The Mystery of Jammie Man: This old fellow usually appears on his front step around 7pm, often dressed in his jammies but sometimes in a t-shirt and jeans. He has a cig, which is apparently the reason why he’s banished to the front step. He faces the screen door the entire time, chatting with the middle-aged fellow, who lives there too. Younger guy is also often seen staring out the screen door like a sentry, but rarely is seen outside at all. We wonder if the younger guy is Jammie’s son and is agoraphobic.
People in the yellow house down the street: They never ever put out any trash barrels–no regular trash, no recycling, no green. Nothing is in front of their curb on the pick-up days. Whither all their trash?
The house next door: Without exception, every couple which has lived in this house over the past several decades has ended up divorcing. Was this house built on cursed ground? Several neighbors are inclined to think so.
The house cattycorner is empty, I think. An elderly couple lived there and we would see them every Sunday morning tottering off to church. When the weather is nice they would have their front door open. We haven’t seen them in 4 months or so. However, the lawn company still comes every Wednesday morning and their mail is picked up, but by whom we do not know. It’s just weird.
We have a lady in the neighborhood who spends at least 4 hours a day walking. She’ll power walk in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, rain, shine, snow. She always is carrying her CD Walkman in one hand, other hand clenched. Every half an hour she’ll walk past our house.
And we have the yard nazi. Older guy, lives across the street and a house down. He’s out on his riding mower every other morning at 730am. When I or any other neighbor mow, he will pull a lawn chair to the edge of his drive and watch. He needs a new hobby.
I’ve got a couple and I’d love to hear any theories about them as well.
My BB gun totin’ neighbor. Every day for the last month, he goes into his backyard for at least an hour and shoots BBs at this tiny paper target he has glued to a piece of cardboard. He doesn’t have a set schedule either. Some days he’s out there at 6 PM, other days he’s out there at 8 AM. It is baffling. And I feel it’s all the more baffling because I haven’t fired a BB gun since I was 10. I didn’t think adults ever bothered with them.
The house all the way at the end of the street with five inhabitants who don’t seem to fit. In order of age they are: a woman in her early 50s, a man in his mid-30s, two young woman who are somewhere between 18-21 and a teenage boy of about 15. All of those ages make it extremely difficult to pin down what relationship these people have with each other. The 50ish woman is too young to be the 30ish man’s mother, yet it’s unlikely they’re married as the 30ish man is too young to be the father to a 21-year old woman. And the 15 year old just doesn’t make any sense.
There are a number of air rifles marketed to adults. Much more powerful than your typical Daisy.
When I lived in the San Diego area from ages 9-13, there was the mystery house-no one ever saw who lived there yet trash was put out, the lawn and gardening was always perfect. No cars in the driveway, shades always drawn, the whole nine yards.
We have a “cursed house” too, but not divorces, foreclosures. Our neighborhood has gotten off pretty light in the financial crisis, with very few houses sold at auction and sheriff’s sales. But there is one house that has gone into foreclosure at least half a dozen times – and I’m pretty sure more – over the years. (I’ve lived here all my life.) *Nobody *can keep this house.
Why does the woman to the left of me keep having babies when she obviously doesn’t work and is single?
How could the across-the-street neighbor have possibly ran over my mailbox, as wide as the street is? Exactly how drunk was he (this time), anyway?
Why are the people across the street and two to the right still married, when all they do all day every day is scream at each other?
Exactly how fast does the across the street and two to the left neighbor have to go in his big macho shiny blue truck? Does he know that children live in this neighborhood, including my own, and that they frequently walk or ride their bikes around?
Okay- that’s probably not what you’re looking for. But those are all mysteries to me.
Who are the people across the street? Hermits? Why don’t they ever have any lights on?
Who the fuck threw a rock through my window, and did they do something mean to my dog that makes him afraid of the back yard? Because if I find them I’d like to be able to do the same thing to them.
Why does that walking lady never smile or wave or do anything but scowl and clutch her stick?
Where are all the white children? Are they just not allowed outside?
I love this song, I think we all have this neighbor-
Tom Waits
Mule Variations (1999)
What’s He Building?
What’s he building in there?
What the hell is he building in there?
He has subscriptions to those magazines…
He never waves when he goes by
He’s hiding something from the rest of us…
He’s all to himself… I think I know why…
He took down the tire swing from the Peppertree
He has no children of his own you see…
He has no dog
And he has no friends and
His lawn is dying… and
What about all those packages he sends.
What’s he building in there?
With that hook light on the stairs.
What’s he building in there…
I’ll tell you one thing
He’s not building a playhouse for the children
What’s he building in there?
…
We have a right to know…
Moderator Note: I cut out a couple of verses – we have really strict rules about quoting copyrighted material here, pabstist, and prefer that you provide a link to the full lyrics of a song.
twickster, moderator who just happened to be wandering by
When I was a kid we had The Silo, a spooky old building that we all knew was haunted though we weren’t sure exactly why. One girl told me a woman lived in The Silo and kept a rifle and would shoot any man who set foot on her property. Another girl told me a boy had been kidnapped and held prisoner in The Silo and had broken his legs in an attempt to escape. Investigations of The Silo revealed nothing more than a tumbled staircase and lots of boards filled with rusty nails.
There’s another nondescript house across the street inhabited by what I call the No-See-Ums. Once in a while I catch a glimpse of someone there going out in a truck, but I think there are at least 2 others living there. They have a gardener. They run their sprinklers. But they appear to have no contact with anyone on this street. They’ve been there for years, but they’re like human mist.
Reading these, I’m afraid we are the mystery of the neighborhood. I can hear our neighbors joining this thread: “This family lives next door to us. There’s something weird about the husband. He doesn’t work, and it’s not like he’s staying home to take care of their kid. The kid is a teenager. The husband seems normal enough when you talk to him, but when he’s mowing the lawn or out on the patio grilling… he talks to himself. Loudly. Rants, really. It’s creepy.”
If they looked through the windows, they’d see things like Belrix posted in this thread. That’s why I never ask the neighbors to take care of the cats when we go away for a weekend.
Who would build a bed and breakfast in the middle of rural Tennessee?
That house on the corner? I’ve never seen a person there, but the yard is mowed and there are healthy cattle in the fields.
Is the family ever going to do something with the dead meth maker’s trailer? If not, can I have his firewood?
The family that has a whole pickup bed full of full trashbags - why don’t they take it to the trash collection center? It’s only 5 minutes from their house. They could go every weekend, like I do.
The other half of the duplex I bought last summer is like this. No trash or recycling is ever put out for pickup.
Another peculiar thing: I occasionally get bills and catalogs from a local woman’s clothing store with my street number but the name of the elderly woman who lives in the other half of the duplex, which has is numbered two above mine. I mentioned this to her one time and she told me that her half used to have my number (I didn’t ask why she’s never bothered to give them a change of address). This is somewhat corroborated by the fact that my mailbox post has a number two below mine carved into it which are covered by metal numbers with the correct numbers.
That house a few blocks from my old place…down the street from Caroline’s? The one with the steel shutters on every single window and door…the kind of shutters you see on storefronts in the ghetto…meant to withstand civil unrest? Who needs shutters like that in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood that hasn’t even had a murder in the last twenty years? And why are they never opened? ever?
And that “house” on the corner lot that has only two tiny windows on the front…it’s obviously a meeting hall of some type for some religion, judging from the occasional groups of headscarf girls and white-shirted boys playing in the parking lot…but why is it in the middle of a residentially zoned neighborhood?
And what’s going on in the house up the street from me…it must be an office, but it’s not marked in any way…there’s a parking lot in the front and usually two cars parked there during the day but never at night.
Why do The Hillbillies have SO MUCH TRASH every trash day? Granted, there seems to be 10 of them in that house (which I think is really just 5 very loud people) but Jeebus, there’s like six to eight bags of trash. And it’s not yard clippings, that’s for damn sure.
Mom and I think they let their Hillbilly kin come by and drop of their trash every week, so as to avoid dump or trash fees at their own Hillbilly home.
It’s funny that the Whitest Non-HOA Neighborhood in Ohio seems cool with the Indian and black families, but everyone seems to agree that the Hillbillies need to go.
The prettiest house on the block has light gray weathered shingles and white windowboxes full of gorgeous flowers and trailing vines. The front yard and driveway is littered with ever piece of ugly plastic Fisher Price kids stuff you can think of - table/chairs, hot wheels, play stove, wading pool, and assorted plastic toys. Why not the back yard???
There’s always ‘that one house’ in a development… The owner looks demented. The driveway is still not paved after all these years and there are always the same three old beaters sitting in it. The lawn is mowed on occasion, but no flowers or landscaping ever done - just goldenrod, thistle, and other wild weeds growing up around the recycling bins and trash cans that sit out front 365 days a year. The garage door was open once and we saw boxes packed in there, stacked up to the ceiling. Some kind of pack rat or hoarder?
Does anyone live in most of the houses on my street? I’ve lived here 8 months, and I’ve seen a total of two people in their yards. I know this is Southern California, so “the gardeners” take care of practically all the yards in the neighborhood, but doesn’t anyone actually want to use their yards?
The people who take such care of their lawn and garage that not only do they regularly vacuum the garage, I have actually seen them vacuuming the lawn. What?? It must drive them crazy to have me for a neighbor; I have some weeds.
That sweaty running guy who always runs in teeny little shorts and nothing else, and with his arms held out from his body in such a way that I think he’s grossed out by his own sweat and can’t stand to touch himself.
Worrisome skinny woman who power-walks by daily. She doesn’t look like she eats enough.
One time a wild turkey came stalking up our street. That was kind of weird.
