Would You Be Mine? Could You Be Mine? Won't You Be My Neighbor!!

Jessica's Latest Problem with the World, Pt 3

I went back through the posts and noticed that every Thursday I seem to have a problem, or a need to vent. I have to be honest: it's tough to have a problem when I've had 2 days off in the middle of the week with no real agenda. But, being at home during these last 2 days has reignited a curiosity and so here is my latest problem with the world: I want to know what the h*ll is going on with my neighbors to the east of me.

I bought my house in May of '08, closed in July and moved in August. During July I was coming over every day to paint, work on the house, and move small car loads of stuff on my own. On one of my trips into the house one day there was a woman walking into the house next door. We introduced ourselves and I asked if she lived next door. She sadly told me no, she was just visiting her sister who had brain cancer and was now under the care of Hospice. We talked for a minute longer, I expressed my sympathies and she told me to enjoy my new house.

One or two weeks later I came home at lunch to see a whole crowd of people standing outside the house, very dressed up. I ascertained that the neighbor had passed away and everyone was gathered for her funeral. I ducked inside, a moment of social anxiety/paralyzation.

The weeks went by and I figured out the woman's son was living in the house with an indeterminable number of other people. I knew the son because he always wore a Charlotte Hornets jersey and he drove a huge Cadillac or Lincoln or some other kind of huge car. The other people...I have no idea who they were but he must have been smooth with the ladies.

About a year ago I was asleep and there was a HUGE noise outside. I was terrified, in that scary movie kind of way. Single girl! Home alone! Smash and grab! I veeeery slooooowly peeked out my bedroom blinds (on the 2nd story...as if WHATEVER or WHOEVER was outside was so paranoid they were watching the upstairs windows) to see a gigantic moving truck had pulled up into the lawn and backed right up to the neighbor's front door. I looked at the clock. Midnight. My neighbors were moving out at midnight.

I snuck downstairs and watched through the blinds as they moved out furniture and TVs. The next morning I could see the tracks in the lawn but other than that--if I hadn't been awoken at midnight--I never would've known they'd vacated.

Months later the house is not for sale, the mailman asks me why their mail is in a huge heap on the screened-in porch, the fence dividing our back yards is falling apart, their garage is collapsing, and the lawn matches the color of my house: Hawthorne Yellow. Occasionally I'll see the son's car out front. He was there yesterday, hence my renewed passion for the scoop. I have a right to know, right? If I'm going to be a good nosy neighbor I need to know things. How else does one keep a rumor mill going?