There Goes The Neighbor...hood
Our next door neighbors put their house up for sale last week.
It seems sort of ironic, in a way – both their house and our house were on the market at the same time way back in 1999, and they moved in a month or so before we did. Now here they are, selling theirs 3 months before we put ours on the market.
Anyway, I wish I could say that I’ll miss them, but that’d be a big fat stinking lie.
It’s not like they’re horrible people or lousy neighbors – all things considered they haven’t been that bad to be around. Their worse habit is parking their cars directly across our driveway, which makes it a real bitch to get out of when it’s snowy/icy. But there’s never really been any loud parties or junk cars parked on their lawn – just a couple of Halloween jack-o’-lanterns that overstayed their welcome (well past Thanksgiving) a couple of years ago.
To say that we barely know our neighbors after living next door to them for all this time would be an understatement. We know their names, mainly because there is a sign with them hanging above their front door. We know they’ve got a little girl, because you can still see the “It’s a Girl!” poster through their kitchen window (no blinds). We know that he enjoys “adult entertainment”, because before he put up a curtain/bed sheet over his living room window we had a perfect view of some mighty flexible people doing all sorts of nasty things on his big screen TV just about every night. But that’s about it.
We’ve never socialized together. We’ve never hung out over the fence, sharing a beer. I’ve never borrowed any of his power tools. The Lovely Mrs. G. has never swapped recipes with his wife.
And now they’re moving away. It’s sad, ain’t it? I guess it really looks like I’m really not a “neighborly” kind of guy. But that’s not true – if we had more in common I’m sure we’d get along swimmingly. But our Sioux City neighbors have never been exactly “friendly” to us, either. So there won’t be a lot of tears shed with their moving, but it’s not like we’re jumping and down with joy, either. Because as Bubba Gump and his wacko family across the street has proven, it can always be WORSE.
Mrs. G. and I of course have a bet on “why” they’re selling - divorce is our #1 pick – (sick, aren’t we?) – but we also know that they’re gone almost every weekend anyway. They’ve got a yard full of “toys” – boats, jet skis, snowmobiles – so we wonder if they’ve got a lake house somewhere to go.
We’re also kind of hoping that their Realtor will hold an open house sometime soon, so we can go tromp through the place and see what the difference is between their house and ours. Our two houses were built at the same time, and both have the same basic shape/floorplan/layout. From what I can tell our kitchen is much nicer, and I know that their basement isn’t finished, so hopefully it’ll give us the leg up when we list our house this summer.
And once we’ve both gone our separate ways perhaps the news owners of both houses will get together and become best buds.
Or maybe not. Heck, it worked for us for 7.5 years.
It seems sort of ironic, in a way – both their house and our house were on the market at the same time way back in 1999, and they moved in a month or so before we did. Now here they are, selling theirs 3 months before we put ours on the market.
Anyway, I wish I could say that I’ll miss them, but that’d be a big fat stinking lie.
It’s not like they’re horrible people or lousy neighbors – all things considered they haven’t been that bad to be around. Their worse habit is parking their cars directly across our driveway, which makes it a real bitch to get out of when it’s snowy/icy. But there’s never really been any loud parties or junk cars parked on their lawn – just a couple of Halloween jack-o’-lanterns that overstayed their welcome (well past Thanksgiving) a couple of years ago.
To say that we barely know our neighbors after living next door to them for all this time would be an understatement. We know their names, mainly because there is a sign with them hanging above their front door. We know they’ve got a little girl, because you can still see the “It’s a Girl!” poster through their kitchen window (no blinds). We know that he enjoys “adult entertainment”, because before he put up a curtain/bed sheet over his living room window we had a perfect view of some mighty flexible people doing all sorts of nasty things on his big screen TV just about every night. But that’s about it.
We’ve never socialized together. We’ve never hung out over the fence, sharing a beer. I’ve never borrowed any of his power tools. The Lovely Mrs. G. has never swapped recipes with his wife.
And now they’re moving away. It’s sad, ain’t it? I guess it really looks like I’m really not a “neighborly” kind of guy. But that’s not true – if we had more in common I’m sure we’d get along swimmingly. But our Sioux City neighbors have never been exactly “friendly” to us, either. So there won’t be a lot of tears shed with their moving, but it’s not like we’re jumping and down with joy, either. Because as Bubba Gump and his wacko family across the street has proven, it can always be WORSE.
Mrs. G. and I of course have a bet on “why” they’re selling - divorce is our #1 pick – (sick, aren’t we?) – but we also know that they’re gone almost every weekend anyway. They’ve got a yard full of “toys” – boats, jet skis, snowmobiles – so we wonder if they’ve got a lake house somewhere to go.
We’re also kind of hoping that their Realtor will hold an open house sometime soon, so we can go tromp through the place and see what the difference is between their house and ours. Our two houses were built at the same time, and both have the same basic shape/floorplan/layout. From what I can tell our kitchen is much nicer, and I know that their basement isn’t finished, so hopefully it’ll give us the leg up when we list our house this summer.
And once we’ve both gone our separate ways perhaps the news owners of both houses will get together and become best buds.
Or maybe not. Heck, it worked for us for 7.5 years.
posted by Tommy G at
5:49 AM
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