A Night on the Floor: Adventures in the New Ghetto
6:40 and hubby and baby are snoozing away, my cat work me up grr as I am tired. Why? Well..
So we have two homes one we use as a rental propery DTH (down he hill) but were living in for a bit while I attempted, without luck, to land a job. Well we were in the process of thinking hmmm let's just move UTH and rent DTH out.
But let's backtrack a bit to around 4th of July. We missed the fireworks UTH as hubby had to work...yes....at night on a holiday weekend :( Then for DTH, front row seats. my intuition told me DON'T GO. I found out later my SIL had the same intuition! So we went down the next day.
Sometime that week, possibly even the day after the 4th....in fact I'm 99% sure it was the 5th...a black woman knocks on my door and I think, ugh, I'm tired of people selling crap door to door but I'll give her a few seconds. She says she bought the home next door on auction. As the owners, we knew them, had two homes and had to let this one go for money reasons. So I'm thinking ok, cool, new neighbors and I even say that and she says "nah we're likely gonna rent it. BTW how many bedrooms does it have? What's the square footage?" I'm thinking, WTF, you bought the damn thing shouldn't you know? But perhaps she's hungover from the 4th or something? I tell her I dunno cuz, well, I don't. She then asks if there are other foreclosed/bank owned/troubled homes around and if I know which ones. I'm thinking, oh maybe she owns like a repo business? But I'm not about to tell some stranger "Yeah the Smith's 3 doors down, hubby lost his job, they're BKing...." so I tell her "well, a few, I mean its a sign of the times."
And she leaves.
The very next day there are people all around.
And the next and the next...almost always, different people, different cars, odd hours of the day- well, night really. I do see one chubby long haired kid a few times, the only stable person there.
I go check our mail one day and a car with a black male, hispanic female, about 40 yr old pulls up, he kid (ok he's like 20, geez I'm old to call him a kid) walks up to their car window, sees me, and yells "grandma, so nice to see you." WTF I'm not that dumb. Grandma and Grandpa at 40? No. "Grandpa" brings in a duffle bag and then they leave. Wow. Quickest. Family visit. Ever. Yeah right.
So hubby calls the cops the next day and they brush it off. I call and they say call code enforcement. I call HOA cause well their lawn is dead, a cardinal sin in HOA land. They say "well if they just moved in give them time to move in". I tell them they gave us 4 days, so I was filing a complaint on their behalf. Then I call code enforcement and here is my favorite part...cause I was suspecting perhaps they were squatters, given the suitcases and odd hours.... code enforcement tells me...
"well ma'am are there tents in the front yard? No? Then they can't be squatters."
ROTFLMAO. So I say, "Well, they're not supposed to be in the house, the old owner still owns it. I think they broke in."
She says, "no... they're not squatters, and how could they get in with the door locked?" At that point I just say good-bye because this lady is a complete idiot. hello, people break in to homes!
So.... flash forward about 3 weeks. We're over there to pack some junk and I go check the mail and man oh man , I have good timing as some people are leaving the place with suitcases and the "kid" is inside. I tell hubby and he kinda brushes it off, tired of my obsessions with our freaky neighbors. About a half hour later he decides to go visit his parents who live a few homes up. He leaves and our dog barks so I peer out to see...hubby and 5 neighbors across the street, all staring at our neighbors house. Half hour later, same thing. So I open the door and hubby says "go back inside, lock the doors". Ok then. So I lock the door and procede to breastfeed by sleepy hungry baby.
I just begin and hubby barges in "go now to my mom's. Get dressed! The police are on their way and I want you two to be safe" As I am in my pjs. See I'd brought pjs and the clothes on my back down, nothing else, figuring I'd wear dirty clothes packing. But I got spit-up on me so my clothes were in the washer. So I go to at least put a bra on and hubby shouts "on the floor NOW!" So I drop. But I dunno, I've never dropped to the floor fearing my life before so I drop smack dab in the middle of the bedroom, door open, like a sitting duck. I realize this is dumb so I inch worm towards the bathroom which is more protected, more walls and pipes and stuff. And I wait. And wait. Praying. Of course my infant son thinks this is the coolest thing ever, it is past his bedtime and its time on the floor with mom! Let's wiggle and giggle and wiggle and giggle some more! Yippee!
So....I know little but... hubby was chatting with the neighbors and they all got sick of suspicious crap going on as they're all family folk, with kids. Two of the neighbors are detectives. See in that neighborhood every other house is a fireman, police, detective, that kinda thing. Literally. he detectives decide the police dept still isn't caring, they wanna protect their family. So they wait for the kid to walk out, knowing his friends I saw are coming back. They do and he walks out and the detective shouts "you don't live here, get out" as he'd actually talked to the owners just this week. THe kid's drugged out friends approach the detective, ready to jump him. So he draws his gun fearing for his life. That's when hubby told me to hit the floor since well, a standoff was in place inches from me.
The cops finally take it seriously since well, the detectives said ummm we need backup.
The kid said he'd been scammed, rented the place for 8,000$ a month. Seriously? Well I guess he's Native American, from the same tribe as our old neighbors. They get like $10,000 a month "free" for restitution or something. (Not prostitution, restitution. lol) so he seemed clueless that duh rent is not $8k a month.
So they told him to move out and his friends to never come back.
But I am sorry there is more to the story. It isn't just that the kid was rented the house by people that broke in and rented it to him. Which they did, as the kid said it was odd, the lock was lose. That doesn't explain everything else going on. They looked through the house (they = cops) and didn't find much but said the meter for electricity showed a lot of use. I'm thinking maybe he just sold all his drugs or whatever so that's why they found nothing.
So at 10pm when I can finally leave the floor, we went back UTH where all we can fear is a cranky bear. Yeah we have tweakers, even our neighbor's son has heroin-addict friends that are creepy critters. But I have taught most of them so if they're not too drugged out they say hi to me and ask how my mom, also their former teacher, is doing. I like my neighbors. Yeah one actually uses those leaf blowers to make his yard look like it is made of cement and not dirt, and vaccuums outside. Seriously. And then the firefighter smokes stinky cigarettes and his son blasts crappy death metal. And then the druggy kid, but he helps us shovel snow. And the old guy who is like 90 and walks to town every day. And the lady and her 98 year old mother, and their gaggle of random grandkids. And the cranky guy we call Hank Hill who has lumber in his driveway, collecting black widows. And the other cranky family, Mac-something that yell at us and pick up our garbage in our yard after a bear scrounging. I mean that's nice they pick it up before I get to it but they do it because they think it is their yard and they do it like "those trashy neighbors putting garbage in our yard, F$^& it I'm picking up their crap and they better apologize."
But at least I don't have to lay on the floor fearing my and my son's life as guns are drawn and sirens and flashy lights dance around the neighborhood.
So we have two homes one we use as a rental propery DTH (down he hill) but were living in for a bit while I attempted, without luck, to land a job. Well we were in the process of thinking hmmm let's just move UTH and rent DTH out.
But let's backtrack a bit to around 4th of July. We missed the fireworks UTH as hubby had to work...yes....at night on a holiday weekend :( Then for DTH, front row seats. my intuition told me DON'T GO. I found out later my SIL had the same intuition! So we went down the next day.
Sometime that week, possibly even the day after the 4th....in fact I'm 99% sure it was the 5th...a black woman knocks on my door and I think, ugh, I'm tired of people selling crap door to door but I'll give her a few seconds. She says she bought the home next door on auction. As the owners, we knew them, had two homes and had to let this one go for money reasons. So I'm thinking ok, cool, new neighbors and I even say that and she says "nah we're likely gonna rent it. BTW how many bedrooms does it have? What's the square footage?" I'm thinking, WTF, you bought the damn thing shouldn't you know? But perhaps she's hungover from the 4th or something? I tell her I dunno cuz, well, I don't. She then asks if there are other foreclosed/bank owned/troubled homes around and if I know which ones. I'm thinking, oh maybe she owns like a repo business? But I'm not about to tell some stranger "Yeah the Smith's 3 doors down, hubby lost his job, they're BKing...." so I tell her "well, a few, I mean its a sign of the times."
And she leaves.
The very next day there are people all around.
And the next and the next...almost always, different people, different cars, odd hours of the day- well, night really. I do see one chubby long haired kid a few times, the only stable person there.
I go check our mail one day and a car with a black male, hispanic female, about 40 yr old pulls up, he kid (ok he's like 20, geez I'm old to call him a kid) walks up to their car window, sees me, and yells "grandma, so nice to see you." WTF I'm not that dumb. Grandma and Grandpa at 40? No. "Grandpa" brings in a duffle bag and then they leave. Wow. Quickest. Family visit. Ever. Yeah right.
So hubby calls the cops the next day and they brush it off. I call and they say call code enforcement. I call HOA cause well their lawn is dead, a cardinal sin in HOA land. They say "well if they just moved in give them time to move in". I tell them they gave us 4 days, so I was filing a complaint on their behalf. Then I call code enforcement and here is my favorite part...cause I was suspecting perhaps they were squatters, given the suitcases and odd hours.... code enforcement tells me...
"well ma'am are there tents in the front yard? No? Then they can't be squatters."
ROTFLMAO. So I say, "Well, they're not supposed to be in the house, the old owner still owns it. I think they broke in."
She says, "no... they're not squatters, and how could they get in with the door locked?" At that point I just say good-bye because this lady is a complete idiot. hello, people break in to homes!
So.... flash forward about 3 weeks. We're over there to pack some junk and I go check the mail and man oh man , I have good timing as some people are leaving the place with suitcases and the "kid" is inside. I tell hubby and he kinda brushes it off, tired of my obsessions with our freaky neighbors. About a half hour later he decides to go visit his parents who live a few homes up. He leaves and our dog barks so I peer out to see...hubby and 5 neighbors across the street, all staring at our neighbors house. Half hour later, same thing. So I open the door and hubby says "go back inside, lock the doors". Ok then. So I lock the door and procede to breastfeed by sleepy hungry baby.
I just begin and hubby barges in "go now to my mom's. Get dressed! The police are on their way and I want you two to be safe" As I am in my pjs. See I'd brought pjs and the clothes on my back down, nothing else, figuring I'd wear dirty clothes packing. But I got spit-up on me so my clothes were in the washer. So I go to at least put a bra on and hubby shouts "on the floor NOW!" So I drop. But I dunno, I've never dropped to the floor fearing my life before so I drop smack dab in the middle of the bedroom, door open, like a sitting duck. I realize this is dumb so I inch worm towards the bathroom which is more protected, more walls and pipes and stuff. And I wait. And wait. Praying. Of course my infant son thinks this is the coolest thing ever, it is past his bedtime and its time on the floor with mom! Let's wiggle and giggle and wiggle and giggle some more! Yippee!
So....I know little but... hubby was chatting with the neighbors and they all got sick of suspicious crap going on as they're all family folk, with kids. Two of the neighbors are detectives. See in that neighborhood every other house is a fireman, police, detective, that kinda thing. Literally. he detectives decide the police dept still isn't caring, they wanna protect their family. So they wait for the kid to walk out, knowing his friends I saw are coming back. They do and he walks out and the detective shouts "you don't live here, get out" as he'd actually talked to the owners just this week. THe kid's drugged out friends approach the detective, ready to jump him. So he draws his gun fearing for his life. That's when hubby told me to hit the floor since well, a standoff was in place inches from me.
The cops finally take it seriously since well, the detectives said ummm we need backup.
The kid said he'd been scammed, rented the place for 8,000$ a month. Seriously? Well I guess he's Native American, from the same tribe as our old neighbors. They get like $10,000 a month "free" for restitution or something. (Not prostitution, restitution. lol) so he seemed clueless that duh rent is not $8k a month.
So they told him to move out and his friends to never come back.
But I am sorry there is more to the story. It isn't just that the kid was rented the house by people that broke in and rented it to him. Which they did, as the kid said it was odd, the lock was lose. That doesn't explain everything else going on. They looked through the house (they = cops) and didn't find much but said the meter for electricity showed a lot of use. I'm thinking maybe he just sold all his drugs or whatever so that's why they found nothing.
So at 10pm when I can finally leave the floor, we went back UTH where all we can fear is a cranky bear. Yeah we have tweakers, even our neighbor's son has heroin-addict friends that are creepy critters. But I have taught most of them so if they're not too drugged out they say hi to me and ask how my mom, also their former teacher, is doing. I like my neighbors. Yeah one actually uses those leaf blowers to make his yard look like it is made of cement and not dirt, and vaccuums outside. Seriously. And then the firefighter smokes stinky cigarettes and his son blasts crappy death metal. And then the druggy kid, but he helps us shovel snow. And the old guy who is like 90 and walks to town every day. And the lady and her 98 year old mother, and their gaggle of random grandkids. And the cranky guy we call Hank Hill who has lumber in his driveway, collecting black widows. And the other cranky family, Mac-something that yell at us and pick up our garbage in our yard after a bear scrounging. I mean that's nice they pick it up before I get to it but they do it because they think it is their yard and they do it like "those trashy neighbors putting garbage in our yard, F$^& it I'm picking up their crap and they better apologize."
But at least I don't have to lay on the floor fearing my and my son's life as guns are drawn and sirens and flashy lights dance around the neighborhood.
No comments:
Post a Comment