Bye Bye Crack House

We have a history in our family. A history of living right on the edge of the bad neighborhood.

When we first lived together in DC, we were always very careful in giving directions, to make sure people approached the apartment from the good side of town. Two blocks the wrong way, and you were locking the doors and putting your hand on your purse.

In Boston, we had a cute condo -- our first "home" -- it was in an "up and coming" area....i.e. an area that was slowly being gentrified and taken over by yuppies like us. We carefully steered our visitors to ensure they didn't see the blocks that had yet to be absconded.

When we moved to New Jersey, it seemed likely that we could finally break this curse. I mean, what kind of ghetto could there be in small town New Jersey?

Luckily for us, we next to the only ghetto house in town.

When we first moved in, our neighbor was a 98 year old woman -- Mabel -- who had lived there for....wait for it....SEVENTY years. That's right! She moved in during the depression!

The house is actually "interesting"...The whole house is only about 12 1/2 feet wide. I know this because my mother once went out there and measured it.

Since we moved in, Mabel spent less and less time there, I mean she was 98 for god's sake, she wasn't really focused on home maintainence. Then a few years back she put it on the market.

This tiny house sold in about a week, creating a bidding war, driving the price up 50%! Hilarious. It is practically falling over, but yet people are creating crazy demand.

Anywoo, a local guy and his wife bought it. He came over in the first couple of weeks and introduced himself. He told us he was going to remodel the whole thing and make it a house for his in-laws so they could be close by. Seemingly a good idea, but the house was still only 12 1/2 feet wide, and that wasn't changing.

The first few weekends after he closed, he was in there, sweating, ripping out walls and getting in touch with his inner HGTV genes. I would say by month three he stopped coming by. Then it was winter, then it was summer, then there was a "for sale" sign...

Mind you this whole time, the house is literally falling apart...cement & brick dislodging from the chimney, windows cracked, siding coming off the side, birds clearly making a home inside....All this within 10 feet of my door! lovely....

The house was for sale for another year. They originally put it on the market for MORE than they bought it for, which is just funny b.c. they did nothing to it and actually in the time that they owned it, they found out how bad the inside was.

Finally, this past spring someone bought it. He has slowly been making progress. He took the siding off, so now I look at just plywood. All summer its been quite easy to give directions to my house, "go down Main street, and I'm right next to the crack house." Amazingly, people never have a problem finding our house.

Here's the view from my side door (that's my car/driveway. The house next to the crack house is new, btw. It took a year to build, six months of that year there was just a hole in the ground.)

And today he cut down all the trees in the back yard so he can extend the house. This bums me out b.c. we now have ZERO shade in the backyard and we're in a heat wave and I have 30 people coming over tomorrow for a bbq. BUT, at least soon it will all be over. Won't it? Please say yes.