night in the 'hood when your backyard is being lit up by a Police helicopter spotlight.  That's right, as I was baking toll house cookies in our cozy home, I watched the ghetto bird circle our house for 45 minutes.  It got even more exciting as the police stopped a guy walking down the street right in front of our house and had 4 police cars, lights flashing, parked out there for over an hour.  Normally our street is fairly quiet but this made us want to stick a for sale sign in the yard ASAP.  Apparently there was some sort of armed robbery a few blocks down the street.  The suspects were not caught.  Awesome. Oh and good luck finding this in the news anywhere.  Not a peep.  If a police helicopter lit up Queens Road I bet it would end up front page of the Charlotte Observer.

TBD ?

Here's a puzzling one.  We drove through the 'hood this morning on our way to the park and noticed big red "A"s painted on the doors of several of the Crappy Brick Apartments.  What the heck is that about?   Is this a new gang sign?  Adulterers?  Anarchy?  We're stumped.  Any guesses?