The Burbs

When I moved to Provo from LA, I was expecting Provo to be some sort of Mayberry or wherever Beaver Cleaver lived. Not that anything bad ever happened to me while I was living in LA, except for maybe the one time when there was a drive-by shooting at the gas station on the corner, or the time that we got locked into our elementary school while the police were searching the area for an armed and dangerous fugitive. But those were minor incidents. Provo turned out to be a lot more exciting than I thought it would be and I've seen more action in this town than I have in LA.

People keep asking me if I have any new crazy neighbor stories, and this time it just happens that I do. Remember the people who threw the dirty diapers out on the porch? They moved out. That condo has been unoccupied for some time and the landlord has been around a lot showing people the place. She rejected a lot of people for stupid reasons like having a dog or being Mexican. And then she started harping on me for not taking care of the rose bushes that the previous owner had planted and not picking up trash on the grass. I told her that the last time I checked I paid the HOA $135 a month to do the yard work for me. And then she called the fire marshall to report that the people downstairs had too many children in their condo and that she was sure they were breaking some kind of fire code. Turns out 3 kids in a 3 bedroom condo is just too many in her eyes. And she also keeps calling me Amanda or Amber... no matter how many times I have told her that my name is Jen.

So one day, we hear from another neighbor that the place next door was finally rented. I kept wondering when the people were going to move in because I hadn't seen a truck or any movement really. I could just tell that the light above the stove was on and I'd hear a dog bark every once in a while. I thought that was strange since she turned other people away for having a dog. We'd heard on Friday that someone had moved in and on Saturday there was some sort of commotion going on outside. We opened the door to find 3 police officers standing on the porch between the husband and wife while they hurled insults at each other and their two kids stood by. I heard one officer tell the wife that they were going to take her to jail on some other charges if she didn't pipe down. And she kept yelling at the husband that she had receipts for the iPods that she had and that she didn't steal them. And I must say that they both looked really buzzed on something.

Later that day, we ran into another neighbor at the grocery store and she said that her husband had gone down on Thursday night to ask them to turn off a fan that they'd had running for a long time and that the house smelled like drugs when he walked in. He also said that the husband's eyes were bloodshot and he was having a hard time getting words out. He did, however, manage to get out that the fan was on in order to hide the sound of his wife beating him. I don't know, maybe I'm old fashioned, but telling someone you've just met something like that is awkward.

We heard from the police and other neighbors that the husband was escorted off the property and asked not to come back. The police told us it was just the stress from moving that caused the domestic dispute. Again, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't know anyone who has become so stressed from moving that they needed to get the police involved.

Knowing that the husband was gone, I thought it strange when she left her kids home alone that night and didn't come back for several hours. I thought about calling the police, but I wasn't sure how old the kids are and I am pretty sure that I was babysitting when I was 9 or 10. The oldest boy seemed like he was about that age.

Rightly so, people in the complex were angry about the things that had been going on with the new neighbors. Our condos might look like something straight outta 1978, and a little ghetto, but I can tell you that most of the people who live here are not ghetto. We have a neighborhood watch, and other stuff like that. I say most because just yesterday Rob and I saw a drunk guy taking a leak on a tree. And we're not sure that he actually lives here. Anyway, so many people were upset about the new neighbors, that the landlord received a bunch of complaints and decided that she needed to evict the tenants.

She came on a Tuesday and told them that they needed to leave and that they had 24 hours to do it. They told her they'd be gone by 2 pm. At 2:30 pm, there was no stirring in the condo. The landlady came over and apologized to me for renting to such crummy neighbors. I asked her if she'd checked any references or anything before letting them move in and she said that she didn't because they paid her with a check from the church, and she thought that if they were church people they would be good tenants. From what I could tell, there wasn't a whole lotta churchin' going on with those folks. But whatever.

A few minutes later, their door opened and they started carrying things out to their car. They had everything but their food out of the condo within 20 minutes. And they left all of the food. The landlady came over and asked if she could borrow a broom and a dustpan because they had left a mess. I brought it over to her and saw that they'd left more than a mess. It did smell like drugs over there, and laundry detergent. I'm not sure if they did it to be spiteful or to cover up the smell of drugs, but they poured laundry detergent over all of the carpet. Their dog had messed on the carpet, there was a ton of trash on the floor, and holes in the walls. I felt bad that the landlady had to clean all of this up, but not too bad because she should have done a little background check before she let just anyone move in. I offered her our vacuum and gave her some trash bags but didn't stick around because I'm not sure what they were smokin' in there, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to be good for our baby.

So what's the moral of the story? Willowbrook knows how to keep it classy. Also, never rent to someone without doing a background check. The other moral of the story is that we need to sell this place and buy a house with no conjoining walls.