Our Neighbors Update
You know you are getting a reputation of hating garbage in the neighborhood when your neighbors/friends a few houses down show you a really nasty piece of trash in the street right in front of their house. Lets just say it is an object that I won't mention since I don't want people searching for that particular item and finding my blog. It was nasty. Now, I would like to think that this particular item just happened to fall from a garbage truck. That it was thrown away correctly but just happened to fall out of a bag and onto the street. Ummm....yeah...right. I joked with my friends to keep their "toys" to themselves! I went back to working on the front yard in disgust. In all the places I have lived for all these years I have never once seen one of these decorating the neighborhood. Not impressed.
I hope our friends did the right thing. Put on some gloves and disposed of the item properly. Hint. Hint. Hey, if it is in the street in front of their yard...they get the fun job of cleaning it up! If I find it rolls down our way....well...ugh.
Since we are here for who knows how long we continue to fix up our home while dealing with the never ending items of garbage surrounding our home. I have managed to make some progress in cleaning up our immediate area... a bit.
The house next door has had one apartment condemned. This may be good. The coke heads that lived there have been kicked out. The landlord was there today with a certified electrician getting the place back up to code. (Or at least I hope.) The yard has been mowed! Yes!
The nasty white van surrounded by tires and trash has finally been tagged. There has yet to be movement so I suspect it will be there for the next twenty days until it is towed. I suppose we can wait twenty days since it has been there longer than I can remember. The pile of cardboard behind the neighborhood association president's rental home has yet to be cleaned up.
Maizie begged me to go to the park today. We have had a kite sitting around for months. Today it was windy so we were both determined to fly it. Our car is in the shop so we had no choice but to check out our neighborhood park.
I was not looking forward to seeing "the mess" that is Moody Park. I knew there would still be no garbage cans and since we just ended the weekend it would be trashed. Trashed it was. I found numerous Gatorade bottles, Pepsi cans, plastic wrap, a toy knife, buckets, milk jugs and a long pipe under a bench. Oh, and if your park does not have sand to play in why not have your children dig a nice big hole and create one themselves? Lovely. So creative.
I realize there is one big problem with cleaning up a park. The people visiting it are a large part of the problem. If no one cares if the park is dirty then why add the trash cans? Are there other people going to the park who look at it in disgust, with skin crawling as their children crawl around the nasty area? When the garbage cans finally arrive what will happen? I suspect they will be vandalized or over filled with odd trash items from a nearby home. I am at least hoping that people will take the time to dispose of diapers in the trash cans. One can hope, right? I used to take a bag and pick up trash whenever we visited. I have grown weary of doing so and just choose to avoid the park instead.
Luckily, when I called the mayor's office about the trash cans again today they made no mention of the reasons why trash cans might not be at this particular park. The nice man admitted he forgot to take action on this and was going to do so today. I assured him we would be talking again real soon.
Our neighborhood is historic and there are some beautiful properties here. How will this neighborhood ever grow if the one park right in the neighborhood is a disgusting mess? Who would want to move into this area with young children? The city focuses on building a new baseball stadium right down our street but our inner neighborhood parks are forgotten messes. I don't wear rose colored glasses when walking around the neighborhood. My eyes are wide open. I see the beautiful aspects of nice homes and I can even see the beauty in some of the deteriorating buildings. I guess I keep on making phone calls and carrying the occasional bag of garbage home from the park. With my current lifestyle I don't have the time to do much more than that.
15 comments:
I'm sorry to hear about your area, but its great you're so involved in helping to change things, after all it only takes one...BG x
Oh my. Those are some . . . interesting neighbors. The downtown area near where I lived was/is a lot like that. The city got very aggressive about condeming homes and tearing them down. However, with the economy the way it is, I imagine that will slow. It has improved a great deal though. Hope that your area will see a similiar rise :-)
I'm glad the coke dealers are gone!
Keep up the calls! Jersey City where I work is kind of the same trash-wise (everything you might want to imagine, frankly, plus lots of intense post-industrial and pre-industrial smells). There are a lot of immigrants in the city and, as a result, a lot of families. Our students play soccer and run in a park kind of like the one you describe.
I think the calls do help, eventually. Some areas of our city are finally coming around and getting revitalized. It was a long time coming, but it was so worth it. The homes are beautiful, area has such historical value. The city has to take more action. You can only do so much. It must be so frustrating! I am glad your neighbors were evicted. That has to be a relief!
When I was in Buffalo, staying in the hotel, the street was so very grand. Huge old mansions. Some in very good shape and those blocks looked so beautiful. The next few blocks were like a different world. It was off and on like this. It seemed to be a lot of what the neighborhood groups, who lived in that section did. The stronger the group, the nicer the section. I thought it was sad, it all couldn't be like that, as the area was all equally beautiful, or at least had the potential. Such a waste.
Hang in there.
XOXOXO
keep up the good work, marla! and soon you will be outa there :)
marla, you are a little minx for teasing us about the nature of the mystery piece of trash just up the road from you. One clue, I suppose, was it could 'roll' down to you. If you can't bring yourself to name it, why not photograph it for us? Ain't nobody better with a camera, and that's for sure.
You are turning into quite the neighborhood activist despite the lack of time! ; ) I do emphasize with you on the neighborhood messes--especially the park.
Our parks in Mt. P are pretty respectable with trash cans and almost clean rest rooms (they get trashed sometimes). However, my little guy once found something even more nasty than the "toy" you described. It was a used "something or rather" tucked away in a private location in the huge wooden play structure that exists in our city's biggest park. My then two or three year old actually picked it up. Ewwww... We couldn't get to the restroom's sink fast enough! I was glad the restroom had soap!!
P.S. I enjoyed the Ravorite Things Meme too!!
Glad to hear things are improving, albeit slowly.
Give 'em hell. One step at a time, and you're doing good deeds.
E
I know how tough the neighbor thing can be. The house next to us used to be Section 8 and the mother and father abused the kids and the dog. I called everyone and, at one point, was literally ill listening to the goings-on. Plus the place was a huge mess. Good for you for continuing to make a difference. Keep it up and invite people to join in.
God bless you, Marla. Keep fighting the good fight.
Ugh. People make me mad sometimes.
Look on the bright side.
You didn't find any used needles!
Joe
Let's write a letter to the editor! Or maybe I could talk to a few people. That's ridiculous. I used to head to that park when I lived in your neighborhood. It was never the greatest park, but now seems out of hand. How frustrating!
I think it's amazing what you do with the time that you have, Marla -- you're just incredible! (And I can't believe they don't have trash cans in the park! What are they thinking??)
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