My Father always Said “Nobody said life was going to be Fair!”

My response “ Well that’s not fair!”

This is the view from my kitchen window. I put up the suncatchers to distract me from what is really out there, but all the same my imagination will only take me so far.

This house has been in several stages of collapsing since I first met my hubby. Sadly, back in 2006 when I first saw it people were actually living in it. With a newborn baby. And rodents. And who knows what else. Paying rent for the privilege. The owner either doesn’t know that houses need maintenance or he doesn’t care.

Once it was vacated the yard maintenance became non-existent. I’m sure more than one person called the city about the grass growing so long they were losing their children in it. City workers came and cleaned it all up. I’m sure the owner was sent quite the hefty bill.

His solution:

Last year, his nephew had visited the neighbourhood informing us that they had planned to tear it down and rebuild two rental units further back in the yard. A group of what I assume were his friends and family showed up one day and began by removing the siding by hand. Without gloves or other safety equipment. Without a permit.

The city workers came once again to inform them that they needed a permit to dismantle the house.

Once again the house was abandoned.

The city was called again about the state of the yard. This time he hired his own people to cut it. They did a half-ass job and left. Before anyone could complain the city workers went on strike. Not before the For Sale sign went up. At first I was hopeful, but really, who is going to want it now in this state. The owner is likely asking way too much for what is only property with hefty baggage. How much would it cost just to tear down the house?

So, we are left looking at this misery every time we leave the house. Whenever service people or friends visit we hear comments about it. One service guy came over the other day and hit the nail on the head – “You’d have to pay ME to take that house!”

According to my limited research there isn’t much we can do about it except complain about the grass again. It must be terrible for our neighbourhood’s Feng shui. It’s depressing. And making matters even worse, it seems that people have now mistaken it for the new city dump. More and more junk is tossed into the back yard.

It’s not fair!