Willy and I have never prided ourselves on our old neighborhood. We knew when we moved that it was what we could afford and not where we’d always be. Over the years, we invested time (and money) to turn our old house into a home and, as a result, it wasn’t easy to leave.
But there are a few things that happened along the way that I thought would be fun to share.
It started a few months before we decided to put our house on the market when a home a couple houses down from us went up for sale. Next thing you knew there was a pickup truck parked in the driveway filled to the brim with shit. We figured someone had moved in and we were, uh, right. As in, a squatter moved in. It was some homeless lady and her dog. Someone called the cops and she left and the house sold.
Then the house across the street went up for sale and that homeless lady, her dog, and her truck filled to the brim with shit returned. The cops were called again and, once again, she was asked to leave.
Then there was the time I was playing with Hooper in the front yard when a cop car went zooming down the street. And I mean zooming. I walked to the street to see if I could see what direction he went and noticed that there was another cop car parked at our neighbors house getting some sort of report from the people that live two doors down. It didn’t look like anything serious, so I went on playing with Hooper. That’s when a helicopter appeared overhead and started circling right above our house. Then cop cars flooded the streets. I mean flooded. I’m talkin’ there were motorcycle cops driving down the sidewalk. Come to find out the guy two doors down had been beating his pregnant wife and fled the scene when the cops came to get the report. We heard from other neighbors that they found him in the alleyway and he was yelling at the cops to just go ahead and shoot him.
The guys at the end of the block drove a donk. If you don’t know what a donk is, you’ve never lived in the ‘hood.
Back to the house that was for sale. It eventually got taken over by other, more sophisticated, squatters. These squatters drove fancy cars and were arrested the other day when it was discovered they had turned the house into a drug house.
Another neighbor admitted he owns an AK47 and offered to sell us one. We considered. I joke (about considering, not the fact that he has a felony-possession firearm. In fact, I’m glad he has it. He was on our team and would have protected us if shit ever went down).
The same neighbor (the one with the AK47) witnessed a gun deal going down in the wee hours of the night. He states he came across two cars, each filled with 4 guys, making a deal. Instead of calling the police, he states he went inside, grabbed his strobe light, and sat outside with his rifle. I suppose it was good to know he wouldn’t bring out his AK47 for just any occasion.
And yet, none of this really weighed on our decision to move. We enjoyed our home and the characters in our neighborhood. But here now, in our new digs, we couldn’t be happier. We’re really enjoying the change of scenery.
What’s your neighborhood like?
Our neighborhood is funny. You cross one street and it’s the hood, the other side of the street is beautiful historic mansions and then our houses which are nice, affordable, not super fancy middle class houses. At the old house, in the same neighborhood (ghetto side), the house next door was split into 3 different apartments, which sucked because that house at one time was AMAZING! The cops were there 5 times in two weeks. And many other times after that and at the house down the street. There was always something sketchy going on. Sometimes my husband would call the cops on people, sit on the patio, pour himself a glass of whiskey and wait to watch it all go down. Our new neighborhood, totally different! We love it and I don’t miss the old place one bit! The old place definitely made us appreciate where we are now but I will treasure a lot of the memories we have there. It was the first house we lived in together. Part of it will always be special. Glad you guys are where you are now. 😉
Same same… It was our first house and despite the stories I’ve shared, it always felt like home. Thanks for sharing.
when i was growing up, our neighbor use to burn tires, carpet and even burned a refrigerator once in his back yard (all things that are toxic and completely illegal to burn). the cdf helicopter was always circling our neighborhood trying to figure out where (and what) all the smoke was coming from. he lived in a semi-converted chicken coop in his elderly mother’s back yard which received it’s power via an orange heavy duty extension cord connected somewhere inside the actual house. all the water (or whatever it was) that got excreted from the coop flowed (seemingly on purpose) right into our back yard, however, my mom’s blackberry bushes were thriving because of this so we never complained. he had been arrested for dui so many times that his license was permanently revoked so he would drive his tractor to the quicky mart to get beer at least every other day. i remember walking home from the bus stop one afternoon when he passed me on his tractor with a beer can in his hand and two 12 packs strapped to the back of the tractor. he offered me one. i declined. i guess you can file this one under “hill people problems”.
“hill people problems”?! hahahaha I’m dying…. And yay for the blackberry bushes.
We have a really nice situation in the suburbs in Charlotte, NC with beautiful fixed-up old homes and lots of kids,and it’s our first home purchase! All’s great except for our neighbor directly next door whom other neighbors have felt the need to actually apologize for (“Sorry you got stuck by crazy”).
She has a kitten farm. Seriously. And two young boys who have no idea how to handle them. And so many tickets from Animal Control they’ve stopped coming out altogether and just send her citations in the mail. It’s impossible to deal with. We love our home and the rest of the neighborhood, but that right there is enough to get us motivated to move within the next few years.
There’s always one in the neighborhood, isn’t there? I remember seeing someone like her on one of those animal rescue shows. Have you seen inside her house? I’ll bet it’s gnarly.
I have a sneaky suspicion I live relatively close to your old place. For similar reasons we bought our first house in Reseda because it’s what we could afford. We love our house but not our neighborhood. It doesn’t help that there’s an alleyway next to our house leading to the street in back of us. So. Many. Drug. Deals. We’re finally in a position that we may be able to sell our house soon (hopefully) and I couldn’t be more exited about the possibility of living where the sound of helicopters and sirens is not the norm.
Yup, close! We were in Canoga Park.
I live in a “horse town”…because most of the properties in Shadow Hills have or board horses. I can hear them neighing in the distance throughout the day. There’s a property that I pass everyday (a block away from us) that have animals that they take to birthday parties for a petting zoo and their stalls/arena come right up to the street so we get to see them while driving by. Lots of homes around us have chickens, too. We’re one of those homes with 19 chickens and one rooster (who we didn’t know was a rooster until it was 3-4 months old and woke us up at 4am with his loud and crackly crow. surprise! it’s a boy!). There are a handful of stray dogs in our area (we recently rescued one and successfully reconnected her with her owner). When driving home, I often see neighbors riding their horses down the street. The corner liquor store actually has special bars or stalls on the side where people can tie up their horses while they shop. Wonder if you could get a DUI on a horse. Hmm. Our little “country” town is sandwiched between two trashy areas that are known for their crazy folk, high number of homeless, run down shops and homes, higher police activity, sketchy characters and drugs. Nice, right? We do feel rather safe, though, because our close-by neighbors are AWESOME and we all stay connected. We also live at the end of a cul-de-sac which is up a steep hill..and then our driveway acts as another mini cul-de-sac that stretches even further away from the road. We’re renting, though. So this probably is a temporary place for us, but we’re happy to be here for the time being. -Misty
Haha… RUI… riding under the influence… hahahaha Sounds pretty cool!
Our neighborhood is diverse. Sort of.
We live in a neighborhood made up of about, oh, maybe 6-7 different little gated communities. Little neighborhoods inside a bigger one. Our little neighborhood is a nice middle class “starter home” neighborhood. Some of the other communities are condos. Some are million dollar homes. But, yet, we’re all the same neighborhood by the same name, just different little gates.
Our neighbors to one side are a couple who are a doctor and a scientist. Their kids are always sweet and willing to play with ours despite being so much older than him. My other neighbors are elderly and have grandkids who sell drugs on the driveway and throw crazy parties that make me nuts because we live on zero lot lines and my kid can’t sleep when they’re throwing beer bottles against walls. My doctor-scientist neighbors are from India. The people next to them are from China. My other neighbors are from Trinidad. The people across the street are from Jamaica. The people next to them are from Israel. Next to the people from Israel is a Rabbi and his family. And across the street from them are a family who just moved here from the Midwest and the husband is a pastor at a little church nearby. So, diverse like that.
Reminds me of when Willy and I were dating and he was living in a townhome. We’d walk to the “other side” of the gated community, where the nicer homes were and laugh about it being the “other side”… haha.
Sounds super diverse! Where abouts are you?
My neighbours are spruce trees, a family of whiskey jacks, and marauding black bears and wolves (well, one wolf, one time, two years ago). They’re quiet enough, but I miss the people. Even the crazy ones.
I wanna move to town!
Ha! I think we all crave something different than what we have. Change is always good. But, really, your neighbors sound like the best kind 😉