The worst neighbor

Ugh.  Wierd stew today. 

Sick.  Depressed.  Party Machine neighbors have been going since 2 PM.  I don't get it. 

The house is owned by 2 senior women.  An older man (60's plus) also lives there.  I have seen one of the old ladies walking a small child into the house. 

Normally they have 2 sedans and a grey pickup.  All is well when it's just them.  The gold pickup is the party machine.  When the kids who owned it rented the house, they'd leave the vehicle open with the stereo blasting, then open the front door of the house. 

They live on a bayou.  The mosquitoes have been horrific this year - I got bit 10 times last night just bringing in the trash can!  I can only imagine the interior of the home, if they're still doing that. 

I think they get home after school and do the music until the seniors come home, then turn it off.  I believe they are in college ot tech school.  They don't work, always have weekends off, maybe they got a student loan.  Or maybe the seniors are carrying them.  I don't know, and I don't really care. 

Anyway - RUDE.  Very rude.  I don't do anything that affects the whole neighborhood in a negative manner.  Ron did call the homeowner's association to send them another letter.  Hopefully that'll help. 

It's always something, though, with neighbors in general.  Either they have loud kids, or invasive kids, or loud stereos.  They're dealing drugs, or living on welfare (old neighborhoods).  I guess my favorite was the lady at the Crackhead apartments. 

The Crackhead apartments are very near work.  We lived there for that reason.  Ron did not want paratransit service at the time, so we had to be within bus and walking distance of work, 24 hours a day. 

I knew it would be bad the first time we visited.  I saw a filthy mattress covering the broken out window of a ground floor unit.  In the year we stayed, the unit was never repaired.  The ground was littered with empty syrup bottles. 

Back then, "Purple Drank", also known as "Slow" was very popular.  People put coedine cough syrup into fruit flavored sodas and drank the entire bottle in one night.  It was a depressant. "It makes me feel very slow and relaxed" one user said. 

I knew about the drug dealing in the complex, at least 3 dealers for about 100 units.  I kept my head down, and after my initial report to a scoffing landlady, and the resultant lecture from her on "snitching", I kept my mouth shut. 

I was very glad Ron and I lived on the third floor, even though the staircase wobbled alarmingly as we climbed it.   The apartment itself had some water leaks, through the brick and siding.  Some kind of electrical, too, I forget what, but I worried about it burning us all down. They were pretty good on smaller maintenance issues, though.  The apartment, a one bedroom, our first with a fireplace.  We liked that.  The rent was pretty cheap. 

However, we had a problem.  Houston apartments are built in the "many small building" styles.  That way, if one catches on fire the landlord only has to repair 10 units or so.  So you'll find clusters of buildings in most apartment complexes.  It's sensible. 

The unit next door was a townhouse unit - two story townhouses, one story below us.  The lady across the staircase used to take her used diapers and throw them onto the roof of the other unit.  You'd see dozens of them accumulated.  Then it would rain [gag]. 

I have to say she was probably the worst neighbor.  She used to leave bags of trash outside her unit, and throw the diapers on the roof of the next building.  She did this in front of us, like it was a totally normal activity to throw the diapers on top of the other building.  She didn't always make it, either, and the diaper would hit the sidewalk and begin to unravel...

Always use your cane!   I told Ron.  He would be able to feel, and go around, the diaper if he touched it with his cane.  If he didn't he might have stepped in it.  He never did. 

I used to see huge canisters of presweetened, instant, iced tea. I think the kids only drank that. 

One day the mother showed up at my door, it was about 11 at night, with a screaming baby.  She shoved him into my arms and said "Take him for a while." 

So I stood there with a 4 month old in my arms.  I burped him (he needed it) and took off the shirt.  I figured a baby wouldn't care if he saw me in my bra for a minute.  I changed, got a towel, put it in my shoulder, and picked him back up.  He was crying fretfully. 

"His cousin hit him in the head with a [hard toy], while he was sleeping." The mother told me when she picked him up.  He did seem OK. 

It was nice to "visit" with a baby for an hour or so, and I was happy to give him back.  The mother told me her sister had just died.  Sis had 4 kids.  So instead of parenting one child, she had 5.  "I won't leave them in the system" she said.  "But my caseworker is all over me [about education]." 

The mother was expecting, I think, to just live off the welfare as she raised the kids, and the state was saying "That's not going to happen."  She kept flinging the diapers, and I didn't see much of her after that. 

I did see a card on our door one day to call child services.  We did.  She had apparently skipped town and they hoped we had some insight into where she might have gone.  I said no. 

That was that.  Then I had the duplex pervert.  He lived on one side of the duplex.  Ron and I were on the other. 

He worked at the plant, where we do.  One night I cleaned the litter box and took it out to the trash can outside.  As I came out, the neighbor bolted from his position right outside my bedroom window.  "I was checking for wasps" he said. 

It was late at night.  He began stammering out excuses as I gave him the look.  "From now on," I told him "Let the landlord handle the wasps.  I don't want you outside my bedroom again for any reason and next time I'm calling the police." 

When I went back in, I adjusted the blinds.  I had them slightly open so the cats could look out.  I fixed that.  Silly me, I assumed no one would look in the window.  I don't think he could have seen anything, though.  Since he worked nights the worst he could have done is try to peek in at night on his days off. 

Ick.  It's a good thing I knew where he worked. 

We actually went back to the old duplex area a few weeks ago.  4 cars now live where I did.  I wonder how they like it.  It's just a 2 bedroom, and the second bedroom is very tight.  The zipcode is rampant with sex offenders.  I wouldn't suggest any woman or child live there. 

I wonder if the second bedroom still floods when it rains. 

This is a very long post to state the obvious: there is always a neighbor problem.  It may be a noise issue, like party machine vehicles. 

I told Ron "If they're in college they didn't get to do spring break.  So I guess they're having it here."  I could see them doing that - a couple of days of loud drinking and music in the subdivision, instead of somewhere fun. 

The worst neighbor, though, would be the thoughts in my head when I'm having to tolerate other human's imperfections. 

Heather!  It's not heaven!  Suck it up!