Neighbors

When the house next door went up for sale late last summer, we hoped for neighbors that were at least friendly, unlike the previous owners who would look right through us and keep walking when we waved or said hi. Hoping for someone we could become friends with seemed like too much to ask.

Eventually the realtor's sign disappeared, but after a month of vacancy we still had no new neighbors. Finally, a few days before we left for our trip to India a U-Haul van pulled up, backed onto the lawn, nearly knocked down the mailbox, and started disgorging household items. There were so many people coming and going that it was impossible to tell who would be living there, so our new neighbors would have to remain a mystery until our return.

Two months later the occupants of the house are still a mystery. My only introduction has been hearing the property management agent standing at their front door and yelling so loudly that I could hear her through a closed window about the $1600 they already owe in back rent. Oh, and the commotion at 6:30 a.m. that woke me up and was loud and dramatic enough to get me out of bed and have me glued to a window.

As best I could understand from the teenage boy sobbing on the front porch, "he didn't do anything" but wondered if Scott was okay, apparently after being shoved through the front window to judge from the broken glass. After a half hour and a screamed threat from the next neighbor down that she'd call the cops, the sobbing teenager was let back in but was soon sent away in a cab. I still don't know if he actually lives there or not.

A few weeks ago a travel trailer was hauled into the backyard. I'm trying to figure out if any of the people who come and go from the thing are actually living in it or of it's just a mobile meth lab. Short of running a stakeout from the bedroom, a police raid or a large explosion, I'll probably never know.

Things have been quiet lately, other than a penchant for chopping firewood at 10 p.m. They've even started making improvements to the front yard:


Call me crazy, but I think we're going to be good friends.