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.