Casa de Bad Karma...

[SanJoaquinSooner]

Ok, so here's what I've found out this past year:

The old lady they were taking care of is somebody's great aunt. Some social worker periodically visited to check up on her. The social worker noticed the exposed electrical wiring and notified the authorities. The city notified the home owners of code violations and threatened to take action if the code violations were not corrected. For reasons beyond my comprehension, the home owners don't fix things, so the city shuts off the electricity and the gas (see pics above).

Now, the husband has some kind of legal background and believes the city did not follow proper legal protocol, so he sues the city. The past four years has been an ongoing legal battle. The city offered to settle, but the homeowners balked at the terms of the settlement, apparently wanting more.

So, last week I go over there to pick up old flyers left in the driveway and I find this notice on the ground:



Then I glance over at the lawn and notice how it's starting to dry out. They've always had such a green and lush landscaping. The homeowners hired my lawn guy, Gustavo, to mow their lawn every week. Gustavo told me they send him a check every month. The lawn has been watered by the sprinkler system on its back-up battery for the last four years.

Late last night I strung my hoses together to water the lawn. Did this last week too. But I think I'll report it to the homeowners association - so they know the water was shut off. The HOA are East Germans in uniforms when it comes to enforcing rules, but I don't know what legal action they can take. It would be sad to see the lush landscaping become an eyesore.


One of these days I need to add the story about the son. More bad. Part III.

[MamaMia]

Seems like when it rains, it pours. It was nice of you to water the lawn for them. I hope things all work out in the end for everybody.

[SanJoaquinSooner]

IT'S ABOUT TIME!

Six years vacant. The owners held out for a larger settlement than the city offered and they lost. The bank took over and auctioned it off. A flipper bought it and fixed it up real nice.


And now it's for sale!

[TheHumanAlphabet]

So what about the son?

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Rip Mama

[SanJoaquinSooner]

So what about the son?

sorry ... coming soon ....

[SanJoaquinSooner]

Part III


So during the time of the Young’s ownership of the house, the teenaged son, Jay, starts coming over to our house, asking to borrow the phone. His excuse is that he doesn’t have a key to get in, and he’s waiting for his parents to get home. I didn’t realize it at first, but the parents had already moved out with the old lady. It wasn’t apparent to me because the HOA is strict about everyone keeping their cars inside the garages, so often you can’t really tell if anyone is home. It’s not until later that I notice the gas and electric meters are removed.

Jay is sleeping in the backyard because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. His parents had given up on him and disowned him. In listening to his phone conversations, it sounded like he was trying to arrange meetings with his friends at the mall.

Another thing about Jay. This happened all pre-Travon Martin, but Jay always wore a hoodie, even in the dog days of summer.

And then early one morning about 5:30, Jay knocks at our door and asks for a ride to a friend’s house. Jay is kinda spacey and moving in slow-motion, and I’m not particularly scared of him, but I take Maria’s pepper spray and palm it in my left-hand while I drive him to his friend’s house. I stop at McDonald’s and ask him what he wants to eat – that I’ll buy. I can sense he hasn’t eaten in a while. With both of us still sitting in my car, and me gripping the pepper spray, he looks at me and says, “You’d do that for me?” – saying it in a way as if nobody had ever done a favor for him before.

So I get the food, take him to his friend’s house – he asks me to wait for him – and then I take him back home – and now it’s becoming apparent to me that he lives in the backyard. And I suspect I just took him to a friend’s house to score some drugs.

As the weeks pass, a pattern emerges. The husband and wife show up on weekends to check on the house, and Jay continues to occasionally appear out of nowhere needing to use our phone. I find out from the one neighbor who developed a friendship with the Young’s that they had given up on their son – he had messed up too many times. He was supposed to join the army and backed out.

Now, one day I look out the window and see Jay walking down the street, broad daylight in his hoodie, carrying a 12-foot ladder. He sets it up and is using it to climb through an unlocked second story window. It didn’t take long for someone to call the cops to report it. So when the cops show up, I go out there and explain that while I don’t believe the parents live there anymore, Jay is the son of the house’s owners. The cops didn’t seem to believe me. “Are you sure? He doesn’t look like he belongs around here. And he doesn’t seem to be all mentally here.” I track down that one neighbor who knows how to get hold of the parents, and the cops call the parents.

The end result -- Jay was told he was banned from the property and he would go to jail if caught on the property again.

And the next time I saw the husband at the house, I asked him what I should do if I saw Jay. He said, “Call the cops.”

The present day update on Jay: he is institutionalized.

[TheHumanAlphabet]

Damn. Too much bad karma for a house. I don't really believe necessarily in spirit cleansing and stuff, but I think the next people buying the house should consider it.

[Dallasbabe]

dont see the big deal. many black men have used my backyard

[badger]

Is this house still for sale?

The house across from us has been on sale for about a year now. The funny thing is that while it looks nice and well-kept, the next door neighbor to them (a friendly retired Vietnam vet) has a front lawn jungle garden. There's absolutely no grass, just a lot of flowers, a giant tree and a lot of tallgrass-like plants. Beautiful in spring with daffodils and irises, eyesore the rest of the year. I suspect that the jungle is keeping would-be buyers away.

Or perhaps, they're just asking way above market value.

[SanJoaquinSooner]

dont see the big deal. many black men have used my backyard

yeah, but Jay didn't enter through the backdoor.

[Dallasbabe]

some things go out the back door, some come in.