26 September 2008

Is there a Bad Aura in that House?


This is the house next door. It's got an interesting history just since I've been here.

When I first moved in a widower lived there alone. He had no children, only a niece and nephew-in-law in Michigan. He needed heart-surgery and his only family came and took him back to their home. The house stood empty for two years except for 2 weeks a year. Once in early summer and once in early fall when they all returned to spend a week fishing. What a commitment they made to the old man to bring him back to his home to do something he loved.

There was only one problem. The nephew-in-law cleaned the fish they caught every afternoon in the backyard and never cleaned up the fish carcasses. They stayed for a week, the carcasses piled up, and then they returned to Michigan. The fish stink didn't really get good until about 3 weeks after they left when the first of the summer's hot weather began. The stink was so overwhelming that I couldn't use my yard for most of the summer. The first time it happened, I thought there was a dead raccoon under the old man's bass boat. I actually went to talk to the folks at the village hall about it. The process was repeated in the fall, and the only bright spot in this scenario was that cold weather generally put the kibosh on the stink, so that I generally got a nearly 6-month reprieve.

When the for sale sign went up in the yard, I was pleased. Whoever was supposed to be taking care of the house and the yard wasn't doing such a hot job.

Oh, had I known then that the devil known was better than the devil unknown.

The house sold and my new neighbor, a young single woman moved in and promptly got a dog. She built a kennel in which she stuck said dog every day. Whoever poured the concrete for the kennel failed to level it properly such that it held a large puddle for days after any sort of rain. The dog was forced up onto the dog house to keep his feet dry. Or maybe it was to avoid stepping in his own waste, which she never cleaned once in 3 weeks. It got so bad, I guess even she realized that she couldn't put the dog in there like that anymore. The kennel remained unused and uncleaned for a full year.

And I thought the fish stunk.

But this year, she has added a new twist. She hasn't mowed her back yard since July. The other day, I was admiring the prairie she had going and decided to measure it's growth. Back in I went for a ruler.




Oooh, was gonna need a larger stick.



Average height of the grass inflorescences: 26.5". That's about thigh high on me. And to give you an idea of the dichotomy of our yards, I offer this overview:




Oh, and the wheelbarrow? She finally cleaned out the kennel after a year...into the wheelbarrow, which has been sitting there since about May. She did not fix the problem with the pitch on the concrete so it is still retaining water.

So here's my question. Is it the house? Is it just rotten luck in neighbors? I dread when I put my house on the market and have to complain to the city about this. NO one is going to want to move in next door to that stink-ass yard. And Liv thought she had let her yard go. She's got nothing on this chick.

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