crazytown

So the green-black house is finished...lovely, isn't it? Ick. But who knew that these guys were flippers? Not that I am truly sad to see them move because I'm not. They were loud and slightly abrasive...and their dogs were scary and could clear that fence when they really wanted to get at you. However, the story goes... this house is across the street from a vacant lot that has been very overgrown as the owner in Ontario doesn't maintain it. It's hard to sell a house when there are people shooting up in the bushes across the street, ya know? So, the home owners took it upon themselves to clean up the lot...by-laws officers came and handed them a fine. At first, I was a bit outraged. Really. But then I went down and looked at their clean up job. They threw it all onto the street for the city to deal with. You just KNOW what the city is going to do, don't you? It's not like you can shame this council (or anyone in power) to take care of this end of town. It just pisses them off and they strut around, roll their eyes, shake their head in exasperation. Their ready answer to our problems? "Why don't you move?" ARGH.
See all the crap in the street on the left? That's just some of it. Then, the homeowners said that by-laws was rude to them...but I did mention that they(the homeowners) are somewhat abrasive, didn't I? So I am not sure what the whole story there is. Anyhoo, the next morning, A-Channel News is there to do a story on the neighbours who are cleaning up their block to protect the children from the crackheads, etc. Hmmm. Now, I applaud that part, I do, but no one mentioned that this house is for sale and that those kids won't even be living here once they have a buyer. Let's clean this neighbourhood for the right reasons, eh? Maybe it will last longer than the time it takes for those bushes to grow back. Why doesn't that out of province owner have to maintain this property within city limits? On the news, the RCMP said that they have "regular" bike patrols up here. I call bullshit...really BULLSHIT!!!!! Sorry. Ranting again.
Yesterday there was open, blatant dealing in front of Spanglish Grocery across the steet...with LOTS of deals and organization. However, I guess the publicity on the news was a bit of pressure, because when we called, the response time was fast. We had four neighbours calling in with us. And things happened. Quite another long story so I will just say that after some follow-up drive bys(after one initial arrest), the sorry assortment went to bother some other neighbourhood for a while... however, they did drop a lot of their drugs in the lot across the street when the first patrol stopped them(without baggies) and from the franticness spent searching after the cops left, I don't think they found a lot of it...and then it rained last night. Woo hoo! We heard one of them saying he was going back to Vancouver because he hated it here. I hope we cost them some money... and maybe something more. Next entry will be full of pretty flowers and happy things from our trip on the weekend...and we are heading out again this weekend! And the following week? Ten days of camping in the Okanagan. Sweet. Can't wait.
Okay, so later today? Flowers and loveliness.