Does Every Neighbourhood Have One?There is a house in our neighbourhood that has changed hands four times in the past decade.
It's a corner house with the backyard exposed to the turn of the street, with a mere chain link fence between the yard and a relatively busy street.
When we moved onto our street, the house was up for sale..The first owners we witnessed weren't into maintaining the lawn, or garden, or veranda, or driveway and it was just a big gigantic festering sore of a house, right on the corner.
The second owners cleaned it up.
Fixed up the front, maintained the lawn and garden...planted rose bushes along the chain link fence and took pride in it. And the house seemed to breathe with new life.
It's a nice house, that only needed a little care to be pretty.
I once stopped my car as I was turning the corner and saw the owners in front washing their driveway. I told them what a great job they did with their house.
I just had to tell them.
The third owners had what looked like a twenty people living in the house, and no one mowed the lawn anymore, and the veranda was piled with crap. The driveway housed three cars, one always parked sideways in the little area between the sidewalk and the road.
The rose bushes died, and when I drove by I'd roll my eyes with disgust that so many people could live in a house and do fuck all to maintain it.
It was put up for sale and took forever to sell...if it did at all.
About a month ago, I noticed that new people were living there...but they were scary looking.
Thuggy looking guys hangin' in the driveway, 'hoes on the porch with their hair pulled up in tight pony tails in a "council flat facelift" style, drinkin' beer.
The other day I was in the local convenience store, and encountered one of the hoes with three kids buying smokes. The kids looked rough...you know when kids look tough, even though they're little. They looked unkempt. They were whining for candy, and she was telling them to "shut up" and "Cum' on" in a pugnacious tone.
Now that it's warm out, the residents have their garbage cans perpetually out on the driveway, there are always different hoes and thugs hangin' out on the porch.
Frankly, I really can't tell who lives there. The backyard, now visible to the road again, now that there are no more rose bushes, always has lines of laundry swinging in the breeze, and sometimes hanging over the fence.
The lawn is left unmowed...which bugs The Mister (The Lawn Nazi) no end.
It's so odd, because the other houses around it are well maintained, and this one is just horrible.
I've nicknamed it "The Grow-Op" and The Mister consoles me by telling me that they'll probably be gone soon...
I can only hope, because it really bothers me to look at it, and it's inhabitants.
When did I become Gladys Kravitz?
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