moved - no forwarding address

2 of my neighbors have moved out of my neighborhood.

my next door neighbors moved out last weekend. this was shocking to us. we don't know why, but i'm speculating that they got foreclosed. the husband was a trucker, and with the decrease in employment and increase in gas over the past couple of years they ran into financial trouble. my second guess is that the home is so full of people (2 parents, at least 3 adult children, and at least 4 kids) that they found a larger house. i noticed the boys going down the alley quite frequently, and i wondered if they aren't living in the house at the end of the alley, catty corner from the insurance office.

i'm a bit disappointed that the family moved. they were decent neighbors. didn't trust their kids. the one kid was in and out of trouble for years (theft, baby mama issues, etc. i used to think his run ins with the law also did his folks in financially). they were nosy enough to keep an eye on our house when we weren't around. they used to have a big black dog that would bark at strangers - i thought of him as a sort of alarm system for our house, becos if he barked, it meant someone strange was in the neighborhood.

they could be annoying too. a few years ago, they had a broken down pickup truck in their front yard for months - they had a small yard to begin with, and it used to make the neighborhood look like shit. i was so grateful when the borough passed an ordinance making garbage and breakdowns in yards illegal. they also had a burn barrel, and before the barrels got banned they used to burn the most noxious stuff. when i was pregnant with the boy, they would burn their grandbaby's diapers, and the stench would leach into our house, giving me a headache. our tv room (at the time) was right near the barrel, and i used to loathe wednesday nights and saturday mornings when they'd burn. and they left the barrel smolder, which was illegal at the time too.

hubby used to get annoyed that they'd sit on their porch for hours on end, smoking and talking. we never could leave the doors or windows open cos we'd get the smoke in our house. we also couldn't sit on our porch cos they'd sit and watch what we were doing.

a while back the troublesome kid set up this fence in the back yard. it looked like a pen where a dog or kids could play without getting out. he complained to hubby about the neighbor's groundhog and was trying to get rid of it. apparently it got into their yard. the groundhog never bothered our property (except to maybe pick up some apples or pears that fell off the tree) and it used to upset me that he would try to harm the animal. the groundhog lived in the neighborhood for years.

this family lived here before we moved here, and knew the previous owner. i would guess they were the oldest neighbors on this street, except for maybe the barber and a family way up the street.

so now we keep an eye on their property, waiting to see what happens next.


the other neighbor who moved lived across the street, in the half double next to the alley. i think they moved a few weeks ago but didn't notice until i saw they had no curtains in the window. they only lived there for less than a year. i don't even know what the people looked like - they always used the back door and i never saw them get their mail. now i know why they got rid of their gas grill. a few weeks ago they put it out front with a "free" sign on it, and i watched a family pick it up and put it in their car,


the family in the yellow house come and go from their house. the house was on the market, i thought someone else bought it becos the sign was gone, but haven't seen new people in there. the old owners come and go, and their dog is in the yard. they have their old curtains in the window. dunno what's up with them.


then there's the red light house. a house up the street always has a red porch light on at night. it could mean nothing, but it's sometimes on, and sometimes not. hubby was sitting out one evening, saw a guy go in the house, and the red light went off. now, he could be the man of the house and turned it off becos he was home. the light could be a signal for prostitution. or my guess is it's for drugs. i can see having a red light at xmas, or valentines day, but in august? very strange. they have a jolly roger hanging in the window, and their car is full of anarchy and wicca stickers (not that it means anything).


the more i think about my neighbors, the more i think i don't live in mr. roger's neighborhood.