transmothra - signs of the collapse

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

The house next door to us is abandoned and boarded up. It didn’t used to be. There used to be some middle-aged lady living there. She was an addict of some sort. There was often craziness over there, including one priceless Trailer Park Boys moment which i will leave for another time.

Then she moved out.

Squatters moved in. And out.

The place was boarded up, the brush and foliage have overgrown, and the place is a headache for all of us over here.

Today, there is a dead thing in the back yard. It looks like a dog from where i can see it.

First, i called Dead Animal Removal. They directed me to Animal Control, as it’s not public property and they don’t have jurisdiction to just wander onto the property and remove random dead things. Animal Control directed me to the police department - i guess the call was transferred to the county Sherriff’s office, because they advised me to contact city police, who advised that i should definitely contact Housing… who suggested that maybe someone (as in one of us neighbors) could just get a bag and a shovel and get it over with. I persuaded her to connect me with the inspector for that address, and left a rather terse message on his voicemail that someone needs to do something about this problem property and that either he needs to contact the owner or let me know how i can do so myself.

Square one.

So i contacted the Mayor’s office. I can’t remember the lady’s name, but she was wonderful and took the information down to pass along to whoever it is that needs to know these sorts of things.

Then i got antsy. I looked up the property info on the county’s web site (see here and here). A simple search on the name and address gave some interesting info, including the fact that the address is the same as that of a previous owner. Oddly enough, that same address in Dublin, Ohio also was the address of a defunct UFO organization called MORA.

So to you, mister Timothy Freidenberger TR (or mister Kurt Novak, whoever owns the goddamn place), i say this:

Come and get your fucking house under control, sir! I would burn the god damned thing down myself but your overgrown branches would no doubt catch our own place of residence, with ourselves inside, aflame to boot, not to mention the nasty legal ramifications of such an terrible but no doubt really goddamn enjoyable act.

UPDATE1: Mister Novak returned my call. I advised him that the property is a nuisance. He shifted blame to the city, which certainly bears some of the burden of responsibility. I advised that the owner is also a source of the problem, as there is brush and trees so overgrown that the bums who appropriated our television panel had no problem hiding in them. He seemed to be under the impression that someone he pays actually comes out to take care of the place. I further advised that it would probably be best to just raze the goddamn thing down and sell the land. He didn’t see that as an option, and the call ended on a note of pretend cordiality not long afterward.

UPDATE2: Someone actually came out, i know not from whence, and removed the dead thing.