And now get your crap out, too.

So a few Thursdays ago I called in sick to preemptively head off a really nasty bout of flu.  I was feeling human by about noon, so I set about fixing the window (pins had sheared off so it had to stay locked), and then going over to chat with the neighbors.

While I was there, Josh pulled in to the driveway, followed closely by Kevin (the landlord).  They had come to an agreement on Josh getting his crap out of the apartment, and Kevin came over to chat about the state of things.

Josh has one month (until October 18) to get his crap out of the apartment.  We all have keys to the front door, and Kevin asked if I could possibly let them in if I happened to be home.

"So, you want to fix up the downstairs apartment?"

I laughed.  "All depends on the terms."

"Well, let me know what your terms are, and we'll make it happen."

I told him I'd have to look over the place, see what it all looked like, and come up with it.  He had places to go, so I said I'd watch them take stuff out of the place for the day.

The neighbors told me they were told Josh got a DHS rental place out on a back road somewhere in town, and he was just moving everything out as soon as he could.

I came back home with Sam on Friday to find the front door wide open, along with the front door of Josh's apartment, and so sign of Kevin.  I walked around the building with Sam, and saw a ladder leaned up against the back of the house.

I was pretty sure it was Josh, and I texted Kevin.  He told me to call the police if I felt like it.  I texted Josh instead, asking if it was him, or if I needed to call the cops about a break-in.

Around 11:30 that night, I get a phone call from Josh.  I didn't answer, but texted him that it was late and I had Sam.

He called again.  Twice.

I answered the second one.  He asked me if I'd called the cops, and I told him I hadn't, as I'd figured it was him.

He asked me if I'd be around that weekend, so he could move more stuff.  "I'll be there at like 8am - gotta get it all out."

I'd thought about doing stuff with Sam, but figured we could both use just a mellow weekend and agreed I'd be hanging around the place to watch the moving.

He stood me up - never showed.

After some discussions with Kevin, I went in to the apartment to make sure everything was locked down, including taking the air conditioner out of the window (which I how I think he got in before).

He hasn't been around, except to pick up mail, since.  I sent him a text to get him to commit to getting his stuff out, but haven't heard.

I gave Kevin my offer based on the condition of the apartment, and what needs to be done.  His girlfriend has taken over management of the apartments, and we talked about my offer.  Rent same as what I'm paying now, end of the year to make the change, and I would hand over my apartment in perfect condition and repair the downstairs apartment on my own schedule for cost of materials.

She's hesitant about the rent, and she told me they'd let me know by the 18th.  So now we wait and see.

And STAY OUT!

So I got a text from the landlord shortly after the window incident, asking how long it had been since Josh and crew had been here.  I told them I hadn't seen them since the window incident, and they hadn't spent the night since I put the locking plate on the power outlets.  He said that was good to know, and he was going to chat with his lawyer about the possibilities from there.

On Monday the 8th (yeah, I've been delinquent about updates, sorry), as I was coming home, I got a text from my landlord telling me he changed the locks and warning me to keep an eye out for things downstairs.  "Curious to see how long it takes them to realize they've been locked out.  That will help with my case for evicting them."

I asked him if he wanted me to speed up the process by telling them, and he said no, he wanted to see how long it took them to find out.

Three hours later I hear screaming out in the front yard.  I look out the window and there's the minivan, with Josh screaming into the phone at somebody, spelling out his last name.

"And I can't get in to my fucking apartment.  My landlord changed the goddamn locks!  I live here!  A...u...g.."

I texted Kevin about the blowup in the driveway, and then I saw the cops arrive.  Great, I thought.  One last go-round with the police over Josh going batshit in the driveway.

But no.  After the conversation went on for a bit, it turned out he called them.  "I mean, I didn't want to just kick in the door without you here.  The address is on my driver's license - that's my mail in the box.  I live here!  This is my apartment!"

I texted Kevin that he'll be getting a phone call soon, and Kevin told me he'd already called the cops and was waiting for them to call him back.

The police politely told Josh that this was a civil matter, and that if he wanted entrance into the apartment he needed to either call the landlord or call a lawyer.  And with that, they all left.

I told Kevin I was going to start locking the front door, and get Mary a key to do laundry.  Apparently Josh's mother told him about the lockout to simply rub it in his face, and I was worried about how things were going to go from here on out.

More later...I promise to get everyone up to speed.

The cleanup kinda sorta begins

In one of those "ain't life funny" coincidences, the Mayor's Corner column in the Pennysaver newspaper (yes, I read it) mentioned two things that caught my eye - tree suggestions (in front of my apartment, please and thank you), and also strengthening the Village Code for "unkempt properties".

"It hardly seems fair that the 97% of people who take pride in their homes should have to put up with those 3% who don't."  The plan itself will be developed over a period of several months.

I disagree with the Mayor's numbers - in the Village, at least, I think even a 90/10 might be generous. And I say that living in one of the properties that has LONG been a massive thorn in the side of any sense of aesthetics for the Village.

My contribution to maintaining decency has been the back yard.  It's been a long project, and finally looks good.  I get lots of compliments on it from complete strangers, which is always nice.

The front yard I had no control over due to the downstairs neighbors.  It has always looked like a pit, with divots and trash and general obnoxiousness when they're out there.

But with Josh and company finally looking like they are really really gone, and the success of getting the side yard finally cleaned up, my next door neighbor has been making subtle suggestions about how the front yard would look so much nicer with a little weeding.

So I've been weeding.  Leaving the daisies that I absolutely hate, because I don't want to get into a full reconstruction of the front yard yet.  But a few of them are coming back, and it really is improving the look of the place.

But there's a lot to be done.  Some final foundation work, the back section final repairs, gutter work, etc.  I don't know how much of it will finally get done before the snow hits, but I'll make the progress, and keep a sharp eye on the Mayor's column.  Living right by the path, I'm sure we'll be on the radar screen soon enough.

File under "massive miscalculation"

So I missed one very important detail about Josh and the apartment of late, which is how he's been getting in.  He lost his key at one point or another, and he's been climbing in through a window he leaves perpetually cracked in the living room.  I'd missed this, since I don't make a habit of watching him walk into the house, but I had it pointed out to me by the neighbors.

I've been working this past week, so I haven't been home during the day.  However, Wednesday when I got home there was a green card in the door from CPS informing him that they "missed" their scheduled appointment that day and to please get in touch with them Thursday or Friday.  He's been cleaning like a fiend the past few days I've been at school, but there's only so good that place is gonna get.

Thursday I ended up responding to a couple of work emails and got bogged down, so I resolved to spend the morning doing work from home that needed to be done.  As I was in the kitchen getting a second cup of coffee, I heard a crashing sound.

I looked out the window, and a car had just pulled into the driveway.  The woman from CPS I'd spoken with was getting out, along with a large, burly, bald man.  Josh's van was in the driveway - I'd missed him coming in, but he couldn't have been here that long.

I sipped at my coffee and stayed at the window.  I was ready to head out, but couldn't with the way that CPS and Josh were both parked in the driveway.  And I didn't want to miss this.

However, I didn't have to wait long.  CPS was in the apartment a grand total of three minutes before they went back out to their car, got in, and left with a great deal of haste.  Josh slammed the door, got back in his van, and blasted a rap tune as he rolled out of the driveway.

I went down to my car and headed off to school - I had Parent Information Night for Leadership Academy that evening, and I was prepped for a long night at school.

Around 7pm, I got a text from my next door neighbor's daughter showing a window from my building tipped off the track and falling inside.  "Send these to the landlord.  We called the cops, but they can't do anything."

"Holy crap!" I texted back.  After a few texts, the group of parents I had in the library moved on to a different section of the school, and I was able to call.  Turns out Josh had knocked the window off-track while climbing in frantically to beat CPS to the door so they didn't have to watch him break in.  I'm guessing the three-minute visit didn't go well, and that's why he stormed off without fixing the window.

"Can you fix it?  No one can get in touch with the landlord."

I'm at parent night for at least another hour, I told her.  I can't do anything.

"Well that sucks.  Any ideas?  That busted window is really freaking my mom out."

I told her I'd leave the landlord a message at his DJ gig that night, and I'd take a look when I got home.

I finally made it home about 9:30, and found the window was back on track and pushed into position.  That's odd, I thought.  So I texted the daughter, and told her it seemed to be fixed.

"Yeah, his mom came down after the landlord called her.  She shoved it back into place while he watched.  She just doesn't want to be charged for broken stuff."

I don't blame her, I said.  I'll keep you posted if I see anything else.

I was about to go up to my apartment, when something occurred to me.  Closed.  For the first time in recent memory...

I pushed up against the window.  Locked.  Solid.  As were all the other windows.

Well, that should quiet things down here for a bit.  A serious miscalculation that could make the drama take a turn.

Epilogue - they did stop by today, but only to get their mail.  Should certainly be interesting to see where it all goes from here.

Well, that was some excitement...

So this morning actually started in somewhat quiet.  One of the neighbors was going to file a CPS report on the downstairs neighbors, and I initially agreed to go talk with them as well.  My plan was to go talk to the police about CPS report, then go in to school for a few hours to deal with the piles of textbooks I know are waiting for me.

But I had to make a few school-related phone calls first, and by the time she texted me to say that she was at the police station, I was in a position where I couldn't leave.  I texted her best of luck, and that I'd pop on over to the station to corroborate the bits of her report about the foulness of the apartment and other kid issues.

Shortly after that text, all hell broke loose downstairs.  Fighting, yelling, slamming doors...I looked out the window to see Katelyn walking down the sidewalk with a double stroller and the two kids, shouting back at Josh that SHE was going to go for a bit.

"Get the FUCK back here, bitch!  Get your ass back here with my kids!"

There was an altercation behind the trees I couldn't see, and some shouting, then Josh pushing the stroller roughly over the edge of the embankment.  "Not like you have anywhere to fucking go anyway, bitch!"

Katelyn comes walking back down the sidewalk dragging the other two kids.  "Not like you do either.  And good luck passing a drug test to get a job, ya fuckin pothead."

And at this point, I'm calling the cops.

"911 dispatch, Genesee County"

I tell him my name, address, and explain the situation about the domestic disturbance I saw.  I indicate there are four children involved, and that there's a chance the male involved is stoned out of his mind.  (Given the smell of the hallway for the last couple of weeks, it's likely.)  I say Josh's name, and at that point he cuts me off.

"Josh.  Got it.  Officers are on their way."

Dear Lord, I thought.  When you're on a first name basis with 911 dispatch...

Someone else arrived shortly afterwards (older woman, not sure who), and the police arrived shortly afterwards.  One LeRoy PD, and two State trooper SUVs.

"Hey there, Josh.  Everything ok?"

Josh and Katelyn laughed it up for the officers.  "We had a brief dispute in the hallway, but we're fine now."

There was some other discussion, and they said they were going to stay with friends over on North Road.  The officer smiled, waved, and sat in his car, and waited for them to pack their stuff and leave.  All three cars waited.  And I watched.

It was possibly the most painful packing session I'd ever seen.  Drawn out, having to pretend for the audience...LeRoy PD leaving just before they did, but I'm certain to sit and see if they actually went to North Road.

I got a call from the person making the report, and told her I'd called the cops about Josh and Katelyn.  "That was what that was?!?!"  Then she told me the officer had just gotten on the phone with CPS when the scanner blew up about a domestic dispute involving drugs, were there weapons, we don't know, but we know the person involved, bring backup and lots of it...

He'd handed her the phone and said, "I gotta go.  Can you finish this?"

CPS said they were sending out someone, and she gave them my name as a contact to corroborate the story.  I said I would happily do that, but had to run downstairs to talk with Savannah about what was going on.

I spoke with her a bit about the electric issue, and about the cops, and CPS, and to be careful because Josh was out of his mind of late...and then CPS showed up.

They couldn't enter the apartment without Josh or Katelyn being there, but they saw the piles of trash and smelled the apartment from the foyer.  I couldn't corroborate a lot of the screaming incidents (I'd been doing Oliver at the time and was gone a lot in the evenings in July), but did say I could smell the apartment through my floors and I did call the police about the domestic incident.

She gave me her number, and I gave her Wendi's number about possibly gaining apartment access if necessary.  I got a card and number and was told to call if they showed up again.

Josh appeared a couple of times very briefly during the day, going in and out quickly and leaving.  He hasn't been here since 3:30, and I had a great visit with the next door neighbors over all the crap that's been going on.  (One neighbor mentioned how bitter she was that I was gone so much during July, being a mandated reporter.  I missed much of the yelling and awfulness.)

They also mentioned last night Josh was acting strange.  (I went to bed early and missed most of it.)  He was lurking around the edges of the house, and wandered next door.  The general consensus was A - stoned out of his mind, and B - looking for an outside power outlet.

So at this point...I don't know.  I have to go to Professional Development tomorrow - this is not an option.  So I'm trusting all will go well, and nothing truly crazy will happen.  I'm going to put a small piece of duct tape on the door so I can tell if anyone has been there.  So we'll see.  Either way, I think we're reaching an end...

The shouting will continue for some time, it seems...

So I stopped in to see Kevin at his bar gig on Thursday night - partially to check in, partially because Thursday had been one of those nights on a personal level that I just had no interest in going directly home to deal with the crap that awaited me there.

Kevin was pissed about the whole situation.  He's had to deal with lawyers (he may have mentioned Legal Aid representing the reprobates, but I may have misheard him).  He also told me that the electric had been shut off, but it immediately reverted back to him, so Rick (one of his go-to guys) took care of it.  My guess is that involved flipping the big switch under the meter.

So I came home at an ungodly hour that evening, but Friday I heard some major items moving in the hallway, but ignored it in a "I don't want to deal with this crap right now" kind of way.  So I went downstairs later, and found the washing machine moved around, and this:

Which that cord lead to this:

So they shuffled and unbalanced the washing machine to plug in their outlet into the apartment.  Great, says me. Quick trip down to the basement to trace cables, and....yeah, that's on my tab.

At this point, I decide I am now officially done with this crap.  I will NOT pay their electric bill.  So Saturday, morning, I went down to Home Depot and bought two lockable outlet covers, one big enough to accomodate a pair of plugs, and one that is a straight cover.  Here's the expanded cover:

And here's the straight cover:

Megan (downstairs back neighbor) came over to do some laundry, and I asked her about yesterday.  She said her sister Savannah actually was going to do some laundry, but the washer didn't work, and she was forced to move it to swap the plug, since it was in a dead outlet in that outlet box.

I put in the first cover, and then it occurred to me I should have someone watching out as I unplugged the extension cord and put on the second cover.  I walked down to Kevin's to see if he was home - he wasn't.  

As I walked toward the driveway, I was passed by Josh in his minivan.

Crap, I thought.  My window is gone. Unless I want a confrontation.  Which I might.

However, he only grabbed the mail and took off.

I recruited Megan to keep a lookout as I installed the lock.  We talked about the past history of Josh and company, including how they ran up Mary's power bill for the Christmas inflatables a few years back, and a few other choice tidbits.

I got the panel on, thanked Megan, and went out to go visit a friend.  But before I went, I printed out the NYS Penal Code 165.15 (Theft of Services) and posted it on their door, with the parts about electrical service highlighted.

As I pulled out, Josh pulled back in.  I paused for a moment around the block, then decided I had to go back, if nothing else, for the sake of my pets if he got really pissed.

Nothing.  Extension cord gone, notice gone.  So I left.

Sunday night, coming home, I got a text from Josh.  "Did you leave that note on our door?"

I pulled over.  "Yes.  Just so we have an understanding if you decide to mess with the locked electrical boxes."

"What I use it for a lite so I can see so I can pack my shit."

Bullshit, I think.  You're running your fridge.  And frankly put, I don't care.

"Use a flashlight."

I pulled into the driveway about 20 minutes later, then went over to chat with the neighbor.  They're disgusted with the situation as well, and I told them about the electrical situation.  So we'll see.

Josh's car is in the driveway, but it's quiet right now.  We'll see where it goes from here.

Tuck pointing - the not-so-Zen art of Foundation repair

So, now feeling a little more comfy with concrete and mortar and how they work, I was ready to try tuck-pointing the foundation.

Tuck-pointing is scraping out the old mortar from between the stones, and replacing it with new mortar using a pointing tool.

Honestly, I pictured a very Zen and relaxing time of stuffing mortar into cracks while considering life, and what it meant to fix foundations and what that might mean for my own existence.

The process, however, was not very Zen at all.  Let me list why:

*  Mortar mix is sold by the 80 lb bag.  Until purchasing it, I thought that meant 80 lbs once you add the water.  No - they are 80 lb bags of basically sand.  And HEAVY.

*  Mixing mortar is a very unforgiving process.  Cement is a fairly easy mix - back and forth with the hoe as you mix in the cement and rocks and such.  Mortar is a very fine powder that really doesn't like to mix without a LOT of effort.

*  Concrete and mortar are very reactive to the human skin.  And the rubber gauntlets I started out with are starting to stink.

* Foundations are on the ground.  Which makes logical sense, but you don't think about all the positions you have to contort yourself into in order to shove this play-doh like substance into cracks.  And stay there.

So it's a long process.  Here's what the wall looked like before I started:

The section to the right required the tuck-pointing tool to get the mortar in between the bricks:

However, once it changed from brick to fieldstone, I discovered the tuck-pointing tool was useless for getting mortar in the cracks, and it had to be squished in by hand.

And this is how it looks once dry:

I have been doing this around the entire house this summer.

So what have I learned about foundation building?  In my not-so-Zen meditations while getting this done?

Foundation building is hard.  It hurts.  It is uncomfortable.  And there are NO shortcuts.  Slog, patch, slog, and patch some more.

There are worse lessons to take away.  More philosophy later.

Foundation repair - actual foundations, not metaphorical

Foundation repair is not sexy.  No one ever says, "Oh, I LOVE what you've done with that foundation!"  It's true.

On the other hand, if you don't do simple foundation work, your house will end up in the creek while tumbling down the hill.  The house already shifted about seven years ago, enough to crack the windows.

The need for repair presented itself during the great battles last year.  There had always been a huge pile of crap in the back area by the basement entrance.  Part of clearing things up last year was getting rid of it slowly, and Dan trying to take credit for it after getting the first of two dumpsters last year.

The problem with clearing away the trash is that we got to see what was behind the trash.  And it was not pretty:

It stayed that way through the winter, which made me nervous, but it seemed to still be pretty solid(ish), and I told myself I would deal with it this summer.

The challenge again was getting Josh to stop tossing his crap back there.  In April it was literally trash, and then the bikes.  When I started working, I moved the bikes to the side of the house, told Josh I was working on that back corner, and he couldn't just toss crap back there.  "Whatever," he said.  

So part of the plan was disassembling the brick part of the wall (behind the tarp), and leaving those parts and pieces scattered across that section of the yard after the bikes got moved.  Nothing says "I'm working here" like strewn bricks, and other than the one issue I mentioned here, it's stayed clean.

The other issue that worried me more after looking at the corner was the foundation of the rest of the house - there didn't seem to be a whole lot of anything holding the fieldstones together.

Yeah.  This can't be good.

So I do some research on foundations and foundation walls, and discover the solution for this is something called tuck-pointing.  It means digging out any powdery remnants of mortar, mixing new mortar, and pressing it into the gaps with a pointy tool.  

As a test of working with concrete (which I haven't for about ten years or so), I decide to first put in a clothesline pole to see how I do with it. 

That seemed to go well.  And now I don't need to use the dryer until fall.  (Which is good, because I finally realized the vent doesn't actually vent outside, but directly down onto the furnace.  Gotta add that to the list...)

After that, I decided to fill the hole in the back wall that was stuffed with clothes.  After some thought about how to take care of it, I decided to level it off with concrete, then fill it with bricks to practice mortar application.

Board drilled into the existing concrete.  It held!

No one is ever going to mistake this for the work of a master mason.  But that's not what I'm going for here.  I'm going for the "not held together by footie pajamas" look, which frankly put, this will work fine.

The face of the wall will be concrete, as soon as I get to setting that funky-angled wall (which is a facing, it turns out - actual structural foundation is about six feet in).

Tomorrow, I'll write about tuck-pointing, with maybe a bit of philosophy about what I've learned from building foundations.

All over but the shouting

So they were here for a bit this morning, and then took off.  I took Sam back to his mom for an appointment, and they were gone when I got back.

I decided to get started again on foundation tuck pointing again, and after shoveling out some of the wall, and going upstairs to get coffee, I ran into Kevin and Barb downstairs.  Kevin was putting up the eviction notice, and we chatted for a while about the difficulties of being a landlord and the frustrations of the whole situation.  He mentioned that if they drag it out, it could take up to six months unless it can be proven that they've got somewhere to go, and that could complicate things.

Barb also talked me up to Kevin (everyone still thinks I'm moving downstairs - I'm still really not sure, for a variety of reasons) to see what sort of a deal I could get for downstairs, but I'm still not hiring the mariachi band yet.

Kevin asked about the washer power, and I told him one of the outlets ran off mine, but I wasn't sure which one.  I also said I'm sure that everyone could live without the washing machine for a bit if it meant they were gone.  He texted Wendy to let her know to cut the power as soon as she could.

Kevin left, accompanied by his girlfriend (I think), and Josh and company showed up ten minutes later.

They came rolling in at top speed, with Josh pulling the notice off the door, and getting the kids inside.  The rumor was that they were just waiting for the eviction notice to get the ball rolling at DSS for assistance, but I wasn't sure.

I finished with the wall, and moved around to the front, where I heard Josh ranting at his dad.  "They can't make me go!  I'm not going anywhere.  I'm not gonna get ripped off."

I decide this is the best time to go and get more mortar mix.  This is going to drag out and I'm going to have another four to six months of this bullshit...

Barb calls me over as soon as I pull in the driveway.  Josh talked with Kevin, and he's getting out as soon as DSS comes through.  I told her about what I heard him say before I went to go get concrete, and tell her I'm still not hiring the mariachi band yet.

I took Dante for a walk, and coming back, got motioned over by Emily, Barb's daughter.  "Hey, got some bad news for you."

I laughed.  "I knew it.  Too good to be true."

She nodded.  "So get this.  DSS is going to find them a place to live.  They will get an ungodly amount of food stamp money, cash assistance, and gas vouchers so Josh can find a job."

"Ummmm...this is bad news how?"

She looked at me.  "Aren't you pissed they're getting all this?"

"They're still leaving, right?  That's really what I care about right now."

So the upshot is that they're here until DSS finds them a place.  (Not sure what this means for the power, but that's not on my list of concerns.)

Does this mean they're going to take out the rotting trash?  Or how fast they're clearing out?  I have no idea.  But is means there is an end in sight.  Somewhere.  How soon is anyone's guess, but I'm hoping sooner rather than later.

And continuing...

Yeah, no such luck on the whole "they're gone" bit.  They showed up last night, spent the night, and left this morning.  Not sure if they've been back.  I know they had at least one of the kids with them, which turns my stomach, since I wouldn't have left Dante alone in that apartment, much less a child.

Ewwww.  Further postings as warranted.

The continuing shamble toward the end....

In all the confusion about whether or not they had to be out, the next door neighbor finally took the direct approach.  When Josh was pulling in to the driveway on Sunday last week, Barb called him over and asked him directly what was going on, since she'd been hearing rumors.

"We gotta be out 'cause my mom won't pay the fucking rent.  Bitch.  Doesn't do a damn thing for her grandkids."

So you're out.  Where will you go?

"Yeah, I don't know.  We're gonna talk to my dad, see if we can move in with him out in Gates.  Haven't talked to him yet.  I don't have a job right now - we all got fired for some reason.  So who knows."

After Josh went back over to his house, she smiled.  "And that's how you find out what's going on."

Monday I saw the last person I expected to see in all this...Wendy.

She was throwing all the lawn furniture into the back of a truck as I was walking up the hill from walking Dante.  "All I still have in there is a pair of shelves, and if I had a screwdriver I'd take them down right now."

I offered her use of a screwgun, but she declined.  "I need to get out of there anyway.  I'm gonna have to strangle somebody over there if I stay too long.  They're a bunch of crazy people.  She's a bitch.  I don't know how I'm going to deal with them - and you know I'm one of the most reasonable people around."

"Anyway, I told Kevin to write them an eviction notice and get them out.  We're done."

I was at work all week, developing curriculum, so I wasn't home during the day.  I got a message from Kevin on Tuesday morning, "So, are they out?"

"No idea - I'm at work.  Wendy said she was going to touch base with you about it all."

"Well - keep me posted.  I'm having car issues, so I've been staying with friends in Batavia the past couple of months so I can get to the gig at Settler's."

So I'm stuck on my own here.  Oh boy.

Tuesday night I'm walking Dante up the path, and a pleasant older woman (late 50s/early 60s) standing in the driveway asks me if I'm Josh.  I tell her no, I'm not.

"Where might I find him?"

He lives in the downstairs apartment, I tell her.

She knocks on the door while I'm walking up the stairs.  You can smell the pot pouring out of the apartment as Josh opens the door.  There is a mumbled conversation, and they head out to her van after she tells him, "It's raining, we can't do this outside."

I assumed at that point he was getting served his eviction notice, and hid upstairs.  It's been a crazy week for a variety of other reasons (work, etc), so I haven't been home all that much.  (Which of late, I honestly prefer.)

The entire weekend passes with no sign of them.  The neighbors told me he was making some sort of noise about squatters rights, and how he was going to fight the whole thing, but they also had a trailer in Chili that was being rented for them by Dan's ex-wife (the second child's grandmother - only rationale I can see for it).
Wendy came over on Sunday to ask me if I would pick up her mail, and also to show me the apartment so I could look at it and verify that it did NOT look like that when she lived there last.

Dear Lord, it turned my stomach.  Piles of rotten food.  Trash everywhere.  Holes in the walls.  Dirty clothes everywhere.  And the STINK.  Oh wow.

I told Wendy I would happily pick up her mail for her.  And I assured my neighbor that come Wednesday morning, if they're not around, I'll do a little breaking and entering to at least get the three festering bags of trash out to the curb in time for pickup.

Wendy said she's going to cut off the power on Wednesday.  So we'll see.  But at this point, I think they are actually really gone.

THIS time, they're really gone...right?

One of the great farcical pieces in this whole neighbor saga has been the rumor/likelihood/bold-faced lie that they will be moving ANY MINUTE NOW.  It hasn't happened yet, but the rumors are circling, and I think they might have a ring of truth to them this time.

The rumor first started after that disastrous first summer here (I never wrote about it?  Seriously?  Damn, I have some writing to catch up on...), when Kevin told them that if I said word one they were gone.  Words one, two, and several more have been said, and still they remained.

Every once in a while they would talk of moving, or Kevin would talk of evicting them.  It didn't help that they owe him an extraordinary amount of back rent (I have heard everything from 5K to 23K), so moving wasn't an option, and Kevin always pulled back from tossing them out.

Dan moving out last summer was a serious glimmer of hope that things would mellow out (and they would move out), but even once Wendy moved out to be with her boyfriend, Josh and family have remained, despite being a pain in the butt and not paying rent in a regular way.

Kevin said a while back he was NOT going to rent to them directly, and he's standing by it.  The incidents of the last blog seem to have solidified them leaving, but there is another complication - Kaitlyn had her baby.  Like, just now.  (she only looked five months along)

She's a cutie (very jaundiced), and they haven't figured out where they're going to go yet.  And with them being two teenage parents and FOUR kids now, they're going to have a hard enough time trying to find anywhere to live, even without the social niceties issues.

I also talked to Kevin and he said he didn't say Tuesday, so he has no idea where that came from.

But the "we have to move" came from Josh himself.  So we'll see.  More postings later, I hope.

And continued fallout from insanity yesterday

Everyone was gone pretty much all day today, so things were quiet.  The landlord texted me this evening to ask about what happened, and I told him that Josh pretty much just flipped out on Larry because he wanted him to move his car so he could mow the lawn.  I also mentioned the aftermath with the BB gun out the back window.  

"Classy," says the landlord.

He then tells me that Josh's mother, Wendi, is dealing with the crap with Larry.  I told Kevin I'd mention the BB gun thing to Wendi as well, and Kevin said that would be a good idea.

Wendi and I...well, I've blogged about her before.  See here for an example.  She's nuts.  Certifiably.  More importantly, she really hasn't lived here for the better part of a year.  Which has been good.  But I REALLY don't want to talk to her.

But I have to.  This can't pass.  So I text her about the BB gun.  I tell her it happened, and that "I choose to assume he couldn't see me and it wasn't intentional."

Text comes back.  "I just asked him.  It wasn't the BB gun, it was his paintball gun.  And he didn't see you - he would NEVER shoot at someone maliciously."

Immediate text follow-up: "I would like to know what happened to the outside toys, kitchen stuff that I had for the kids went.  I was told they are gone.  I would have liked to know what was going on so there wasn't an issue."

Oh I am SO not getting thrown under the bus for this one.  I asked Josh about them.  He said pitch them.  I told her as much.

"I would never throw anything out without checking with him first."

Response back: "It's all good.  Just was curious."

And on top of that, the trash can in the hallway is now CRAWLING with maggots from whatever he dumped in it (I'll spare you the pic for that one), and there is another bag of trash in the driveway.

Seriously.  Just happened like a half hour ago.  

So what it comes down to is that I need an exit plan.  As much work as I've put in to the back yard, as much as I'm going to do this summer...it's a rental.  I don't own it.  I have no serious stake in it, from that perspective.  And if I have no plans to buy it (and I know the landlord clearly has no plans to evict them), then I need a solid plan to get out of here.

In the meantime, however, I will work on compiling the stories.

I love the smell of BB's in the morning...smells like....

Growing up, and as a fully functional adult, one of the things I hate most of all is mowing the lawn.  Always hated it.  Waste of time, never looked right, drove me nuts.  Rider/push/old-school-spinny-blades-of-death - didn't matter.  So one of the things that I love about this place is that someone else mows the lawn.

Larry mows the lawn here (and for Kevin's other properties), and I try to do my best to clean things up when Larry gets here.  He beat me to the hose, but I cleared up the stuff down by the patio, the new clothesline, and eventually shuffled bikes.  Let me explain about the bikes.

One of the projects I'm doing is fixing the wall in the back.  (Other post about that later.)  One of the great challenges of that has been keeping the area clean, since Josh (my "teenager" downstairs neighbor, now 20) keeps dumping his crap in that back corner.  (Occasionally it's actual household trash, which is just foul, since he has a baby in diapers.)  I cleared out five bags of trash (after asking, and he declared it was trash - most of it this time was a kids plastic kitchen set that he'd left outside for the winter), and I piled the bikes over by the side of the house.  All eight of them in various states of repair.

So while Larry is mowing the lawn, I shuffled the bikes into a pile in the front yard, so he can mow the side yard.  I'm figuring that either Josh will move them back, or they'll just stay in the front yard.  No idea either way, and really not that worried.  

Josh's car is also parked in the front yard, and Larry goes to knock on the door to get Josh to move it so he can mow.  His wife answers, and says she's go get him up.  (It's 1:30 in the afternoon.  Just for the record.)

Larry points at the car.  "This isn't the driveway, ya know.  It's the yard.  Where the grass is and shit."  She nods, and goes inside.

So Josh comes out, and what I hear in the hallway is "I am not moving my fucking car!  And he can just put all those bikes back where they fucking were!"

He storms out and leans against the car, getting on the phone with someone (I'm assuming Wendy, his mother), and shouting into it.  "He's getting all up in my FACE!  Like I fucking need to jump when he says move the fucking car!  I'm not fucking doing it!"

The oldest daughter (she's five) comes out for a quick moment, then runs back in the house screaming from Josh yelling into the phone.

Larry is grumbling and shaking his head, "Well, if I have to put up with this shit I just won't mow the goddamn lawn here."  He shouts over at Josh when Josh starts ranting into the phone about the bikes in a pile, "I didn't even MOVE those goddamn fucking bikes!"

I decide this is the best time to go to Home Depot and get the concrete that I need to work on the back wall.  So I split quickly for Batavia, stopping at three different lawn sales, taking my sweet time, and finally getting the mortar and bricks I need to repair the back wall.

Upon getting back, the car is parked back in the yard, but the grass is short underneath it, and the pile of bikes is still in the front yard, along with a bunch of other crap.

(yeah, it's a bit of a tap dance to get into the house right now)

All being quiet, I decide to start some laundry before seeing how the bricks I measured for were going to fit in my attempt to fix the back wall.

The bricks fit (again, more on wall repair in later post - I will really try to make it interesting, I promise), and I went to get the laundry out of the machine to hang on the clothesline I installed out back a week ago.  

As I'm putting the laundry into a basket, Josh comes in from his car carrying the faux AK-47 BB gun he came home with a week ago (along with a paintball gun, which he shot at the back of the house and left orange paint on the wall that I hosed off.  In the area where the trash was.  There's a theme here...).  He had a pissed off look on his face.  I paused for a moment, heard continued silence, then took my laundry out to the line.

I'm about halfway through hanging it up when I hear what sounds like a tree branch breaking overhead.  I stop (the tree lost some major branches in the last windstorm), and I pause.  Then I hear it again, and see leaves exploding off of the tree right in front of me.  I instinctively crouch, and look for the source.

No....he can't be...is he seriously just shooting that thing out the back window?  He's not that stupid...

I go inside and bang on his door, and wait for a few moments.  Nothing.  No sound.  I shake my head, and go back out.

A couple of minutes later, and the leaves start exploding again.  I walk along the edge of the house, and shout up and the top of my lungs, "HEY!!!!  I'M WORKING BACK HERE!!!!!"

It stops.  I wondered for a moment if it was intentional, but scoped out the window later and realized he honestly couldn't see me from there.  He just wanted to shoot out the window at leaves to blow off steam.

I saw him on the path later on - he was coming up, and I was going to eat my dinner in the back yard.  He was carrying his middle son, who said, "Hi!"  (He's 2 and a half.  He's at that "HI HI HI HI" stage.)  Josh said nothing, taking a drag from his cigarette as he passed, in that unmistakable "I am too cool to talk to you" kind of drag.   

When I came back inside, I heard his wife screaming at him about the fact that he needs to get off his lazy ass and get some shit done around here.  (They've been married a little over a month now, and she's about five months pregnant with child number four.)

Given all that, I fully expected some sort of crap to happen tonight that was going to involve having to call the cops, but it's been quiet, for which I'm grateful.  Though I am idly curious to see how long the pile of bikes stays in the front yard.  And to see what tomorrow will bring.

Useful systems and tools for productivity

There are a million productivity tools out there on the market, most of which are useless.  I'm trying out a few of them while I'm also trying to change habits and kick-start a few things.  I'll share what I've been utilizing, and how it's been working.

There's a website called Zen Habits that has been leading the charge in habit formation.  Frankly put, most everything I've seen in the past year about habit formation seems to have stolen it outright from Leo, and he doesn't seem to care.  He's got a paid portion of the site called Sea Change (10 bucks a month) with special articles and a focus every month.  Last month was Getting Up Early (I failed to participate, plan on doing as a side project), and right now it's De-Cluttering.  http://Zenhabits.net

5 min Journal is an iPhone app I've been using - it's a Gratitude journal, remarkably uncomplicated, and really does only take 5 min per session (morning and evening).  I'm getting better about using it, and I'm trying to make it an every day thing.  It's a great way to start the day.

The 100 day challenge is a motivational program that is very direct and straightforward.  And the full program is...expensive.  Given my financial situation, I'm paying for as little as possible, but the motivational videos and other materials are great places to start.  I am setting my own "100 Day Challenge" that will bring me into the first month of school, so the idea of focusing on that long term is really helping me as well.

So those are the major ones I'm using right now.  I do get the regular emails from the Sethi brothers (Ramit and Maneesh), and I get a lot out of those, but those aren't so much systems.  Maneesh is working on a habit device called Pavlok, though a lot of his studies very closely mirror Leo's from Zen Habits, so I'm going to stick with Leo.  I've gotten some other reading suggestions that I'll talk about as well, and if anyone has any suggestions I'm open to them.

Second Foundation: Foundations for systems - cleaning and organizing.

I meant to write this post over a week ago, but Life got in the way, and I haven't had a chance to sit down and write.  Not a bad life getting in the way, just life.

I have always told myself that I thrive in disorder and chaos, but in the past few years that has simply not been the case.  I need order, and I haven't had very much of it around.  So part of the plan for getting things in order this summer is cleaning and organizing.  Streamlining systems so that things that take me WAY too long to figure out become automatic.

The good news about waiting a solid week before writing this is that I can talk about my success at de-cluttering and getting things organized.  I have re-claimed my kitchen for the first time in months.  I have reclaimed and put down the table in the living room.  I have reclaimed the new cabinet I got a few weeks ago that i'm going to use as a dry-sink area.

So my kitchen is now a space of relaxation, which I'm enjoying.  The catch is now to keep that system going to the rest of my apartment, and expanding it from there.  I need to apply the same de-cluttering principles to work as well.

So it's going fairly well so far.  All this decluttering will be worked on as time goes on, and I hope to have a somewhat civilized apartment within two weeks.  That is my goal, and I'm going to keep at it.

First Foundation: Food and Sleep

So apparently the Universe listens very carefully when you make proclamations like this.  And my body decided to focus on two foundations I don't do well at all:  food and sleep.

I felt off all of Tuesday, which I attributed to getting up early on a few hours of sleep.  I also didn't eat much during the day, and was therefore exhausted when I got home.  I planned to relax for a brief moment before heading off to play rehearsal that night at 6:45, which meant getting out of the house by 6:20.  Which meant sure...it's 5:30.  Sit for a moment.

When I opened my eyes, it was 6:55 and my head felt like it was in a dryer pitching around and around.  I emailed a quick apology on my phone to the director, staggered into the kitchen for some water, staggered back to bed, and passed out again until about 5:30 the next morning.

You would think that food and sleep being two of the basic necessities of life, I might have figured them out by now.  But no.  I tend to not cook, wolf down crappy food, and not really pay much attention to my diet.  I'll go through phases where I'll make some effort, but it doesn't stick.  Mostly due to time crunches and such.

So...having some time now this summer...my body has announced we are starting here.  Diet and sleep patterns.  So, here's the basis for the foundations of what I need to do:

• Sleep patterns for waking up early and going to bed at reasonable times

Summertime!!!!!  Sleep in!!!!!  Stay up all night!!!!!!

No.  If I'm going to make a habit out of this, I need to start it when I don't have to.  Which means keeping up getting up "early" starting out, or at least maintaining as time goes on. 

• Regular meal planning

This is where I fall down.  I don't make plans of what I'm going to eat, but come home and stare at the fridge with a "what do I want"?  And since I'm usually exhaused by not eating breakfast (and sometimes not eating lunch), I grab whatever crap happens to be in the fridge or go get slices of greasy pizza at Salvatore's here at school.  Utilizing Sunday as a shopping day and a planning day, I can prep and prepare a plan for the week, even pre-cooking and freezing stuff.  Especially with play rehearsals coming up, this will be an important thing.

• Breakfast.  And lunch.  And dinner involving green bits.

Yes, all three.  And Breakfast does not consist of only coffee.  I actually gave up coffee recently for about a month (stomach issues), but I'm back on a regular routine of a half-pot at home/car ride into work.  I'm guessing this has a lot to do with my energy levels being as low as they are.  I'm supposed to do a meal-planning course with my health insurance, so this would be a good one-two combination of stuff I should get done.

So there's a start.  I did fairly well yesterday: breakfast, lunch (oriental salad with chicken!), and dinner of an egg sandwich.  Today...not so much.  No breakfast, no lunch packed, and dinner is going to be a scramble again due to lack of planning.  So Sunday is going to be the first major meal planning exercise, and for the rest of the week I'm just going to try to see what the blocks are from making this a regular thing.

Alright.  Home to get dinner and run to rehearsal.  Maybe an egg sandwich...?

Building foundations

There are a great many proverbs about the necessity of a solid foundation to do any sort of work of consequence, and there is a lot of truth to that.  Without foundations, everything collapses.  And truth be told, I've been having a multitude of foundation issues.

The basics of human foundations is systems.  Systems and routines for the morning, getting going, doing quality work you want to get done, maintaining order, not getting bogged down in other people's minutae...and frankly put, at this point, I've got nothing.  My morning routine is shot, my meal routine is non-existant, my finances are a disaster, my social life is a farce, my creative work is non-existant, and my work schedule is unfulfilling and bogged down in everyone else's last-minute demands.

However, as a teacher, I am lucky in having a summer vacation.  I did not get summer school this year (application didn't get submitted correctly), which has turned out to be a blessing.  So, I'm going to do some foundation work.

In part of the case, that work is going to be literal foundation work.  The back wall of the apartment house is peeling off, and the rest of the foundation needs patching.  The mortar is crumbling away, and that's the reason the house has already shifted once about seven years ago.  And doing some inspection of things downstairs, the partial patching that was done in the back years ago seems to be holding. 

So my "summer job" (notably because amongst the financial wreckage is owing my landlord money) is going to be fixing and re-setting the back wall, along with patching the foundation.  I'd had a few "cosmetic" fixes in mind (new flooring in kitchen and hallway, where some of the sub-flooring seems to be loose, and also the main foyer hallway), but the foundation work is clearly the most critical.  Without the foundation in place, the entire house goes backwards into the creek.

In a similar fashion, much of my existance is headed creekward if I don't apply some fixes.  I'm 41, which is time enough to fix things, but nearing a critical point.  So I'll be identifying areas I'm working on, including:

• Creative
• Summer prep for school
• Financial
• Basic life areas (morning routines, cleaning, maintaining, etc)
• Relationships (ex and others)

As part of this shift, I'll be keeping track and blogging, since a great deal of personal change is accountability.  So the blog will be a little more active than it has been of late.

Alright - off to get ready for school, prepare for closing up the library for the summer (sort of - explanation of that later), and rehearsal this evening.  Long day ahead. 

The Flight of Driveway Guy

Driveway Guy's car blew a head gasket some time later (I heard all about it from Megan, who had to walk home five miles in the rain while he tried to finagle a tow), and the truck he'd been working on finally showed up in the driveway.

It was a compact truck, nothing like the jacked-up F-150 from before.  (This was the truck he parked on the back lawn and ran into the house, breaking the siding - on my list of summer projects.)  After a short period of time, he got a cap for it at well, though he was still sleeping in the cab.

He handed me a business card one day, with his cell phone number advertising his services as a "handyman".  "You need anything done, just let me know." 

I had hopes this was a sign for the positive - there was significantly less barf in the driveway, the handyman business seemed to be starting up, so I had hopes that maybe he was getting his life together.

The downside was, with the weather warming up, the usual crew of people hanging out with Driveway Guy was no longer limited to who could fit in his truck.  I started parking on the street after finding a beer can inside my car, which I distinctly remembered locking the night before. 

And then one day, driving home, I was passed by Driveway Guy heading the opposite direction at top speed and driving like his ass was on fire.  I pulled into the driveway, and looked down at the deep gouges in the driveway from where he'd clearly pulled out in a hurry.

He passed by the house slowly, but when he started to pull in, the door to Mary's apartment swung open, and Savannah, the younger daughter (16), came running out.  "I meant it, you goddamn fucking bastard!!!!!!!  I've got my phone RIGHT FUCKING HERE!!!!!"

A squeal of tires, and he was gone.

She looked at me, and I looked at her.  "Holy crap - what did he do?"

She glared at his tailgate as he sped down the road.  "Bastard stole my debit card and took out about 60 bucks.  Told him if I ever saw him here again I was pressing charges of breaking and entering and theft."

"That's serious."

"Yep.  And since he's still on probation...that's some serious jail time.  It's worth the 60 bucks to have him out of my sister's life.  I'm amazed you never called when he was smoking weed in the driveway."

I shrugged.  "If he'd been alone, I would have.  Megan was always with him."

She nodded.  "Well, he won't be coming back."

And he didn't.  Megan started seeing another guy a few months later, and I saw her in the foyer doing laundry.  She looked a lot healthier - no bags under the eyes, smiling - and I told her.

"Yeah, everyone was kinda worried about me.  But thanks."

I keep scanning the local paper to see if he shows up in the court rundown, but nothing so far.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.

Trusting Driveway Guy to Repair My Car

So Driveway Guy's previous occupation (other than meth dealer) was auto mechanic.  He worked at a local shop for a few months prior to actually moving in to the driveway, and he briefly mentioned to me at one point that if I ever needed work done on my Civic, he was a former certified Honda mechanic, and that he'd be more than happy to do what needed to get done.

About a month after that, as I was driving the inner loop to get off at St. Paul, I pressed on the brake, and the pedal went straight to the floor.  I used the emergency brake to get the rest of the way to school, got some brake fluid at a nearby auto shop, and limped the rest of the way home.

I rolled the car in, and tapped on Driveway Guy's window.  "I might have a job for you," I said.  "What do you know about brakes?"

He smiled.  "My specialty."

He had me re-fill the reservoir, and then pump the brakes.  He looked around at the underneath, and came up smiling.  "Yeah, the lines to the back brakes are split.  Easy fix - I can do it for you for about 140 bucks - huge savings on a shop."

I nodded.  "How fast can you do it?  I need my car to drive back and forth to work."

He paused.  "It's Friday.  I should be able to get the parts and have it ready for you by Monday.  I can even fix it right here in the driveway."

"Sounds like a deal," I said.  I was a little short of cash at the time, and a cheap repair sounded ideal. 

My next door neighbor thought I was nuts for entrusting my car to Driveway Guy, and told me so in no uncertain terms.  I told him I was broke, and if he could do it quick and cheap I was all for it.

"It's back brakes anyway," my neighbor said.  "You don't need them.  You want quick and cheap, just tie off the lines and do them right before your inspection."

That idea made me nervous, but so did the complete absence of Driveway Guy for the weekend.  He pulled in on Sunday, and I knocked on the car door.

"Oooooh...dude, right.  Ummmm...the lines are at a friend's house, and I had a really busy kinda day...so I didn't get a chance to get them.  I'll have them for you tomorrow."

I asked him if it would help if I stopped by a parts store and picked up the lines, and he said no, he's got them and it's ok.

In the meantime, however, I still had to get to work.  I quickly made a phone call to my ex/estranged/yeahitscomplicated wife, and asked if I could borrow her car for a few days.

She paused.  "Ummm...you can have it until Wednesday night.  I really really need it back then."

I also promised to run errands, and do whatever she needed done until then, since she'd be without a car.

Driveway guy was watching TV on his laptop when I came back down, and I told him I had a car until Wednesday.  "Can you get it done by then?"

He nodded.  "Sure, sure...absolutely.  Like I said, I can get the parts from my friend tomorrow, and I'll have it done for you most likely tomorrow."

This continued on for the next three days.  I'd get home from school, and Driveway Guy would have various laments, from needing to work on his own truck to the friend with the parts disappearing in a drug haze.  I spoke with a teacher at school about the situation, and he laughed at me for trusting Driveway Guy in the first place with my car.

Finally, I broke down and called a shop to find out what the cost of getting the brake lines replaced would be.

"About 85 bucks a line," the guy said, "assuming we don't find anything else wrong."

I returned the car to my ex, and finally gave Driveway Guy an ultimatum.  "Look," I told him, "You said you could do it quick, and it's been four days.  I had to give my ex her car back, and I'm having to take tomorrow off because I have no way to get to work.  By the end of the day tomorrow, I either need my car fixed or my key back so I can take it to a shop."

He nodded.  "Got it - I'm off to go get the parts now."

Late that night, I hear his car screech in to the driveway, and Driveway Guy and his girlfriend cursing at each other over something he was supposed to do for her, which apparently didn't get done.  There was shouting that continued on into the house, and door slamming.  I finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I woke up, and looked out the window to see my car up on jacks, but no sign of Driveway Guy.  I did some reading and catch-up work while waiting to see if Driveway Guy showed up, or thinking how to negotiate getting my car off the jacks with a tow truck driver.

He finally arrived, his car sounding much louder that in had before.  "Yeah, did a little bit of a speed run over dirt roads last night - Megan's not happy with me over it.  But I'll get your car fixed today."

All told, it took him about an hour once he had the parts.  He beamed at me when I came back down after the car was off the jacks.

"Rotated the tires for ya, too."  (Side note - tires needed replacement due to massive misalignment when I finally got rid of the car due to massive failure of, well, just about everything, four months later.)

"Great," I said.  "Will be nice to be able to stop the car again."

"So," he said, "that will be $140 for labor, and another hundred for parts..."

I raised my eyebrow.  "No, you never mentioned $140 being labor only."

He shrugged.  "Price it out at a shop."

"I did.  Yesterday."

We looked at each other for a moment, and then he nodded.  "$140, then."

I handed him the cash, and he handed me my key.  "Thanks," I said.

"Anytime.  You need anything else done on it, just let me know."

I tested out the car, and it seemed to work pretty well.  But when it developed a starter issue a few weeks later, I delicately asked the girlfriend's mother about how to handle Driveway Guy when he saw it on the tow truck.

"Fuck him - don't worry about it.  I was pissed you encouraged him by letting him fix it at all."

I nodded.  "Works for me."

He did give me a questioning look when the car wasn't in the driveway for a week (due more to waiting until payday to pick it up rather than the shop taking forever), but I ignored him.  It seemed the easiest way to handle it.

Though as it worked out, Driveway Guy was having issues of his own at that point, and it would only be a matter of a couple of months before...The Flight of Driveway Guy.

I believe you have my parking space...that is MY parking space...

People do get very possessive about their parking spaces, but here at my building they are all a little nuts about it.

Wendy parks in the front yard - there's no other way to say it.  Since I've been here, she's parked her big, red SUV right in front of the door.  It's one of the many issues I've had with the place, having to dance around the car to get to mine, the pulling in with blaring music that shakes the house...many issues.

(Wendy's placement of her car was also one of the reasons the Feng Shui person I'd talked to originally told me to move.  Apparently a big red SUV blocks the positive chi from entering the apartment space.  Who knew?)

Josh (when he had his car) and Dan (when he was here) would also park in the front yard over the path from the sidewalk, leaving three cars to chew up the front yard (which Wendy would constantly bitch about, but her car was fine).

So I just parked my car in my spot by the public path, which was okay, aside from my objections to having to dance around the big SUV in a regular way.

Today, as I was doing some yard cleaning, I had a revelation.  With Josh's car gone, and Dan's car gone with him to wherever he went to, the only cars regularly in the driveway were mine and the SUV.  Which was driven by Josh more than anything, since Wendy's been a very rare presence here in the past year or so.
So I foot measured Dan's old spot near the front of the driveway, and I found that my car fit without going over the pathway or the end of the driveway.  I then dragged back the markers for the end of the driveway, and waited for Kaitlyn to come back to explain my plan to her first.

I asked her if she'd heard of the concept of "chi" and energy flow, but it made sense to her after I'd explained it.  I told her that the car blocked positive energy into the apartment building, with the suggestion that with Wendy, it had been an intentional act.

Landon, their three year old, then dashed out of the house and into the yard.  I pointed out that it was also a danger to Landon, since Josh wasn't the most careful driver in the world, and Landon had recently become a runner in that crazy way only 3 year olds can be.  "Good point," she said.

Josh was driving down the road, and pulling into the driveway.  "Wait," I said.  "You'll feel the shift as soon as he pulls in."

He pulled in, and she looked at me with wide eyes.  "You felt it, didn't you?"

She nodded.  Josh looked at me from the driver's seat, confused.  "What?"

I pointed.  "Try parking in my spot."

He looked even more confused, but turned the car around and backed into my spot by the path.  He got out of the car, and looked at me.  He started twitching and looking at the bare spot in front of the house.

I could feel an actual shift in the house with his car in the driveway.  Call it crazy hippie stuff if you want, but it made a difference.

Not ten minutes later, I get a text from Wendy.  "That has been my parking spot for 11 years and I am not giving it up."

We chatted by text for a bit, and she told me that the plan is for both the boys to have their own cars in a month or two, and that she would be spending more time at home when that happened.  So it was a massive inconvenience to change the parking situation.

Of course, she also said that in January, and that hasn't happened.  She also told the landlord that she was moving at the end of June, and I have no faith in that either.

So my solution to the issue is going to be stained-glass style window film.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MYLEKS/ref=gno_cart_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I'm going to completely cover the kitchen window, and the lower parts of the living room windows.  I'm considering just covering the windows entirely.  This way, I don't have to look at the front yard at all (or across the street, which has their own issues), but can simply enjoy the stained-glass effect of the clematis.

Cutting off the outside world with faux-stained glass seems extreme.  On the other hand, the view out the front windows is nothing to write home about, even without discussing the disaster that is the front yard.  And adding to that the cars and the continued digging up of the yard...

So I'm ordering the full window treatments.  It's only been a couple of hours, and the big jeep is already back in the chi-grinding front spot.  Blocking it all out is going to be the only way I'm going to make it through the summer, I think.

Driveway Guy

So I've realized in all of the neighbor posts and Facebook statuses I've written, I've completely neglected the subject of Driveway Guy.  Mostly because it seems that the drama from downstairs is more than enough, and is the more ongoing and episodic, whereas Driveway Guy was more a constant than anything else.

Driveway Guy was Josh, the boyfriend of one of the girls who lives in the back apartment.  One day he just started showing up, and parking his truck in back of the house.  Big guy - about three hundred pounds, and significantly older than she was (she's 23, he's 33).  Scraggely hair and beard, and his smile was missing a few teeth.  Parking the truck in the back was happening because he was sneaking in through the window, since the mom didn't approve of him.

After a time, he started parking in the driveway in his truck, and sleeping in it overnight.  He'd run it for warmth, which was an issue because it was right outside my bedroom window, and he often had company in the truck overnight.  Seemed...very odd.

Especially after he traded the truck for a Honda Accord, and continued sleeping in it, and she started sleeping in it with him.  Both of them stunk, the motor ran all night, people going in and out of it, loud conversations...

I talked with Emily, the next door neighbor about him (lots of ways to describe him, finally settling on Driveway Guy), and discovered he'd been part of the huge meth bust in Leroy a few years back, getting a reduced sentence for turning in others.  (The bust was over 50 kilograms, and the top guy in Leroy refused to turn on members of the Rochester Hell's Angels, and got about 20 years for his trouble.  Probably wise.)

Apparently they'd been dating for a while before he went to jail (and before it was LEGAL for them to date each other, but that's another story...), and his parents had kicked him out of the house for some reason (he claimed over spending money), and he was now living in his car in the driveway doing...nothing.

Well, not nothing.  Wretching horribly, leaving piles of vomit by the door of my car, smoking a lot, and dealing...something.  I never saw what they actually dealt, and I did watch the couple of times they smoked in the car, to see if the pipe was brass (pot) or glass (meth).  As long as it was brass, I really didn't worry too much.

I did have my laptop stolen out of my car when I'd left it there for a half hour or so, and when I called the police about it, they asked if I'd moved there recently, since they'd never heard of me before.  (Big ol' sign that says MOVE NOW in smarter people.  Fortunately for your amusement, I'm not.)  They initially tried to blame it on Josh, the downstairs teenager, but I told them I didn't think he was that stupid (see previous post about being proven wrong), and thought it was either Driveway Guy or one of his customers, and I suggested they check in with him.

I gave a brief thumbnail of Driveway Guy to one of my students, and she told me I needed to move to the 'hood, since I'd at least have a shorter commute. 

So - that's the basic intro to Driveway Guy (also known as Driveway Josh, to differentiate him from Downstairs Josh.)  More stories to come, including Trusting Driveway Guy to Fix my Car, and the Flight of Driveway Guy.

Early crazy neighbor stories from another life

This is one of those stories I can’t believe I haven’t written down yet, but I’ve told several times to friends, always to some good laughs.  I have a long history of interesting neighbors, tracing back to my first Vermont apartment in Fair Haven.

(To sum up Fair Haven - I visited Middlebury, and ran into my old advisor, the legendary environmental writer John Elder.  On learning I was working at Castleton, he waxed on about the beauty of the area, and asked where I was living.  On hearing the response of "Downtown Fair Haven", he paused, bit his lower lip, and said, "Ummm...interesting choice...")

The apartment was the back “L” of an old house on Main Street – a two bedroom I’d rented in anticipation of my girlfriend moving out to Vermont when I got settled.  She, however, elected to stay in San Francisco for another year, so I had a big drafty apartment with cranky heaters (the one in the second bedroom I never turned on – had a nasty habit of going BANGBANGBANG rather than lighting, and I didn’t trust gas that much), and not much to decorate the place with.

I had two sets of neighbors.  The downstairs neighbors, Jim and Lucy(I think – don’t really remember), were a lovely couple I knew from the college where I worked.  He worked in IT, and she was a student.  Both of them were about 6’2”, and both of them probably weighed about 300 pounds each.  Very warm-hearted, good friends with a lot of the music and theatre people I worked with, and a joy.

The upstairs neighbor was the landlord’s kid.  He was in his early 20’s like the rest of us, but hadn’t been quite right since he fell off a ladder and hit his head a few years prior.  He’d been a decent sort prior, I’d been told, but became a raging asshole as a result of the brain rattle.  He still worked occasionally as a house painter, but mostly did nothing besides drink and throw loud parties at odd weekdays.

Parties included loud country music and line-dancing.  Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart” was a wild favorite at the time, and they would blast it at 2 am while doing the “Achy Breaky” dance.  In boots.  Over and over and over, as I stared at the ceiling, willing them to stop in my mind.

Complaining to the landlord did no good.  He shook his head, lamented the issue of his poor injured son, and reminded both myself and the other neighbors we had signed year-long leases.  (I have never signed a long-term lease since.)

Occasionally the front neighbors would go up and bang on the door if it got really loud (the one time I complained it only resulted in the dancing getting louder), but mostly it was counting the months left on the lease. 

One May night, he threw an especially loud party, with the sounds of probably 30 people dancing and singing the “Achy Breaky” at the top of their lungs, or at least as best they could drunk out of their minds.  I’d drifted off briefly, the party noise being mostly background at this point I’d gotten used to, but this woke me up.  “Goddammit,” I muttered, looking at the clock.  Just after 2am.  Dammit.

Then suddenly – complete silence upstairs.  Total.  No music, no dancing, no voices.  Nothing.

Now I snapped awake, and sat up.  I could hear the refrigerator in the kitchen.  The hiss of the pilot light in the gas heater in the living room.  I had never heard this quiet before.

A slow, thumping walk down the outside stairs.  Then a pounding knock at my front door.

I stayed in my bed, and pulled the sheets up.  Nothing good can come of this, I thought.

The knock pounded again. 

I got up slowly, walked to the door, and opened it.

Standing there backlit in the moonlight, was Lucy – all 6’2”, 300 pounds of her – dressed in an open flannel bathrobe with nothing on underneath, flapping in the light breeze, holding a shotgun across her chest.

“Ummmm…..”

She smiled.  “Just wanted to let you know we won’t be hearing that crap for a while.”

My mind raced.  Shots?  No, I hadn’t heard…at least I don’t think… “Oh?”

She nodded, and showed me the shotgun, split and now clearly unloaded.  “Told them I was only bringing this up unloaded once.  And maybe they should just pipe the fuck down during Finals Week.”

 She smiled, and kissed my cheek.  “You have a good night.”  And with that, she walked down the path and back to her own apartment.

I sat at the kitchen table, trying a couple of shots of vodka first, then finally making coffee and staring at the clock until I knew the convenience store on the way to work opened.  I drove there, picked up the paper, continued on to work, and went over the classifieds for Apartments as soon as I walked into my office.

By the end of the day I’d called three apartments that seemed promising, and by the end of the week I’d signed on to an apartment on Lake St. Catherine (another two bedroom).  Oddly enough, my landlord had no issues with my breaking the lease at this point, and overpaid my security deposit by $100 without even an inspection of the place before I left.

“Thank you for all your…patience,” he said.  And with a handshake, that was it.

End of the calm

So this happened:

I went to Maine for four days over the weekend to help my grandmother celebrate her 90th birthday and visit family I hadn't seen for a while.  I brought Sam and Dante with me (Jess was possibly heading out of town and couldn't watch Dante), and we had a blast visiting family and hanging out with the cousins.

On Sunday afternoon at my brother's house doing the family Christmas, my phone rang with a Rochester number I didn't recognize.  I ignored it, as Sam was in the middle of opening presents at the time.

Checking the phone later, I realized it was Josh, the older teenager from downstairs.  He's been a lot squirrelly lately - his mom has been making noise about wanting to move out and buy a house and that Josh and his kids are the only reason she hasn't yet, maybe he should get off his lazy ass and get a goddamn JOB already since he didn't finish the GED, and no, she is NOT buying him a replacement for his car that broke down in Maryland and he sold for bus money to get back to NY.

Based on this, I could figure out whatever he wanted wasn't something I could fix in Maine.  But I texted him anyway, in case it was actually something urgent.

"I just wanted to know if I could use your firepit to burn a bunch of cardboard in the back yard."

Long-time readers of the blog will understand that the whole burning-in-the-backyard is a bit of a sore spot between us.  Or rather, a major sore spot that caused me to give the landlord notice not that long ago (go read my previous post if you want that background).  So I hesitated.

In that hesitation, I remembered my resolve to let go...remember it is a rental...yet not give explicit permission should he actually burn down the back yard.  So I gave what I felt was a good answer.

"I'm in Maine right now."

"O" was the text back.

Perfect, I thought.  He can do with that info what he will.  And I will check The Batavian for news about fire calls in the meantime.

I told my sister about the text exchange, and she raised an eyebrow at me.  "Ummmm...these are the crazy neighbors you tell stories about, right?  Do you REALLY want him to know you're out of state right now?"

I hadn't really thought about that.  "What's he going to do?"  Though I did have images in my mind of the door forced open for the rest of my time in Maine, racking my mind to see what could possibly hawked or sold, and wondering if the cat would get out if it happened.

Upon arriving home on Monday night at 10pm, I was so relieved to see the door closed and locked that I just brought in the stuff that immediately needed to be brought in, and passed out.  It was only the following morning (okay, afternoon - I felt a cold/flu coming on the whole trip back) that I looked at the door and saw the attempt.

Clearly, he hadn't gotten in.  My laptop was still on the table in plain sight, the school laptop still in the bag by the chair, and my power drill still in the hallway where I've been tripping over it for a week before I left.  (Really do need to move that...)  The screwdriver marks only go part-way up the latch, so clearly a fail.

I texted the landlord about the break-in attempt, and he called me right back.  Seems someone jiggled his side door handle Sunday night, and his girlfriend's son had been sitting on the stairs and happened to hear it. No one was there when the kid went to check.  He also wasn't going to call the police over it, but with my story as well he was now calling a friend of his on the force and most likely the friend would be over to look at my door as well.

The officer did come by and look at the door.  He was shocked someone would have come up my staircase to break in, and said that he'd look at the downstairs apartment door to see if there were any signs of a break-in attempt.  (There weren't.)  Asked if anyone knew I was gone for the weekend, and I told him the downstairs neighbor - a name not unfamiliar to the police in town.  He told me to keep an eye out for suspicious people, and that was about it.

At the suggestion of a friend, I went out this morning and bought a door guard to prevent another such attempt.  So now my door looks like this:

A great improvement, I think.  Actually even looks nice.  :)

It occurred to me later on what the connection was between my break-in attempt and the door rattle at my landlord's - that door leads to where my landlord keeps the keys to all the apartments.  So the little bastard was trying to sneak in and get the keys to my apartment, and went away when he found the door locked.  No idea if this was before or after trying to pry my door open with the screwdriver, but it really doesn't matter.

A part of me thinks I should be really worried about this - break-in attempt is pretty ballsy, and he's pretty desperate.  But I'm not that worried - this was low-hanging fruit, and I should never have told him about being out of state.  He's not going to put any actual effort into something like this, and I'm pretty sure he knows I know - I asked him if he'd seen anyone near my apartment and I got a quick denial of his having been here AT ALL this weekend...well, except when he texted me about the fire pit thing, but EVEN THEN he wasn't really here...

So I'm going to work on trying to catch up the neighbor stories here on the blog - I realize there are TONS I haven't written yet, and I have a suspicion things are going to get interesting around here again.  We'll see.