Crazy Neighbor
I have a crazy neighbor. Well, two of them really, but one is really crazy and the other is harmless-crazy.
I am also an advocate for garbage picking, if you do it properly. I even wrote a little essay on the subject after Dad and I cleaned out the little building a couple of years ago.
However, the lady crazy neighbor (herein LCN) is a bit much. When Mom and Dad and I cleaned out my basement--old moldy garbage the PO left behind--(and it was garbage, too. Like mildewed and moldy masonite boards and dirt and filth and woodshavings and a pressboard entertainment center that was dripping wet and falling apart, etc., etc.) we ended up with about 6 or 7 contractor bags of garbage to set out to the curb, along with piles of the other debris we couldn't fit in the bags.
LCN took everything. As soon as the sun set, she snuck out of her house and took all the stuff lying in piles, and then she came back for the bags as well.
She claims she intended to recycle them, but I just don't know. Neighborhood gossip says that the house (which is a rather nice Victorian farmhouse (she says my house is older, but I disagree--there's always been a house there on the fire insurance maps, so who knows) is full of crap. Like, hoarding full, if you get my drift.
So anyway, the other day we took some leftover stuff from the basement out to the garbage. The bag stank of mold and mildew. And I mean stank. Not only did she take that (leaving just my garbage can behind) she also took the bag of cereal boxes and stuff we didn't put in the can (milk bottles? Cartons?) and everything else that was sitting out. My across the street neighbors also moved out last weekend, and all she didn't take from their pile (and it was a large pile) was a broken porch swing and a box. I did check out the porch swing myself, but it looked like it was beyond repair.
Yesterday, I cleaned the bathroom. There's a bag full of dirty paper towels, hedgehog litter and droppings, cat litter (used, of course) and nasty gross stuff out at the curb. I told my sister that if she takes that, we know she's got a mental problem.
But seriously. I can see taking useable recyclables. But actual garbage? Please!
(She has offered to pull her van up to my shed when we clean it out this spring and fill it up so we don't have to carry everything out to the curb. I don't mind doing this--as long as I already know what we're tossing (I'm keeping all the copper piping, for example, and useable stuff) but I feel like I'm really just feeding the problem. So who knows what we'll end up doing.)
Guy Crazy Neighbor (GCN) is an alcoholic who suffers from dementia and probably early alzheimer's. He is the one I saw standing naked beside his garage last summer when Mabel and I were on our way home from a walk. I don't walk past their house anymore for that reason. (I did not need to see a naked crazy old guy. Ugh!) He's also really hard to understand, because he's missing a lot of teeth and he tends to stutter. And he kind of scares me a bit, since he's verifiably crazy. But anyway. He hasn't bothered us for a long while. (Knock on wood!)
I am also an advocate for garbage picking, if you do it properly. I even wrote a little essay on the subject after Dad and I cleaned out the little building a couple of years ago.
However, the lady crazy neighbor (herein LCN) is a bit much. When Mom and Dad and I cleaned out my basement--old moldy garbage the PO left behind--(and it was garbage, too. Like mildewed and moldy masonite boards and dirt and filth and woodshavings and a pressboard entertainment center that was dripping wet and falling apart, etc., etc.) we ended up with about 6 or 7 contractor bags of garbage to set out to the curb, along with piles of the other debris we couldn't fit in the bags.
LCN took everything. As soon as the sun set, she snuck out of her house and took all the stuff lying in piles, and then she came back for the bags as well.
She claims she intended to recycle them, but I just don't know. Neighborhood gossip says that the house (which is a rather nice Victorian farmhouse (she says my house is older, but I disagree--there's always been a house there on the fire insurance maps, so who knows) is full of crap. Like, hoarding full, if you get my drift.
So anyway, the other day we took some leftover stuff from the basement out to the garbage. The bag stank of mold and mildew. And I mean stank. Not only did she take that (leaving just my garbage can behind) she also took the bag of cereal boxes and stuff we didn't put in the can (milk bottles? Cartons?) and everything else that was sitting out. My across the street neighbors also moved out last weekend, and all she didn't take from their pile (and it was a large pile) was a broken porch swing and a box. I did check out the porch swing myself, but it looked like it was beyond repair.
Yesterday, I cleaned the bathroom. There's a bag full of dirty paper towels, hedgehog litter and droppings, cat litter (used, of course) and nasty gross stuff out at the curb. I told my sister that if she takes that, we know she's got a mental problem.
But seriously. I can see taking useable recyclables. But actual garbage? Please!
(She has offered to pull her van up to my shed when we clean it out this spring and fill it up so we don't have to carry everything out to the curb. I don't mind doing this--as long as I already know what we're tossing (I'm keeping all the copper piping, for example, and useable stuff) but I feel like I'm really just feeding the problem. So who knows what we'll end up doing.)
Guy Crazy Neighbor (GCN) is an alcoholic who suffers from dementia and probably early alzheimer's. He is the one I saw standing naked beside his garage last summer when Mabel and I were on our way home from a walk. I don't walk past their house anymore for that reason. (I did not need to see a naked crazy old guy. Ugh!) He's also really hard to understand, because he's missing a lot of teeth and he tends to stutter. And he kind of scares me a bit, since he's verifiably crazy. But anyway. He hasn't bothered us for a long while. (Knock on wood!)
posted by Jennifer at 6:17 PM
4 Comments:
Have you ever witnessed LCN hauling anything away from her house? Very strange indeed.
Nope. Not once. But I work full-time and neither of them do, so who knows?
She didn't take tonight's lot of garbage, so maybe there's hope for her yet. :)
(Or I should say she hadn't taken it as of the last time I checked.)
Eeek, that's weird! In the neighborhood where we used to live, there was one old lady whose 2-car carport was full to the top with junk. Through the windows of the house, you could see more junk! Her house was right at the beginning of the neighborhood, too, so it made the whole street look bad.
LCN is definitely a collector of the nth degree. They also have 14-foot bushes all around their house for 'privacy', too. Although the bushes don't both me, because I never have to scrape that side of my car in the wintertime (the bushes block the ice/snow.)
Post a Comment
<< Home