One Year On...

Moving day for the neighbors...

We dubbed last winter, the “Winter of our Discontent”. We had shitty neighbors next door, mice running around in the ceiling, and a sewer pipe replacement at the height of out the 2014 snow season. That was heartbreaking, but we got the pipe replaced quickly.

However, our discontent didn’t end there. After winter, everyday that I cycled home from work filled me with mounting dread. I knew that the 7-10 teenaged thugs who lived immediately to our right would be chillin’ on the porch with two of the four infants with whom they shared the 3-bedroom house. These people scared me—the one we privately dubbed ‘Gun Shot’ had a healed gunshot wound; ‘Klepto’ was a proud serial shoplifter, and ‘Herpes’ was quite vocal about her affliction, and ‘Teen Pregnancy’ was a pregnant teen. I never claimed that we were clever.

Our porch and bike...

To lighten the burden of their presence, hubby and I were always cordial to them—whether they were interested or not. ‘Hello’, ‘how’re you doing’, ‘Good afternoon’, that sort of thing. They almost always responded—when they weren’t making hard faces or plotting their next crime, that is.

After over a year, the inconsistent rental payments finally got to be too much for their slumlord, and he finally evicted them. They moved—but not before breaking into our house—and others on our street (there are a few new Vivint signs on our street today), and completely trashing the one in which they lived.

The week when they began moving out I stood on my front porch pruning my flowers and several of the neighbors poured out of the front door. They were accompanied by a cloud of stench. They put some bags on their own porch and flocked back inside. Seeing the luggage I excitedly snapped a picture and ran inside to tell hubby what I suspected. My long-term dream was to come true.

Adorable houses on a relatively quite street, near work.

Well, they’ve been gone for a few months. The community has noted the changes. The number of rats that lived under their porch has dwindled from a million to none. The trash that I pick up each weekend is greatly diminished, there’re fewer neglected dogs per-capita on our block, and most importantly I don’t dread turning onto our street and pedaling my bike those last few feet to our front door.

Today, we have our adorable house, on a relatively quiet street near work. Things are lookin’ up!