Month: September 2008

People check to see if you paid your taxes

I was glancing at the 2008 Tax Sale Properties and I noticed some familiar names on the list and so, not to name names, please check. Some of the amounts are small, like a few hundred dollars small, which leads me to believe that your mortgage company didn’t adjust for the taxes. So check. Seriously. Check.
Why was I looking? I was looking to see what empty lots were listed. I want a garden. More realisticly, I want to fantasize about getting an empty lot via a tax sale and turing it into a garden.

Neighbor moved, I think

I want to note it, but I’m not too sure about it. A neighborhood character who I used to call Drama Mamma (then dropped the name when the blog readership when up) moved. I think she moved. There was a U-Haul, and the lights haven’t been on for a few days. The landlord has been trying to sell the house and there is little love between him and DM. She may be gone, however, she forgot to tell some relatives she relocated (if she did relocate) and they’ve been knocking.
Neighborhood characters do make the place interesting. However, sometimes it is a kind of interesting that gets tiresome and occasionally dangerous. We are not out of neighborhood characters on the block, however the adults (kids whole ‘nother package of nuts) weren’t as out there as she and her associates were. So with the exception of buppie lawyers who like to wildly emote with their cell phones and the screaming kids, the block may get quieter.

Neighborhood Character in Post

There is some disagreement between me and my source, but I think I know of the “Derrick” in the article appearing in Sunday’s Post article “After A Few Months in DC, It’s Not Just The Rental Options That Stink.” The author moves in a group house on 1st St NW, and though he says it’s near U Street, the “Derrick” he meets sounds too much like a Truxton Circle “Derrick” who haunts 1st St. This Derrick hits the author up for a beer so he could celebrate his anniversary with his wife. This was the give away, as there is a TC Derrick who is known for hitting people up for beer and acting like a self appointed street mayor. Yet my source thought 1st Street could possibly have several Derricks, besides the TC Derrick, who is actually named Derrick and may ask for a beer.
So Bloomingdale, y’all got any storytelling beer-mooching Derricks up there?
Anyway, one of the things that made my source doubt that the Post’s Derrick and the TC Derrick were one in the same was the rest of the author’s story. Apparently, the author moved in without signing a lease. The guy who was on the lease collected the housemates money but never paid the landlord and they all got evicted. Which sounds like the same thing that happened to Nora Bombay’s brother in Florida, where the housemate collecting the rent ran off with the money and everyone got kicked out. But then again, that was a case of don’t have crackheads for roommates, and especially don’t give them the rent money.
I really don’t understand. Almost all the places I rented, despite having roommates, I paid the landlord or manager directly. The only sort of exception was when I was renting in DC and had occasional roommates who were staying for a few months, where I was collecting the rent.
A word of advice kids, get on the lease and/or at least have management aware that you have the right to stay there. You never know when you’ll get locked out of the apartment/condo and need to convince the doordude that you belong there and he needs to let you in.

Hey Loudmouth Buppie Lawyer Dude

I can’t have my windows up because of you.
Yes, yes, you are very important, doing whatever it is that you do. I’m not sure if you were having a one-sided screaming match on your cell for work or pleasure, but you woke me up. On a rare moment when I thought I could feel free to open my bedroom window, let in the cool night air, and give the AC a break, you ruined it. Normally, I’d call the police. As a promise I made to another neighbor, who had the habit of getting loud with the help of electronics and booze, I said I’d be fair and call the cops on you when you got loud. That way, my 311/911 (I’m confused) noise complaint calls would be equal, regardless of class. Yet, the other night I was so tired, the only thing I could manage to do was close the window, collapse on the bed and sweat.
I feel pity for the people who live next door to you. I’m several doors down and I can hear you. I could hear your custody battle screaming. I could hear your gossipy VIPs in the DC government screaming. Please stop. I wish I could not hear you. I don’t want to hear you. I want to mind my own business, but that’s hard to do when you keep screaming.