My So Called Neighbors

Our new neighbors are driving me crazy. I can't stand it anymore. And not because they are doing the usual annoying neighbor things like not keeping the yard in decent condition, or blaring the stereo or having ugly cars parked outside my windows. They don't even own a barking dog. No, what they do irritates me far more than any of those things.

Here's a little background: We bought our house last August from the builder. He also built the house behind us. His son-in-law was the foreman on the building of the two houses or whatever, something like that. His son-in-law works with him. The house behind us has been empty and for sale since probably sometime the beginning of last year. We have not had a neighbor live there since we moved in. Which is actually pretty nice.

And then a couple of weeks ago, possibly a couple of months, the for sale sign was taken down. They must have sold the house. We're getting neighbors. We were a little nervous. Who were these people moving in?

About the same time we receive a phone call from the son-in-law. He wanted to know if we were having any problems with our house that he needed to take care of. We told him we didn't. I thought it very unusual he called out of the blue like that. A few weeks later it was very apparent why he made the phone call. He and his wife and two little boys were moving in next door. They had bought the house.

Well, this might not be so bad. He seemed like a nice guy. Brian talked to him a bit when they were bringing some things over one Saturday afternoon. They stayed there that night and went to church the next morning. Nothing out of the ordinary. Brian noticed they had a refrigerator delivered. A few days later it looked like they had to replace it. All very normal activity for people moving into a house.

And then, a few days later we realized they hadn't been there for at least a couple days. Odd. We wondered where they were for a couple of minutes and dropped it. A few more days had gone by and we saw the parents stop by, go inside, and then leave.

That is when I told Brian my theory. I was pretty sure she had killed her husband in some kind of husband/wife dispute and the parents and her were trying to cover it up. I suggested that when the police came to question us we say something like, "and they seemed like such nice people". It's the only reasonable explanation for why they weren't living in their new house.

That theory was quashed when a few days later the woman had spent the night and the next morning the guy showed up. He drove this huge truck with bee hives on the trailer. It was weird. And ugly and I didn't like it. They went to church and afterwards he left, taking the bee hives with him. And then she left and the house has once again been empty since then.

One Saturday I saw her and three other people drop off more items, but that has been it. Why does this make me so annoyed you may wonder? Because. Because when you move into a house, you move in. You bring in all your stuff in one day because you are so excited. You take off a few days of work so you can unpack as much as possible. For the next few days or a week you live hiding in closets and bathrooms because you don't have window coverings yet. You work at organizing and finding spots for all your old things and take inventory of all the new things you want to decorate your new place. It's what you do when you buy a new house. You don't drop of your crap at random intervals and leave it deserted. You don't let the place go to hell. At least when it was up for sale it looked nice. Why, I ask you, would they not live there? I don't get it.

I guess they have been doing all the usual annoying things. The big, ugly truck outside my window and the unkept yard. The only difference is they do that and they aren't even living there yet!