Packratitis

My next-door neighbor suffers from it.

(This is the backstory for the next post. This mess has been going on for a little while now. Like, years, actually. But it has only affected me recently. Bear with me.)

His backyard is fenced and full to the top with old crap, the easement behind his house is piled high with broken wood things - planks, old furniture, what have you. And hefty bags. There have been up to this point around 100 full hefty bags in his yard. The front yard, since we moved here, has been full of a LOT of aquarium equipment, planters, and full hefty bags. Every window in the house is covered from the inside by boxes and piles of stuff. Every couple of weeks the smell of rotting sewage drifts over and fills my backyard for a day or two. The theory is that there's a broken sewer line in the house somewhere. Or that he's storing sewage. The front yard and sidewalk in front of his house have been covered with ivy and blackbery vines and dog knows what.

At Christmastime, an old, dead tree that he had been warned about by neighbors and the city fell down and knocked out the power in my house for eight days. He spent the day after the storm cutting up the tree and hauling pieces of it to the easement behind my house.

So a couple of Saturdays ago, I went out to my van to get some things, and what do I see, in my own backyard, piled in front of my van?

Hefty bags. A pile of 20 or 25 hefty bags. In MY yard. Apparently the city told him to clean up, so he thought he'd just shift that shite to my yard. I filed a police report, and then, Monday morning, when I went out to take BG to school, I found that the pile of hefty bags had DOUBLED. Fraker sneaked out there in the middle of the night and put more of them there.

So again, I called the police, who came out, we all had a conversation together in which the neighbor tried to tell the police that the city gave him permission to store his stuff there, which is on the line between my place and city easement property. LIE. So I called him on it and asked for proof, he immediately caved and agreed to move the bags back to behind his own house.

Guess what's in them?

Go on, guess.

Dirt. Or compost or... something.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, the police said I shouldn't be calling them about it, I should call the city, but they city told me to call the police. Apparently this guy has a jillion unpaid fines and abatements (is that the right word?) for this exact thing, and now the city is about to go in with big equipment and forcibly clean up the property without his permission, since it's officially a public health problem. They told me they plan to work the whole week of Spring Break, and that I should surrond my house with rat poison during that time because the rats are about to become homeless and they will come to me.

Sewage and hefty bags and rats, oh my.

Apparently, the Special Circumstances Housing Group is handling the case, they have had it for a long time. The house is within weeks of being taken from him. So I hear. Rumors abound.

The Excavation will be over Spring Break, so BG and I are going to visit Grandma & Grandpa. And maybe a couple of other places.

I am really freaked out by the rats, though. The rats! OMG. The strange thing is, I never ever see any evidence of rats at all. I wonder if he doesn't have some sort of rat poison all over that place already. Seems like there'd be some bleedover onto my place, it's only ten feet away. And I get a produce box every Wednesday that sits outside my place until I get home from work. If there were rats, wouldn't they be all over that?

Another friend asked:

'You say the bags are full of dirt? Is it possible he is excavating beneath his house for some secret torture chamber or pot grow room?'

ohmahgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw. Some friend! I am now officially obsessed with the dirtbags.