the neighbors moved
My house is a three home unit. There are three living units side by side, each with a third of the porch, a third of the yard, and the same amount of space, more or less. Our unit is at the south end of the house. For much, much longer than we’ve lived here, the residents of the north end of the house were unchanged.
I don’t really know much about them. There seemed to be quite a lot of them, and they seemed to have some kind of gig delivering newspapers. They had six vehicles: one sedan, three vans, and two trucks. One of those trucks might have been more of an SUV. I think it was a Suburban. These were always parked on our street, taking up a lot of space. This alone did not endear the neighbors to the neighborhood.
Maybe this is why they always seemed mostly angry or sullen.
The north third of the house is in fairly awful repair. It needs sanding, painting, and general attention to likely points of minor structural failure. Some of this wasn’t visible because of the large amount of random stuff filling their third of the porch. The back yard was also full of stuff like (multiple) lawn mowers, grills, pieces of wood, and other random debris. Lately, this ceased to be an issue when the yard was allowed to grow totally unchecked for about a year. The weeds are about five to seven feet high, now.
The neighbors have moved away. In doing so, they removed a window from the house to take out furniture. They covered the opening with a trash bag.
The other day, someone came to serve an eviction notice. There was talk of the Awful Smells that were inside the house. (“Did they have… cats?”) I have thought of leaping into the yard, clad in long pants and gloves and maybe a Tyvek suit, just to cut down the weeds a few feet. Then I imagine what might be living in them and decide against it.
I’m worried about who will purchase the home. It is in awful repair, so it won’t be bought by someone who wants a ready-to-live house. I would be surprised if someone buys the house to flip it, because the market for homes is awful. Nobody can get a mortgage to buy a newly-flipped house. Will someone who really doesn’t care about their home buy it because it will go on the market at some ludicrously low price? That’s also a dreadful thought.
No matter what, it is unlikely that things will get worse. After all, there’s plenty of room to park, now.