Neighborhood Watch

One thing about not working, you need to find other things to do to occupy your day.

My crocheting is coming along nicely, thank you very much! I'm over half way done with the whole thing and I'm impressed with myself.

So now I've also taken on the job of watching the neighbors. Hey, I can't help it. My crocheting chair looks out of the window so it's not my fault that I happen to take notice of the goings on.

Like the other day for instance. I was sitting in my chair, and what do I see? Across the street, a man is sort of walking down the road. When I say sort of, it was more like stumbling rather than actual walking.

This is an old neighborhood. There are alleyways through almost all of these blocks. The alleyway that goes across the block across the street is used a lot. I see cars coming and going through there all the time. This poor guy fell right at the end of the alleyway.

At first I almost thought he tripped. I waited for him to get himself up, but no, he seemed to be down there for the count. By the time I rallied the guys to go and check on him, he was working himself to a sitting position. Finally he did get himself up and continued stumbling his way back down the street. Yeah, you could miss good fun like that if you weren't watching!

The next bit of fun happened to be caught by Phil. It was after dark, and he went downstairs for something. Once downstairs, he saw the police activity right on our corner. Of course, we all went running!

On the ground on the corner was a guy and a bicycle. In the street were two police cars and one ambulance. Our first thought was that he was hit by a car. But, there were no other vehicles in the immediate vicinity. For all I could tell, it was the same drunk I saw earlier laid across the alleyway. It was dark, so it was hard to tell. The end of that story was the ambulance left without him and the two police cars also pulled away without him. I know, I know. If I'm telling a story, I should have more details than this.

Lastly, we have one of the trouble houses in the neighborhood. This house was filled with teenagers who did love to point their stereo speakers outside and dance on the porch to the volume at full blast. Yeah, we all love that, don't we? I guess if that was the worst that they ever did, I should consider myself lucky.

Well, last weekend, it seems that they have moved out. On Sunday I believe it was, there was about five or so bags of garbage outside. Then, every day, the pile has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. Keep in mind, garbage around here doesn't get picked up until early Friday mornings. Well, we've been looking at this all week. And, of course, the never ending line of lookie-loos that come routing through the garbage looking to take away anything they can. Bags are torn, crap is blowing loose all over. What an eyesore.

Now you can see our yard. Crap from across the street has blown all across our yard shown here. This is putting it lightly. I took this picture a few days ago. Today I went out to pick up all of the crap and you'd be surprised at what I found!

Now, we police our yard often. The street we live on is relatively busy, and people seem to love to drive up and down throwing crap out of their windows. Common items in our yard are cigarette packs, beer bottles, liquor bottles, candy wrappers. I've also found condom wrappers, condoms (I don't want to know), homework, utility bills that aren't mine, among other things. Keep in mind, I do put protective gloves on when I clean up the yard. Part of my germ phobia!

Today's bounty had new items. I can't be sure they were all blown over from the garbage heap next door or if they were items thrown from passing cars. Today, I found a dip stick. You know, that thing in your car that you pull out to see how much oil is in your car! I also found two sets of wiper blades, in their package. Too bad they were too small to fit any of our vehicles. I also found a wheel that looks like it came from a coffee table or something of the sort. That I'm guessing was chucked from across the street. All in all, I had one garbage bag full of crap.

Tomorrow morning the garbage men come. It will be interesting to see how much is left on the ground and how much is actually picked up.

Yeah, watching in this neighborhood is definitely an interesting experience!