BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS »

Monday, February 18, 2008

Won't You Be My Neighbor


Does every neighborhood have a house they wish wasn't there. A property owner that doesn't take care of their house and yard? Someone that waits until the grass is 16 inches long before they scalp it? We have one on our street and it just so happens that it's right next to our house. It makes my husband so frustrated when they don't take care of their lawn. I tell him it just makes his look so much better. But really, I'm tired of looking at the mess next door. The couple that live there have divorced. The lady of the house became addicted to drugs, spent all their money plus money they didn't have. He had to sell his business and stints in rehab didn't work out. After he left she lived there with her boyfriend who left his wife for her. I don't know his name but we call him Goober. Long story short, she lost the house when the bank foreclosed on it. It has now been empty for a few months and for sale. It needs a ton of work. At one time ice and snow ripped the gutter and facia off the front of the house. It stayed like that for 6 months all the while birds and squirrells were living in the attic. She had a junk car in her driveway for almost a year. We called the town, they had to go the route of several warning letters, then fines. That process takes like what seems forever. Below are two pictures of our house, front and back from 2004 when this all started. Following that is her house.



Now we don't live in a mansion by any stretch of the imagination. Three bedrooms, livingroom, family room, 1 1/2 bath, eat in kitchen, foyer, half basement half crawl space but we take care of it.
This is the house next door as of November 2007. Someone had the bushes in the front cut. They were covering most of the house, cut down a dead tree in the front and trim up a pine tree that's too big for the yard. That being done now you can see the lovely green stains on the front of the house.
The back yard of the property. We put up a 6 foot stockade fence this past fall. I wouldn't have gone higher if allowed.


Goober's truck complete with no muffler. He made the mud pit it sits in. Thank goodness he didn't park on the front yard at least.


So the house remains empty. I don't even know if anyone could even make any money flipping it there is sooooo much work to be done. I am just so tired of looking at it for the last 4 years.

3 comments:

Bob said...

I know the feeling. We had the neighbors from hell a couple years back. I'm 99% certain they were cooking meth in there. Thank god they moved out (in the middle of the night, no less). The guy who had sold it to them on contract claimed to have no idea that there was something wrong with this people, even though they hadn't made a house payment to him in over 6 months.

By the way, does your husband purposely stripe the lawn? How does he do that?? Nice looking place you have.

Gnomeself Be True said...

Whenever my wife complains about the tyranical neighborhood association...I show her pictures like these.
Good luck and good patience.

Kitten Herder said...

Yuck!

Well, sometimes the bank will sell foreclosed property for next to nothing, just to get it off their books. Flippers love cases like that. However, the housing market stinks so much right now that there are fewer flippers cruising the foreclosure listings.

Best of luck getting this turkey into the hands of someone who'll upgrade it somewhat.

We actually bought a house that was on the verge of foreclosure. The exterior did not give away the condition on the inside, which was attrocious. We've put a lot of work into the place, but couldn't make back much more than our investment at this point, due to the condition of the marketing.