You & your neighbours

Hi! I posted back in 2005. It must have been the year before I moved across the street and down the pathway.

The older couple with the cat moved out with their cats into a smaller place with fewer stairs. A young family moved in, he Pakistani and she French. They came with a small boy and had a baby before I moved.

The older woman with the pimpish boyfriend and the possible drug problem also moved out of her building. She seems to have moved down the street. Once she passed me while I was getting into my car and said, "Bitch! I thought you were my friend!" I have no idea what she was thinking I did. One formerly homeless couple were living in the basement of that building - I never knew if the landlords were aware of them. The guy flipped one afternoon and smashed a TV in our parking lot. I have no idea what is going on in my old building beyond the fact that the lesbians still live in their condo.

There are a lot more young children in the hood now. The permanent construction seems to have finally died down. I live on the second floor now and enjoy the space. I am still friends with the same neighbor and have added some more friends and acquaintances. One new (as of 2005) neighbor works in publishing and has all this great free swag which she sells at frequent yard sales. I still get to work in a garden and visit with neighborhood dogs and cats.

An update. We've had a real impact from the real estate bubble bursting. Most of the McMansions in my neighborhood now sit empty, or about to be empty once the bank decides to complete the foreclosure process. One sad story is my immediate neighbor. They are the ones who bought the house next door, Didn't Tear It Down (I could have hugged them), put tons of money into fixing it up, but also decided to completely clear out the understory and burn every leaf that fell (daily!!!) in the pursuit of a lawn where there used to be forest. We appreciated that they worked with the house they had but gasped (literally) at the daily smoke out and the wide-scale tree cutting.

They're losing the house. They've already lost the house they had in the adjacent town (they used their old house as speculation for a tear down/McMansion there and had both houses collateralized to cover their mortgage here and the building loan there). Their timing was horrendous with real estate speculation. They bought high here and assumed they would sell high there once they finished building the McMansion. They've gone bust. Nothing left. They're divorcing. She's already moved out. He's moving soon. They have a senior in high school who is graduating early (Dec instead of May) and will get a job and be on her own. The younger son is going to go live with his dad and grandpa in another town. Sad all around.

Another couple are also losing their house. It's 7,000 sq ft. on a lot that used to have a 2 bedroom house on 1+ acre and lots of trees. They too are nice people. Bought high, tore down the existing house, built a friggin castle, and... they and the cocker spaniel will soon be living elsewhere and their house will join the other Very Large Houses in my neighborhood that now sit vacant.

It all makes me sad.

What a waste.
My street has so many foreclosures it looks like a haunted neighborhood at night.

I remember them (and the leaves), sad too.

As you know, ms olga, I've been baaaaad. I have too many neighbor stories to tell, but I have a Works page waiting for me on my desk top to start typing away. One of my neighbors was the Playmate of the Year, for example. And that was a long time ago, though she was recently arrested for (I don't know, possible homicide).

Well, that's just a reminder, I can type on a2k as well as Works pages.

So far so good, here and now.

Indeed.

I've heard that many areas of FL are pretty much a wasteland.

A couple weeks ago a lady in a van stopped by and drove up our lane and she wanted to know where this road was that we lived on. (It turns out that our rod has two sections on each end of the township and the road chunks dont meet anymore, ever since the Highway Department built a new road into Maryland back in the 1940's. Well, she stopped and said that there were supposed to be 17 houses that she was looking for in this development and she was sorta pissed at me because there, where the housing developmenyt was supposed to be, there was nothing but a huge series of farm fields and in the center was this AMISH farm.

I showed her a map and we added some new road marks into her GPS so she could be off to that section of road she was looking for. I asked her why she was looking for these 17 houses. "Ive gotta do an isnpection for foreclosure proceedings"
I said, without missing a beat
"LAdy you have one **** job"
"Tell me, I go home each night and sometimes I have to cry because I see these kids and people living their lives in houses from which theyre gonna be either evicted or put on some kind of restrictive living plan"
The lady was really bothered and she was quite emotional about it so I let it drop and she thanked me for my help and she gve a huge sigh and said that shes gonna have to go off and do these clandestine inspections ("She called em windshield surveys)

17 homes in one development, and the development wsnt more than 50 homes , all built in a development splurge that happened in the mid 90's and people were stuck in their mortgages with plummeting values and tight finances, and many without one job in a two job family.

That's so disheartening to hear, JPB, especially when kids are involved.
Now these McMansions are sitting there empty and who in their right mind
will buy a 7000 sqft home in today's times? Very sad indeed!

These McMansions pop up everywhere unfortunately. Our beach communities
used to have those cute beach cottages, they were mostly build in the 30s and
40s with long term residents. Yet, the minute one of the cottages sold, it was
torn down to make room for a property line to property line McMansion. There isn't that much land at the beach communities anyways and having these huge
houses sit there is just a plain ugly sight, no matter how beautiful they are.

It does me no good to have despised mcmansions in the first place, when they started. So, I'm right, what use is it?

You and I will be apt to disagree on beautiful (re your last line) - though probably not often. But I think we agree on this generally.

I'd nab it on contractors/developers let loose, but architects got into it too. And cities and their wants.


I am mostly vomitous at the balloon faux palaces. I worked myself out of all that, most noticible to me refusing a proposal that I do the land arch for a cantalevered pool design in the mountains.

The balloon houses are just a balloon. The land is the land, and it should be lived on lightly, according to me.

Yeah farmerdude...tis sad. But around here it was greed that did them in. A lotta people were using the huge rise in home values to float ridiculous second mortgages. For vacation homes on the west coast, or even to pay off the old car and buy a brand new sportster.

Halloween night only 2 kids showed up at my door. Their mom pulled into my driveway and as soon as they'd scored she took off like it was curfew in Mogadishu

Ak.

Well neighbors are a very important part of anybodies life, they are the one who help you at the time of need. One should maintain good relations with their neighbors.

Far better than making enemies of them, eva, I totally agree!
That can make life a misery.

Are you going to share any neighbourhood stories, from your neck of the woods, with us?
You're most welcome to.

Yikes, these are scary stories. I bet something similar is happening in my old neighborhood in Naperville, which was going to the McMansions in the four years that we were there. Just before we moved, the nice old house across the street was torn down to make one. I kind of doubt our house (built in 1900) is still there.

I haven't seen a lot of that here, thankfully and knock on wood. I think a relatively poor economy in the area when we moved here might have helped. My immediate neighborhood is pretty much entirely old houses, and tear-downs are rare enough that they don't seem to dare to be McMansions -- the few I can think of were built to blend in, once the landscaping is in place it's really hard to tell that it's even new construction. (One thing I hated about the Naperville McMansions was that the scale was all out of whack, so you'd have a modest house built in 1940 with 8-foot ceilings next to a new monster with 12-foot ceilings. So even if they were both 2 stories, the monster would still loom. But of course they usually slapped a 3rd story on the monster...)

Anyway, to neighbor stories in general... I recently looked up some of my old accounts of Moapi (Mother of All Poison Ivy vines, now vanquished), and that brought me to accounts of clashes with my next-door neighbor. Interesting to read from today's perspective. One thing I wish I would have known earlier is that she is someone who is perpetually in vendetta mode. She berated another neighbor (who has four kids, two jobs, and is very active with volunteering) for leaving her garbage cans in a place where they can be viewed from the street. (I mean, not on the curb or anything. Just alongside her house. Where they can be *gasp* seen.) (My neighbor's response -- she had her kids paint the garbage cans with pretty rainbows and flowers. Hah.)

Anyway it's easier to not take her perpetual pique personally now. The perpetual pique is unpleasant but I can see she tries to overcome it (oh how she tries). She retired recently which has had its upsides and downsides. Downside -- she's always there, being piqued. Upside -- she had perpetual vendettas at work and she seems to have calmed down somewhat since she retired. Still piqued! But a little calmer.

As far as I can tell she has no ongoing relationships except with her husband and her dog. So I can also see why the old homeowners moving was so traumatic for her (she was close to them -- maybe that's why they moved? JK.) I didn't realize way back when she was being SUPER DUPER FRIENDLY to me when we moved in that she was trying to replace her only non-marital friendship.

We had a pretty cordial relationship for a while and then she "accidentally" (I almost wonder if she has some actual pathologies) started weeding the part of my yard closest to hers. I saw her, goggled (that was the basis of a huge fight we'd had a while ago), and went out and said um hi. She went into high apology mode, which is progress for her, so I let it go with a clear "but don't do it again." Then E.G. caught her doing it again. (!) (My yard really is much nicer than you'd think from these accounts -- the weeding she was doing was of short grass between cobblestones, she thought it should be dirt/ mulch, I was FINE with short grass.) He had some words with her and she hasn't spoken to me since. Shrug.

I love all my other neighbors! She's about the only eek spot. I also love that this is a neighborhood where everyone's out and about and knows everyone else, so I really do know most of 'em. I'd consider at least three close neighbors to be bona-fide friends, and then a bunch more that we're very friendly with. Oh and sozlet's orthodontist just moved in down the street! Wave at him at least twice a week.

It sounds like you made a really great move. Congrats!

My goodness sad story. One of my daughter's classmates' family is having difficulty. The dad has been laid off for quite a long time. They cannot afford their mortgage. They've been trying to sell their house and have lowered their price where it is very attractive. They live in a desireable town, but are still having a heck of a time selling. They've gone into their retirement to avoid foreclosure. I know they were close to selling with some one nickle and diming and taking complete advantage of them. I am afraid to ask how the sale went (or not went).

I'm sorry to hear that, Linkat. It's a tough time to have to sell a house. Particularly when there's not much chance of qualifying for a different mortgage elsewhere if he's unemployed.

They already have a rental set up - one that they can afford. And no, they did not have a McMansion. A reasonable sized home with a very nice town with a good amount of land - the only downside is they are on a busy street.

They just simply want to get out of a mortgage they cannot afford and live as simply as possible.

I remember those neighbours, JPB! (and the "smoke issue", too!)
That's terribly sad, though.
I can't imagine all these vacant houses appearing, one after another, in one's street.
I hope some agreeable folk (who love the house!) move in!
Good luck.

Were I am, we have the opposite problem.
Melbourne is experiencing a population explosion the likes of which has never happened before. Fitting all those new folk in is causing all sorts of stresses & strains on communities. (Quite a bit of inappropriate development going on at the expense of heritage, residents groups up in arms, back yards disappearing, insanely out of control suburban sprawl, etc, etc ..) We now have the most expensive house prices in the country.

Immediately behind me, two new units are being constructed on the site which previously had just one family home. The view of the sky from my backyard is diminishing day by day, as the building progresses ... but, it's not too bad, luckily. Just different. There were absolutely no obstacles between me & the sky before now.
I count myself as lucky. It could have been a six storey (or more!) apartment construction, completely blocking out all light to my yard, say nothing of lost privacy. That's what some people are dealing with right now. It's crazy, I tell you!

As I type, I can hear "the lawn mower lady" (as I call her) is at it again.

Where I live, it is the responsibility of residents to mow & keep their nature strips (in front of their properties) in reasonable condition.
Except the people in the row houses where I live never have to do it ...
... because "the lawn mower lady" always gets in first, mows our nature strips within an inch of their lives, well before they need any attention. Because she's done such a terrific job on them before, even removing weeds as she goes.
If only my own lawns looked half as good as our nature strip!

Two weeks ago, when she was last mowing out there, I thanked her for her work. And told her she doers a brilliant job. And said that I felt rather guilty that she felt she should do it.

"No problem", she said. "It keeps me busy, gives me an interest after my open heat surgery."

Which, of course, then made me worry even more about her.

Anyway, for those of you who live in cities, who don't know your neighbours all that well ... do you give your neighbours names like this, too?
On one side of me I have the "eastern studies woman" & on the other side I have "Tin Tin & his child bride". Nice young couple.

I'm wondering what some of my neighbours would call me, then?

And if your neighbours were to give you a title, what would it be?