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Sweaty power-walking guy. He’s always walking quickly with his head down, usually with headphones on, sweating like crazy. He once kicked my friend’s dog, the jerk.
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The Beverly Hillbillies. This rather rich family owns just about every gas-powered vehicle known to man. They have several huge pickup trucks and SUVs, countless ATVs and dirt bikes, and a giant swamp buggy. This swamp buggy is about as big as this one (but has no canopy roof like that one), and I’ve seen them drive it around the neighborhood and even on the street.
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The mini-mansion. This home is tucked in the back of a cul-de-sac and looks out of place because it’s so much larger than the surrounding homes. I’ve never seen anyone enter or leave, though I have heard the owner got millions of dollars from a botched surgery that left him crippled and bound to a wheelchair.
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The gangster kids. This large family moved into the second biggest house in the neighborhood, on the cul-de-sac near my house. The police have been called several times to investigate - apparently one time a group of kids went to the house to beat up a kid who lived there. There were a half-dozen cars with sirens flashing, kids running away - it was crazy.
About a block away, in a modest, unassuming suburban neighborhood, is a small ranch house on a corner. In front of the house is a flagpole that flies an upside-down American flag, and in front of the house are various crudely handwritten signs bemoaning the state of our country. Large signs. Apparently, this house has been so adorned since the 1970s, from what I’ve heard from those who have lived in this area longer than I have. Large pickup trucks are often parked in the driveway and in front of the house, and sometimes people hang around them. When I walk my dog by I occasionally get the urge to talk to one of them, but then I change my mind.
I have often wondered what happened to spark this. If anyone knows the house I’m talking about and can give me an explanation, I’m waiting.
Flying the American flag upside down is traditionally considered a sign of distress, as it is with all national flags. The signal is one that was used primarily in past centuries (pre-1900s), on the high seas by military and merchant marine vessels alike. While the U.S. Flag Code does permit flying the flag with the union down, it specifies only “…as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”
Interestingly enough…
*An American flag flown upside down - was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it — an Iraq war veteran — claims the officers trespassed and stole his property. ???
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This one wasn’t so much in the neighborhood as at my high school, but in those days everyone knew there was a Satan worship church on 3rd Street in Lexington KY. My fellow students would talk about how the Satan worshippers handed out free porn and drugs on the street corners, though the students never brought any of the porn or drugs to school. (No one ever pinpointed the exact location of the Satanic church either.)
Across the street from my parents three women lived together in a house and my brother told me they were lesbians who sold crack. I don’t know how he determined this, as he never spoke to them.
My thoughts exactly.
There’s a guy up the hill from us who mows his lawn in his business clothes. He uses a riding lawnmower but still, he’s out there every other night, mowing away in a shirt and tie. This is the same dorkfish who saw me riding or driving my horses on a piece of land across from his house that is owned by a friend of ours and said, “If I catch one of those damn horses or you on my lawn, I’ll fucking shoot you.”
He’s done some other odd things including driving by a work party consisting of my hubby and a couple other fellows on the hill who were cleaning up some storm debris and said “You fuckers get out of my way or I’ll run over you.” They were halfway up the side of the hill, right smack in the middle of a stand of trees and nowhere near the road. I can’t wait for the jerk to drive off the side of the hill some winter in his BMW, end up in the ditch and no one will stop to pull him out.
There is a bar down the road that has been around since at least the 60’s and it has never EVER had more than 3 cars in the parking lot. there is simply no way it could sustain the cost of a yearly bar license. I’ve always felt it was a portal to a windowless room full of Steven King novels.
I would just like to know if the old guy next door to us is still alive or not. He did not live alone. I think the old lady that also lives there is his wife or possibly his sister.
When we moved in over four years ago I would see him at least once a month. He would get in his old truck and leave and come back several hours later. I assumed he was getting a pension or SS check and going to cash it.
Then boom I never saw him again. Now there have been several ambulances to the house and a ramp was put in on the front porch so my guess was he became ill and the rescue squad was being called if he had a problem. It is has now been close to six months and in that time no rescue squad has been called but the ramp remains.
His old truck still sits out back and has not moved in over a year and a half.
Is he still alive? The only people I ever see there is the wife/sister and what I can only assume is a son that comes every week or so to cut the lawn and he never goes inside at least from what I have seen. She appears to work a regular job. Even when I was sure he was there because of the ambulances I never saw any daytime nurse care or anyone come to the house. Is the poor man just laying in there dead or almost dead day after day.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Everything in my neighborhood is a mystery to me. A couple of examples:
- A couple of weeks ago, I was minding my own business at home. It was like 10 pm. There was a truly immense amount of noise. It was someone playing the same three notes on an organ over and over again, plus lots of banging on drums. It got louder and louder and louder and finally by 11 or so, it was pretty obviously right outside my house. I went outside and a whole crowd of drunken men with their faces painted were dancing around in the street. They were dragging with them a shrine covered in flowers, behind which was a huge generator powering a spotlight. They were happy to see me and danced for me for awhile before a policeman made them continue on.
Me: WUT.
Them: whooooooooooooo!!!
Me: I’m going to bed now.
Them: whooooooooooooo!!!
The next day, I found out that it was the holiday for a local goddess.
- The other day, I woke up to lots of jingling bells. When I went outside, I discovered that they were attached to a camel. A girl was riding the camel back and forth down the street, over and over. My office is just across the street from my house, so I know for a fact that she did it for a couple hours, at least.
I still don’t have an answer for this one.
We have a Korean musical-cars family living a couple townhouses over. I think there are only three people living there, but they have to have at least 5 cars, and they move them from parking spot to parking spot all the time. They have one numbered spot that’s assigned to them, but they take up all the free guest spots they can first… if a guest spot opens up because a neighbor leaves, it’s not 2 minutes before one of them comes out to move a car into it. It’s like they camp at the front window and watch for cars to leave. We call them the North Korean Parking Drill Team. Never got a word of English out of them, nothing but tiny nods (if anything) when I say good morning.
Also, the mother carries a mini-dog with her everywhere. Even to get the mail.
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The very obese man I sometimes see bicycling through the neighborhood. He wears a helmet that appears to be too small for his head. He seems to always be unshaven. I have more than once seen his ass crack peeking out. He always seems to be moving along at a very leisurely pace.
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The condo unit next to mine. It’s owner lives elsewhere in the area. Until pretty recently it was vacant for well over a year, maybe close to two years; I recall wondering if the owner was actually having that much difficulty finding a renter he found acceptable. A car being present in its assigned parking space indicates someone is now renting the unit, but the car is absent most of the time; seems like during any given week I’ll see the car only two or (at most) three days.
Mind you, I don’t mind the silence from this unit. In past it has had one set of tenants who spent major amounts of time screaming at each other,and another set of tenants whose large dog barked continuously whenever they were away.
The family across the street here has their house is up for sale, but it’s priced about $50,000 over the comps in the neighborhood. Plus, it’s ugly. Crap like plastic bags of wood chips and broken lawn chairs piled in the yard make it the neighborhood eyesore.
Nobody’s seen anybody even looking at the place in the almost-year it’s been for sale. The dad lost his job, mom doesn’t work, and one 11-12 year old kid. They plan to move in with an adult son in another state, but they don’t seem to be in a big hurry.
Four (count 'em-- four) SUVs that are jockeyed around constantly from their short driveway to various spots in the street. At least one, ususally two of these monsters are normallly parked in front of my house, which means I lose out on street-cleaning and city snow removal. City workers have to veer out around their gas-hogs, leaving big piles of leaves or snow for me to shovel in those short windows of time when they are not parked there.
Four huge vehicles for 2 drivers. They also periodically park a riding lawn mower on the front lawn with a “for sale” sign. Why don’t they sell one of the SUVs? Beats me.
We have the bigamists…
It is one man, looks about 35 and from what we can see 3 different adult women about the same age (25 ish). Each woman seems to have their own kids as there are several kids living there and the women seem to take turns watching them.
The comment about signs reminds of a mystery house I used to pass on my way to work (the house is still there, but the mystery is gone). Unremarkable ranch-style house on an unremarkable residential street in a university town. Windows papered over with signs warning people to keep away, no trespassing, etc. This by itself would be merely cranky, but there was also a big sign reading, “A Handicapped Person Needs HELP!”
The signs were up, unchanging, for years. Then they were gone.
Anyone recognize this description? Do you know the story?
He he he! 
Twist on the trash mystery.
We have city trash collection where they issue you a large trash bin with wheels. Generally you never have enough of these things because people steal them…well I think I figured out where the end up when they go missing. Outside our new condo building we have 30 city issued trash bins! Keep in mind that there are only 5 units in the building. I have no idea where they all came from or why there are so many. Ya think the alderman has some type of kick back scheme with the manufacturer?
We live in a corner house, and the intersection has stop signs. Only about half the people driving through stop for them, and some barrel around the corner at a frightening speed. Our neighbors have two little girls, about 6 and 4 years old, and the girls play without supervision out in the street, just around the blind corner and in the path of the traffic.
The mystery part is that we have a lovely, fenced, safe neighborhood HOA park 1/2 block away. It has playground equipment and a big lawn and a paved play/biking area. The neighbors’ (and our) HOA fees pay for the upkeep of this park, yet we have never once seen these kids in the park.
We theorize that the neighbors actually want to rid themselves of the kids.
Starting a couple of years ago, we saw our across-the-street neighbors doing some weird stuff in their driveway. They had some cardboard boxes painted up to look like buildings, and a Japanese guy would come over and dress up like a woman and run around. Once a big fat bald guy ran around in a giant pair of briefs. They also did stuff out in the street, like running over a mannequin with a car. After a while we noticed they were taping all this. I figured they were making YouTube videos and left it at that. But the sets got more elaborate and the stunts got sillier, so I searched under their family name on YouTube and watched the videos.
Mystery solved: it turns out that the lady across the street’s brother is a well-known children’s author, the Japanese guy is the author’s wife’s brother, and the videos have to do with a certain series of books the author wrote. I won’t say who it is, because he values his privacy, but if your kids read these books you probably can guess. My son was a huge fan of the books before we ever moved into this neighborhood so it was sort of a treat to find out the truth, but we haven’t bothered the guy for autographs or anything. He’s over there all the time these days.
One of our neighbors put up an addition with NO windows on the first floor, but normal ones on the second. Turns out the first floor is a home theater – huge screen projection TV, tons of speakers, four rows of plushly padded leather seats with a mini table in between each pair. And a genuine theater type popcorn cart!
They’re always inviting us over to watch movies, but mostly we’re ‘busy.’ Mostly he shows war movies and mad-slasher-serial-killer things. :dubious:
We have been in our current house for a year and have heard ALL about the “people across the street” from the neighbors. The story goes that a lovely old lady lived there, she died, her assorted adult kids moved in. Neighbors say they’re horrible, do drugs, etc.
It wasn’t until this thread that I realized I have never seen anyone near that house. There are cars in the driveway and the plants are vastly overgrown…there’s sometimes trash out for pickup…but no people.
The Motorcycle Family also intrigues me. Our neighborhood is kind of a college student/immigrant/blue-collar suburb, but this family looks like something straight out of West Virginia in-breeding. I saw the matriarch of the family…ninety-pound, worn-out sixty-something…in leather pants on a weekday morning.