Neighborhood gossip

I met my neighbor lady yesterday. She was full of neighborhood gossip and was happy to have someone to share it with.

There are only 5 houses on this block. One is the local fire warden's office with an upstairs apartment. Then there's our rental house. Crazy Dave rents the next house. There's the abandoned house. And Grandma Gossip's house.

Grandma Gossip's first words to me were "do you own this eyesore?". She was referring to the crap shack of a garage in our backyard. Apparently she has been harassing the city council to get it cleaned up. She'd like to see it torn down but if the owner won't do that, he could at least paint it and make it look presentable. I told her I'd take care of the weeds growing behind it. She seemed happy about that. She was also happy that someone was finally taking care of the yard. She's been watching us clean up and is happy with our progress. She reminded me that we needed to mow. Soon. She also offered up all the rhubarb that we could ever eat.

Then she told me about the abandoned house. The owners fell behind on the payments, packed up their clothes and took off for Vegas. They were apparently potheads and that's why they couldn't pay the bills. They had a couple of friends come over and take what they wanted. She suggested that I walk around their yard and see if there is anything I wanted. No thanks. She also told me that the day they moved into that house their kid was playing in the street and was hit by a car.

The fire warden causes no problems but the people upstairs are trouble. They come and go at all hours of the night.

Crazy Dave has something mentally wrong with him and she suggested that we stay away from him. He hasn't always been like this but now you just can't tell when he's going to flip out. The woman who owns the house had to move out because Crazy Dave is/was a drug dealer/user. She tried to evict him but he wouldn't leave so she is currently renting another house in town.