Alone Again

In the midst of the summer, both the neighbors who lived next door and the ones that lived across the street have moved out. In both cases, the moving happened quickly and abruptly, like a bunch of trucks showed up and all the stuff was gone by the next morning. As someone who counts moving as occasions of terror and prolonged pain, I have to admire their efficiency.

Then again, I've never been in the situation where I was moving to avoid paying rent, which was the case with both sets of former neighbors. I will pause for a moment to be smugly like my grandmother and remark that it is interesting that neither could pay rent when both managed to make the whole of late June and early July a living hell with almost constant fireworks. Anyway, enough smuggery.

Ol' Boy who owns the house next to us was there the day after his tenants moved out.  He cleaned the place up and then decided that renting it was too much of a pain. Since this realization, he's been slowly fixing the place up to where he can just sell it. He's redoing some of the interior and then adding cosmetic details. He also added in a nice, huge bath tub. I kind of envied the future owners when I saw that going in.

So it could very well be months before anyone is in the house again.  He's in a bad situation because it's the nicest house in a somewhat questionable neighborhood. He'll want to sell it for more than he will probably end up making. In the meantime, it may sit empty for quite a while.

As for the house across the street, we have no clue what's going on. While we've seen a cleaning lady come by, they've not put the house up for rent again, nor has anyone come to look at it. The electricity is on and lights stay on at night. My roommate noticed there are even some items discarded in the yard that really aren't the kind of things one should just leave out in the open. It's strange. We really thought someone would be in there by the first of the month, but we're just days away from that and so far the house just sits, ghostlike, with no one around. It's possible they've just decided to abandon it. I hope not though.

Of course, I have my usual wish list for potential new neighbors. Quiet people who keep to themselves. I like neighbors who keep things clean, but don't bother everyone with constant buzzing and hammering. I like people who don't cause problems, have no to imaginary to very quiet children and pets. Yes, mostly I just want it to be quiet. That would be perfect.