This is a view from my front stoop. My neighbor across the street had the county come and repossess a bunch of crap from his yard about four months ago. They took away something like eight dump trucks full of stuff, or at least that’s how many I counted. There could have been more before I even got home that day.
It turns out that another person in the neighborhood, who is reportedly retired and spends his time calling the county about people with minor complaints, had called the county numerous times to complain about the eyesore across the street from me. My first reaction was to think that person should find something more constructive to do with his time.
A couple days after that incident, my neighbor got the giant yellow dumpster delivered and started filling it up. Great, I thought – he is being responsible and getting rid of the stuff he has collected over the past thirty years he has been there. His kids even came by and the whole yard was abuzz with activity – trips between the house and dumpster and young sweaty people looking like they had done some honest work.
Then the kids made fewer trips and now I haven’t seen them in quite some time. I don’t think a new thing has been added in the last month, except for that red chair, which I threw on top last week. My neighbor next door used the dumpster as a place to put the debris from a porch demolition job he had done. Others in the neighborhood have taken advantage of it in various ways as well. In fact, this is where Max can dispose of his air conditioner, if he so chooses.
It was charming for a little while to see the neighborhood getting cleaned up, but it quickly became a nuisance – just another ugly dumpster in the world. This used to be a great neighborhood, and it still is, I suppose, but with that dumpster out there it is certainly less attractive.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
