The rest of the countdown

#20: potholes
#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: uncared for dogs
#16: fleas
#15: overflowing dumpster
#14: belly mom
#13: car port junk
#12: car lot
#11: commute
#10: Britney
#9: drug traffic
#8: soundtrack next door
#7: ice cream truck
#6: events in our yard
#5: roaches
#4: Hep C...?
#3: Mr. S
#2: shared laundry
#1: Andy

Ahh, the end of the countdown!! Sorry its been a while, were trying to not think about Apple Lane now that we are no longer there (mini celebration!!).

Here are the reasons for the Hep C fear, outdoor tattoos?! and blood :(. Can we say ghetto?!

Mr. S's ineffectivness is beyond ridiculous!! He failed to resign my previous lease (in an apartment that I loved) because the neighbors didn't like the "lesbianism", he did basically nothing about the roaches, he left our toilet and water unusable for over 4 days!, didn't even call back about the blood, and now is being unresponsive about getting the place closed up!! Can we way slumlord?!

Shared laundry....you have read the blog, what more can I say? They are disrespectful lazy assholes!

And finally, the #1 reason we will not miss Apple lane....(drumroll please)...Andy!! He isn't even supposed to live here and he is the worst thing about it. He knocks on our door and interupts our nights to try and sell his stolen crap. He smokes practically into our front window. He is a toothless, disgusting, pathetic, little man. He beats his wife...in front of his kid (asshole!!!). He makes absolutely no attempt to get a job so he can get his wife and child out of his mother-in-law's living room, step up you lazy jerk! And because of this laziness factor, he is always here! We never get a break from him.

Oh Apple Lane, how we do not miss you!!

Almost gone!!

#20: potholes

#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: uncared for dogs
#16: fleas
#15: overflowing dumpster
#14: belly mom
#13: car port junk
#12: car lot
#11: commute
#10: Britney
#9: drug traffic
#8: the crap that we have to listen to from next door

#7: ice cream truck
#6: anticipating shit sales and car washes
#5: roaches

#8 refers to more than just the constant yelling and screaming, its the content of the fights. So often we have to witness obvious domestic violence and child abuse. Unfortunately it is not to the level (at least not what we hear) to be considered "reportable" but is still disturbing. I hate hearing this and I really hate not being able to do anything about it. I will not miss that terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach when I hear Artie crying while Arturo and Talia scream at eachother about pointless crap.

The ice cream truck from hell, what else can I say....

For #6, we will not miss the anticipation of driving up to Apple Lane and wondering what we will come home to. Will it be a junk sale, a ghetto car wash...who knows?! Its like a depressing gameshow.

Ahh, the roaches. Who has roaches in Washington?! They are impossible to get rid of when the duplex neighbor just allows them to keep on trucking. The exterminator that Mr. S hired was basically a high school kid with a vacum cleaner, I think he attracted more insects than he killed! I hate roaches!!

Still counting down!

#20: potholes

#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: uncared for dogs
#16: fleas
#15: overflowing dumpster
#14: belly mom
#13: car port junk
#12: car lot
#11: the g.d. commute!!
#10: the gross mom
#9: constant drug traffic
(yay, single digits!)
Let start with the ridiculousness of the commute! Apple Lane is obscenley far from everything we do. Our move is going to cut my commute to school down by 45 minutes and Rachel's commute to work down by 55 minutes!! That means 15 minutes to school and 5 minutes to work! Anyone who lives in a big city knows how amazing that is!

Alright, on to the gross mom. This is in reference to Britney whose front door is directly out our front window...luck us! She is white trash in a nutshell. I have no idea how old she is because she looks...well rough. She has this one dress that she wears all the freakin time. I don't know how to describe it, so just picture the typical flower print muumuu style dress that fills the racks of most thrift stores, yeah that's it! She also has quite a few boyfriends from what we can tell and always has them over....in her 1 bedroom apartment that she shares with her teenage son and daughter. The whole situation is wrong on so many levels (picture me shuddering)!

And finally, the drug traffic. What more can I say, its annoying, ghetto, and makes us feel very safe. Awesome.

Falling behind..#13 and #12

#20: potholes

#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: uncared for dogs
#16: fleas
#15: overflowing dumpster
#14: belly mom
#13: car port junk yard
#12: car lot and crappy cars

So, I fell a bit behind, for good reason though...we finally have time to pack!! We have been packing and organizing like crazy...time flies when you are anticipating the departure of hell!

Luckily these two items go together, basically they make reference to the fact that everyone here treats this place like their own personal junk yard. We have so many cars here, most of which never move out of their irritating spots. The worst though is Arturo's, it squeels like crazy..you know on Dumb and Dumber, the most annoying sound in the world...yeah that is what it sounds like. And for some reason they have been starting it at night, letting it run for 10-15 minutes, turning it off and waiting for about half an hour then starting it again and doing the same thing all over again. Why?! Is that really necessary, you have no place to go to!!

Oh, and the car ports. They are ridiculuous. Ours is literally the only one that is used for its intended purpose. The rest are packed to the celing with crap, not storage, just crap. Awesome.

#14 is gross...

#20: potholes

#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: uncared for dogs
#16: fleas
#15: overflowing dumpster
#14: the disgusting "belly mom"

This lady comes to visit Talia all the time and she seriously disgusts me. She is the one who used to bring laundry over to do on the weekends (in multiple garbage bags!), she parks like this every time which is slightly intrusive and annoying, plus she has about a million kids and they are always crying on the step or running around uninhibited...at 11pm on a school night! Oh and another thing, she is really really distrubing to look at! She always wears shirts that look like they would fit her 5 year old daughter and she has a full blown beer gut. I literally thought she was pregnant for the first few months that we lived here! She has that wonderful "high cost of low living" look that everyone else here has...you know the look, it makes 30 year olds look 50!
Anyways, she is not fun to catch a glimpse of out of the living room window and she is awfully intrusive considering she doesn't even live here (not that half of the regulars do anyways) so that is why she is the #14 thing we will not miss about Apple Lane!!

Moving on to #15

#20: potholes
#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: uncared for dogs
#16: fleas
#15: the overflowing garbage and underused recycle bins!

The day we moved in here, the lady who was moving out (who was crazy by the way!) told us that we were lucky because they "just talked Mr. S. into finally getting a dumpster!" Oh boy, lucky us! I remember thinking, "seriously, who needs more than a garbage can per week?!" Aparently I underestimated the lack of social responsibility that represents Apple Lane. Our dumpster is overflowing every week, often days before the garbage truck comes. So much so that they often refuse to empty it! We go out there once a week tops to contribute our weekly little bag of garbage. I am always repulsed by the recycleable items poking out of the dumpster. What is even more disgusting though is when we watch Britney bring garbage out to her recycle bin because she is too lazy to walk to the dumpster! Who knew recycling was such a difficult task....

#16...

#20: potholes

#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: uncared for dogs
#16: Fleas!

This one goes with #17 because here in the state of Washington where weather is basically mellow and stays in the middle range, if you are not proactive your dogs will have fleas! Big surprise, all the dogs running around here do. I have had animals my entire life and have never had a flea problem but I can not get rid of them here! We flea bomb, treat the pets, wash the bedding, vacume regularly...but still they make their way back in. Poor Squishy gets flea dermititis and looses the hair on her butt during the summer when it is at its worst. I hate fleas! Its an impossible problem to get rid of when we are the only ones fighting the battle!

On to #17

Continuing the countdown..
#20: potholes
#19: mold
#18: Deeanna
#17: Random uncared for dogs!

They are everywhere! Everyone has a random "convience dog" here, you know...the kind that they get from a friend of a friend when they dont really want it. So, what happens? They run around the yard and poop in our part of the yard. They are not spayed or neutered or trained so they cause problems. They have fleas. It sucks! I love animals and hate to see them treated this way. The crazy thing though is that the oh-so-responsible people that are treating their animals like disposable items actually consider us the bad pet owners! Why, you ask? Because we keep Domino on a tie out when he is outside! Apparently it is abuse to not want him to get hit by a car and I guess it doesn't matter that we take him to the park every day! Grr....

Counting down..

#20: Potholes
#19: Mold
#18: Deanna

She thinks she is the Queen bee of this place. What an honor that is! She starts petitions for locked mailboxes (like that was going to happen!) and comments on the "asthetic" value of our yard and pidley little flower beds. She is always here and always has traffic coming and going. She knows every other resident and found them the place when they moved in. Plus, her hair is the choppiest and bleach blondest mullet I have ever seen!

The countdown!

Continuing the countdown of things we will not miss....

#20: Potholes
#19: The mold.

This place is full of it! We noticed it on the celing when we moved in so we bought a dehumidifier (which we took out of rent by the way). It runs all winter long and most of the fall; great for our electric bill! All of our clothes feel damp and cold, plus its just gross to think of mold everywhere. I think there is no insulation whatsoever in here; also great for the bill. Im sure the walls are full of moisture, who knows what we have been breathing into our lungs for the past year and a half!

We are making a break for it!!

We are finally moving from here at the end of the month, yay! So, we are starting a countdown of the things we will NOT miss about Apple Lane. That means 20 more posts....

#20 - The damn potholes!

We are going to need both a chiropractor and new car shocks after living here for a year and a half. Plus they accumulate a gross mixture of water and who knows what else. Splurge on some new gravel Mr. S!

Moving??!!

e have finally been seriously searching for a different place to live, yay! We spent part of this weekend going around Seattle viewing rentals; an excursion that is never boring! Here are a few of the "interesting" points;

"We are interracial lesbian grandmas, you OK with that?!"
-this was actually in the craigslist post, we had to check it out! Only one of them was there when we viewed it, but she was awesome! :) She already was including us in her family and inviting us to holidays. They were dog lovers and had a playmate for Domino plus a big fenced backyard. She even brought a chair into the living room to spend time getting to know Domino. We liked her so much that we were actually considering a 500sqft efficency in a somewhat questionable area of town just so we could rent from them! It ended up being too small though, Domino looked like a giant in it!

The cutest apartment ever
-This one was a very large house split up into 4 apartments and it was absolutely awesome! It was an older house so the apartment had great charm. The landlords were a really cute gay couple (I swear we weren't trying for only gay people!) and it was in Capitol Hill which is an awesome area of the city! But, they just called to say the couple right before us got it, damn!

The houseboat on land

-This one was also in a great area of the city. It was a little quirky though. The floors were all quite a bit slanted and the bedroom was big enough for our bed...and thats it! The celings were so low that it was a good thing we are both under 5'4"! The toilet was up on a ledge for some reason, which put it dangerously close to the low celing. It had a balcony though with an amazing view of the sound and the mountains, that alone would have made it worth it. But, there was no yard, not even a patch of grass! Whats the point of renting a house if there isn't even a yard?

The confusing one
-Our current landlord; Mr. S is foreign and impossible to understand on the phone which has made the last few years very difficult in terms of trying to work anything out with him. So you can image how upset I was when I called on this place and couldn't understand a thing the guy said! We finally figured out the address though and went to look at it. Everything was great expcept that all the flooring is linolium! Who wants that in a bedroom? I guess we will be shopping for rugs if we get it! The landlord actually turned out to be really cute and his "friend" (he was very quick to use that term) was the most flamboyant Asian man I have ever seen, so that made it interesting. Cross your fingers that it works out for us!

The scene from a serial killer movie!

-We had another one to look at so we stopped by a bit early...it was a run down trailer on a dark secluded corner, yikes! You know its young females coming to view it, why don't you get there early and turn on some lights?! Why we decided to stick around and look at it is beyond me. I had talked to the guy earlier on the phone and all he said in answer to any of my questions was "Yup." The only elaboration he gave was when he was complaining about the last people who didn't show up to view the place. Im sure they saw the outside and sped off! He jumped the fence and grabbed the hidden key, very safe. We didn't think it was possible, but the inside was far far scarier than the outside! I fully expected to see a dead body in the bathroom. At one point he even said, "no rats in the fridge, thats good!" I dont think a single thing in there had been updated or fixed since the early 70s. Needless to say, we got out of there very quickly!

I don't even want to know....

Last night our neighbors were screaming and making a ton of noise in the laundry room. Because it is a shared space, noise in there sounds like it is in our kitchen. It sounded like someone was fighting, but as you know, that is not out of the norm for them. So, we just turned up the ocean function on our noise maker and went to sleep dreaming we were far far away.

Well this morning we go out to the laundry room to do some laundry. (side note: Saturday through Sunday morning is our time, so they should not have even been out there!) Well, this is what we found....

Awesome. Now we have to either do acrobatic moves or get a large dose of antibiotics just to do our laundry! Lord only knows what is floating around in their bloodstream. Who bleeds all over a shared laundry room and just leaves it?! Disgusting.

Now they are creeping around the back of the house obviously looking for something and whispering in spanish. I just hope they find whatever it is that they lost in their bloody mess before either Domino or the kids from the daycare behind us do. We need to move!

Regretfully reporting to duty

In the last 2 weeks, Mr. S has called numerous times and left me 3 messages asking about other tennants. "Is Jan there?"..."Has she been there during the day?"...."Can you watch out your window and call me when she shows up? I need back rent" (seriously?!) He finally got that taken care of and then a few days later I got a new message, "Is Ramona home? Can you call me when she is?" He then stopped over to tell us that Arturo and Talia were supposed to be moving out and oh.."Can you let me know when they do?"

This is ridiculous! We hate this place and yet somehow have become the Apple Lane police! We need to move! I believe this all started because we wrote him a huge letter (He is foreign and almost impossible to understand on the phone! I used to live in his mother in law apartment and was able to understand him by reading his lips, without that it's a lost cause!) explaining all of our concerns and letting him know that we were going to have to move if the amount of people "living" here wasn't significantly reduced. Aparently, that got him to start acting like a landlord...at least for a few weeks. What I didn't count on was the fact that taking charge in that way would make us the official rule enforcers. Believe me, this is not a job we want!

Cars, cars everywhere!

Last night we counted 15 cars in our driveway/parking lot/yard area! 5 of these cars are either not running or are never moved from their wonderfully aesthetic spots! There are 6 units, so there should be what?..12 cars tops! Plus, we have 6 covered spots in the carports and our's plus 1 other one are the only ones that are used for usable cars. What is in the other 4? Junk! They are packed to the roof with crap, which means that they look disgusting and also that the excessive amount of cars have to be littered around the yard....also looking disgusting! Awesome.

A new resident?!

A black cat shows up the week before halloween....what else would you expect on Apple Lane?!

ps: Drinking out of the potholes? Gross! Im on my way to buy some cheap cat food and a water bowl, we will likely be atracting the outdoor cat colony to our car port....such a sucker I am!

Fighting, yet again!

Ramona and Talia were screaming at eachother last night while we were getting ready for bed. Screaming matches overheard from our duplex neighbors are not out of the norm by any means. In fact, on our first night there, Ramona and Jesus were fighting so loudly at 11pm that Janet screamed out her door (in a decible I have never heard come out of a woman!), "Shut the F*@K up or I will call the cops!!"

Generally though, the screaming matches are between couples. Talia and Arturo screaming at eachother about him being a "f*#king f*#*ot" or her needing to "watch your F*@king back or Ill get you" (fyi: I am well aware of the domestic violence undertones and am waiting, if anything escalades, I will be the first to call the cops or CPS!).  Or Ramona and Jesus screaming at eachother in an equal mix of Spanish and English, so I have no idea what they are saying (Seriously need to get a Rosetta Stone!)

Well, this argument was between Ramona and Talia. So everyone cross their fingers for us that maybe Ramona will finally kick the 3 of them out!!! (wishfull thinking, I know...)

Its a circus!!

So, I come home after being gone for 2 days petsiting...and there is a freakin' car wash/garage sale/circus in our front yard!! Brittany, Martie, and a bunch of other random drugged out looking parents are having a "fundraiser car wash." They have signs up everywhere on neon poster board, a makeshift coffee area in the front yard, and silver tassles over the entrance. It looks ridiculous! Oh, plus they decided to sell some of their crap while they were at it so there is a mini yard sale too. At least it isnt as much crap as they had in their past junk sale, but still.
I was so irritated that I decided to take Domino to the dog park before I blew up. But, I went to go outside and there were cars blocking my car in. Once I finally got them to move and made it to the end of the driveway, some random lady had a step ladder in the middle of it and she was messing with the oh-so-tacky banner thing....awesome! Needless to say, I spent a long time at the park.
We need to move!

(Sorry about the crappy pic, it is from my cell phone. It really dosent do justice to the situation because all the cars were gone and you cant see all the signs. But, it shows the crappy silver banner thing that we have to drive through to get in our driveway!)

How can you have this much crap?!

Our lovely duplex-sharing neighbors have tons and tons of crap! Plus, they have too many people living in the little space, so as I have mentioned before, their crap spills outside of their house and into our space (grr...)! I woke up this morning and had to put my pants in the dryer to de-wrinkle. I found a pile of stuff on top of the dryer and another way too big load in the dryer. We have a schedule for the laundry room (that I even posted, color coded, in the laundry room!) that is essentially every other day. They have no where to put all of their laundry so it usually just lives in the laundry room....in the way!

This is their clean laundry! How do people live like this?!

So that was my morning, great way to start it off. Then I came home to this;

Apparently our front door is now a parking spot. This lady dosent even live here, she is a friend of Arturo and Talia (who also are not supposed to be living here!). She used to be here all the time with her screaming kids, well past 10pm, on school nights. Lucky us, she is back!

As if this wasn't enough for 1 day, this happened! We need to move!!!

Home is what you make of it.

So, I have been stressed! I started class and spend my weeks at the school working like crazy! My days have been 10-12 hours long...plus transportation. We live in a suburb of Seattle, so its not a quick commute. Anyways, when I get to come home it is great. It is such a wonderful release of tension to come home and change into sweat pants after a day like that. Even here.
So, what I am saying is; even though this place is crazy and frustrating on the outside, it is the inside that makes it home. Home isnt defined by the material or practical aspects of the house, it is who you come home to and the environment that you collaboratively create.

My house and my neighborhood is a mess, but our home is beautiful!

wordless wednesday

Birth control!

I was sitting on our couch today checking my e-mail and actually enjoying the calmness of Apple Lane. Enter Arturo and Talia. Talia comes out yelling at her son with every other word being the f word. They are supposedly going somewhere while Artie is screaming at the top of his lungs. Arturo starts yelling at Artie also telling him to go inside. He just wants to go wherever his parents are going. Keep in mind the reason Artie is screaming is because he wants his parents' attention, he is only two after all. Artie continues to scream and scream. Talia cannot take the pressure and yells, "He can't come because he's a fucking crybaby!" I do not know about you, but I grew up in a family of five and my parents never yelled curse words at us. Now I am not a parent yet, but when I am I hope when my kids are screaming for my attention that I will be able to give it to them.

The dogs are multiplying!

We have introduced you to Lola, Sasha, Blackie, and of course our Domino. Suddenly though, there are 2 pit bulls living in our area! Before anyone gets any ideas, we have nothing against pitbulls, I (Crystal) actually love them enough to have written an entire post about them. But, these people are not the best owners to be entrusted with a pitbull. They already let all the other dogs run around and chase cars.

So, I was sitting in my office area yesterday typing away at a paper when I hear Deana screaming "Sasha" in a frantic tone. I look out the window to see 2 men with broom sticks surrounding the pitbulls and Deana grasping Sasha by her collar. Looks like there was a dog fight.

This sucks on many levels. First it means we cant leave Domino outside on his tie out. He is a huge baby without an aggressive bone as it is, but dogs on tie outs are no competetition for loose dogs. Secondly, as soon as they decide they don't want to deal with it anymore I'm sure I know the fate of these pups. They will go to another friend and likely end up fighting or being put to sleep.

I hate to see the way the pets in this community are being treated. We do a very good job with Domino. He is always on a leash, we pick up his poop weekly (along with everyone else's because they poop in our area!), we keep him away from the other dogs and we feed him good food. Nobody else does any of this! Their dogs run around everywhere pooping wherever they darn well please, and they poop a lot because they eat crappy food. I actually saw a bag in the trash the other day that didn't even have a name, just "dog food" come on people would you eat something called "human food?!". It is all very annoying and it is really not a good atmosphere to add untrained pitbulls to.

So, we are just waiting for a serious dog fight where someone gets hurt, Lola to come back from one of her journeys pregnant because they wont spay her (don't get me started on un-altered dogs!), or for people to just give up and pass the dogs on to someone else equally unqualified to be a pet owner!....We will keep you updated :(

Wordless Wednesday

The upside of Seattle rain

It is raining today. In the Seattle area that may not mean much but in the pocket of Apple Lane it is a blessing. This means that everyone stays inside. So, we can open our windows and not hear the monotonous screams of "Artie don't do that," "Lola get back here," "Sasha where are you," or any of the terrible names the couples call eachother in their front lawns. Plus, likely due to the potholes, less people drive through here in the rain. This means there are fewer questionable vehicles and people driving past our front window. And of course, no children playing in front of our door. Oh how nice it is to take Domino outside in the rain :)

So basically, yay for Seattle rain!!

Please recycle!!!

Like a Cracker Jack box

We each have a flower bed area in front of our duplexes. Everyone else has planted some actual flowers amongst the weeds and rocks. The previous tennants of our apartment attempted some gardening in it but ended up with mainly weeds and rocks. We are still denying that we are living here I think, because we left the weeds to make their statement. Well a few days ago I decided that they had to go, I think there was some dead mint in there and it really stunk! So, I spent a little while digging up the weeds. Deana drove by and said "oh, that looks better" as if our little patch of overgrown "gardening" was slumming the place down!

Turns out, I should have maybe left the weeds because underneath was a death bed for our neighbors toys and junk. I finally got up the nerve to grab a garbage bag today and clean it out and this is a small sampling of what I found; about 7 matchstick cars, 4 pieces of broken chalk, a used firecracker, too many marbles to count, lip gloss, some indistinguishable leftovers, and of course...cigarette butts galore! (this "flower bed" is about 4'x1')

What can I plant that is very very thorny.....

Who knew ice cream could be found in hell?!

Summer is nice for many reasons; we get to be home together during the day a lot of the time, its nice out, we get to go to the park almost every day with Domino. Its just a nice refreshing change. Unfortunately though summer also brings the worlds most annoying ice cream truck to our little community. Now I loved the ice cream truck when I was a kid, but it was a real, nostalgic ice cream truck. This one literally is an old van with stickers on it. Plus, it plays 1 song repetitively at top volume until you want to cannibalize your own ears!

As if the "truck" itself isn't annoying enough, of course our community makes it even more so. The thing drives up our driveway and stops directly outside of our window. Seriously, every time, right outside the open window in our living room! Why ours? We are the only people who don't buy ice cream! Once it stops (still playing the music, mind you) the kids from apartment #3 run out to get their ice cream....a few minutes later all the other random kids playing around the duplexes run over to get their ice cream...you would think that this would provide enough time for everyone to decide that they want ice cream and get themselves over to the "truck", but of course not! It never fails that every time, Tom from apartment #1 has to come out and stop the lady (just when she was finally leaving!) so that he can get his ice cream too. Plus, he never knows what he wants! Grr.....

Here is what I don't understand; all of these people are on government assistance and yet they can afford overpriced ice cream every stinkin' day! How the hell does that work? We drag ourselves over to Winco to experience that delightful store anytime we want ice cream. Why is it that we have to spend our hard earned money on cheap ice cream plus our hard earned tax dollars on their expensive (an probably much better) ice cream?! Plus, we have to listen to the ice cream truck from hell while they decide which item of overpriced goodness they want that day!

I have vented now and I feel better, who wants ice cream?!

Hep C anyone?

I came home last night around 7pm to find a makeshift tattoo shop set up outside of the back apartment. That's right, I said outside! A guy who we saw at the "yard sale" during the day was sitting on a rocking chair that was broken and had a "free" sign on it tattooing some other guys who we have never seen before.
Rachel got home a few hours later and the tattooing was still going on. A new straggler was being tattooed though and they had a desk lamp rigged up to the rocking chair so he could see. Hepatitis C by lamplight!

side note: Janet complained to Mr. S about the junk yard in our front yard so he came over and told Britney and Marty that they have to close up shop I guess. There was a sign along the road saying "free stuff" and they have finally cleaned a lot of it up. By "cleaned up" I mean they overfilled our dumpster and put the rest into a compacted pile in the front yard. I am sure the garbage men won't take the garbage since it is overflowing and the future of that "tidy" pile is yet to be determined.....

Blocking the world out

I made a post about our neighbors in apartment #3 and their sense of entitlement about our SHARED front porch. To eliminate the chance of repeating myself here is the link; blog about porch.

So, my friend Lynn helped me fashion a curtain to put up separating our porch. Our hope was that it would serve many purposes;

a) give them the oh-so-subtle hint that their crap (toys, chairs, tables!, kids, garbage, and cigarette butts) only belongs on their side of the porch.

b) ward off at least some of the cigarette smoke smell that wafts over and in our window.

c) save us and our dog from tripping over their kids or toys (always directly in front of our door) and breaking a leg.

d) and of course, blocking our view of them and their mess!

We were apprehensive and didn't want to get our hopes up. We figured that the more likely scenario would be that the kids would pull it down, smear mud all over it, or use it as a toy and therefore spend even more time in front of our door. Much to our surprise though, it worked! Quite often we get to hear the parents yelling at the kids (I am saying kids plural because somehow there are always multiple kids there even though only 1 lives there) to stay on their side of the curtain. Yay!

But, the best part is that our view changed from this:

to this!:

The color of sanity is a red curtain!

Junk sale

Britney and Marty in apartment #1 are friends with 2 guys who we call Bill and Bob. Bill and Bob are a mystery to us, they drive a U-haul style truck filled with what can only be described as Goodwill-reject junk, and tons of it! They drive it over here, open the back, and let Britney, Marty, and Deana go hog wild searching through it for more junk to fill their packed carports. Up until last weekend this has mearly been an entertaining event for us to witness. But, last weekend Britney decided to have a "yard sale" with all of this crap. The front yard was filled with it. We were a bit disturbed about this and rather embarrassed when my mom came over, but figured we could handle it for a weekend.

Well...we underestimated their ghetto-ness. The "yard sale" has now been going on for 10 days! That means that for the last 10 days our front yard (the area directly visible from the main road) has been reconfigured into a junk yard, awesome.

We were excited when it rained last week, figuring they would throw the ruined crap into the garbage where it belonged....but no such luck. They just put the sign up again a few days later. Now it is a wet and moldy junk sale. The best part is that Bill and Bob bring new stuff over every other day or so. This can only lead us to imagine that this junk sale is going to be a new staple in our front yard. I guess our little community may as well look to the public as ghetto as it really is.

ps: Everyone else has contributed some of their carport crap to this event. We simply attempt to hide our disgust as we drive by, further alienating us from the community and reinforcing our status as the "hermit bitchy lesbians." Don't you worry though, we wear that label proudly!!

Welcome to Apple Lane!

We used to live in a wonderful apartment in a nice area. It was quiet, had a dog walking trail, and was surrounded by nice houses. But, good things can only last so long. The old grouchy couple across the street started complaining to Mr. S about us (as in those sin-filled lesbians) living across the street. What they had as a basis beyond our lesbianism, I have no idea because we are quiet and respectful despite our sinful lifestyle (insert witty sarcasm when reading the word "sinful" please!). But alas, it worked as really only 1 of us was technically supposed to be living there. To his credit, as Mr. S was kicking us out, he offered another of his properties in another area. Enter Apple Lane.....

Here is a visual; we are 3 single level duplexes hugging a long driveway. The driveway is littered with potholes so that a sports bra is required to drive through. There is technically a car port for each duplex but ours is the only 1 being used for it's intended purpose. The rest are makeshift storage areas for all the crap that doesn't fit into an apartment when you cram twice the amount of people it was built for into it. So that leaves the pothole filled driveway to double as a parking lot/dead car graveyard.





Ok, now for the "community"....
I am pretty sure that us 2 and Janet are the only ones with jobs. Everyone else gets a convenient little check from the mailman on a consistent basis, gotta love the effectiveness of our tax system! Deana makes money in a much more effective way though judging by the amount of traffic in and out of her place. Britney leaves the house usually at night to either go out and drink or to the more likely scenario (in my mind) of "working." The rest of the inhabitants of this lovely neighborhood just basically sit around waiting for something to happen. As far as the canine population goes there is; our Domino who is always taken care of and leashed, Sasha who runs around barking at anything and everything, Lola who is a vicious little land shark who roams the streets, and Blackie who doesn't even technically live here but thinks he owns the place, picking fights with all the other dogs and pooping in every yard.

Ok, that is a basic overview of our lovely community. Now sit back and enjoy the show as it unfolds from our living room window!