Category: Observations

People Who Show Up at Your Door – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Reevesalley1I’ve been talking with someone who lives in Baltimore and works in DC, and we have been comparing DC and Baltimore. We got on the topic of Jehovah Witnesses which led to talking about other people who show up at my door. However, it seems the other people I get beyond JWs are a DC thing, and others, I’m guessing a Shaw thing.

1. Religious People– These are your Jehovah Witnesses and more rarely Mormons. Everyone gets them, and everyone has their own opinion on the topic, so moving along.

2. Political/ Advocacy– They want you to sign to allow such and such on the ballot and they will come door to door to get those signatures because standing outside the metro and accosting people apparently wasn’t working. Lately, I had someone from Save the Children show up on my door. I believe they wanted donations. So, no.

3. Utilities– No I do not want to change from Pepco or switch to a cable company.

4. Wrong door or Alica don’t live here no ‘mo– This happens less these days but in the early days when I arrived and the neighborhood was truly gentrifying with lots of subsidized homes and transition and change, you’d have people showing up at the wrong door. In a row of townhouses they all look alike and it doesn’t help that the colors of the house changed and the fences changed when someone was looking for an old friend. Or when a house that used to have subsidized renters or so-in-so who was living with grandma has now been replaced by random white people. I got someone who was looking for someone three doors over who moved a while ago. I’d heard stories from other people who had people at their doorstep looking for people who moved several years ago.
I’m hearing fewer of these stories and I take it as a sign that Shaw is no longer ‘gentrifying’ it is gentrified. The middle-class and typically white people are no longer replacing poor black families, they are replacing middle class white people. There are still subsidized houses being replaced by market rate renters and owners, but not to the level it was in the 90s and 00s.

5. Sales– The door to door salesperson still lives. I think Capital Meats may have changed their name, but they do come around every so often. Typically, I say no. There have also been people hawking subscriptions for the Washington Post and other publications. Um, no.

6. Handouts/ Cons– This is seems special to neighborhoods like Shaw. I put handouts with cons because sometimes until later, until after you think about it or write about it on the neighborhood email list, you may discover it was a con. This winter we got a homeless couple at our door asking for whatever we could give. It was a cold night so we gave them a new hat and scarf I’d gotten as a present. I was planning to give those items to charity anyway, so I honestly don’t care if it were a con.
Many years ago I got a woman at my door claiming to live around the corner, saying a relative was in the hospital, her car won’t start or she needed gas because the hospital was in outer Mongolia Maryland, and she just needed something to help. I gave her a Smart-Trip card I found days earlier on the sidewalk.
Several months ago on one of the neighborhood forums there was mention of a white male going to doors claiming that he locked himself out of his house and had extra keys at work and needed money for a cab to pick up his keys. Like my lady with the relative in the hospital, he made a vague claim of being a neighbor. People who move to neighborhoods like Shaw tend not to know who their neighbors are, and con artists can use that ignorance.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on April 30, 2016 9:01 AM.

The bad old days of Shaw is why I don’t believe in ghosts – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Over a decade ago when I was looking for a place to buy a home that was affordable and close to enough stuff to maintain my car-less lifestyle, I was doing some serious research on Shaw. In December of 2000 the Washington Post had a series called “Fatal Flaws: The District’s Homicide Crisis” and along with it was a map showing a big gigantic splotch of unsolved murders along Rhode Island and Florida Avenues. And when I moved to the neighborhood, I would hear gunfire almost nightly. Sad, and eventually ugly, memorials of rain sodden stuffed animals and empty liquor bottles littering the sidewalk were a common sight. The crack years were winding down and people were still getting killed over turf battles.

So with all these people dying violent deaths in the streets and parks of Shaw & nearby Sursum Corda, the area should be littered with spirits of the dead if you go by ghost rules. The Help and I, enjoy a good ghost story of the mild horror genre. The usual story is such and such a place is haunted because X number of years ago so-in-so died a tragic and violent death. By this logic 7th and O should be paved with the poltergeists.

We have friends who had to shoo people away from the Seminary up in Forest Glen when it was vacant and before it went condo. It was said to be haunted. People love haunted large buildings. People also like “interesting” haunting by interesting, middle class or wealthy persons or people associated with the wealthy. Haunted castles, yes. Haunted public housing, not so much.

 

I do relate to the supernatural, but in the regular practice of my religion. I am a skeptic regarding ghosts. That scratching in the walls? Rats. Maybe, squirrels. Lights flickering? Possibly crappy wiring by a crappy contractor or blame Pepco. Ghostly figures walking across the room? Obviously, your eyes are engaging in time travel.

I’m all about time travel.

Oh Baltimore

Baltimore is one of the reasons for renaming this blog.
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in Baltimore City lately. Why? I’m looking for an investment property there. I have another investment in my home state, but there is a time limit of how long I plan hold it so I’ve been looking for a replacement closer to home.

Anyway, I’ve spent days and some nights hanging out in Baltimore, getting to know the city better, and I couldn’t help but notice a few differences between DC and our sister city to the north.

More Industrial
DC was never an industrial city. The government is and was our major industry. Not just the government politicians, but government bureaucrats, and government contractors. Somehow you throw in a lot of non-profits, including universities and that’s us. This creates place for a lot of literate people who may or may not be intellectuals and thinkers, a knowledge based economy.

Baltimore has a strong unquestionable industrial history and sorta present. I highly recommend wandering over to the Baltimore Museum of Industry just to learn a bit about the various blue collar employing industries that made Baltimore great. But now, since American manufacturing isn’t as big as it used to be, the joke is maybe one can get a job at John Hopkins, the behemoth school that seems to be taking over a large portion of the city and is its own industry. The University of Maryland- Baltimore and MICA (two other schools) are attempting to carve out their own parts of the city at a much slower pace. Industry-wise a lot of people are placing their bets with Under Armour (you thought I was gonna write Horseshoe Casino?).

And Baltimore is either more accepting or comfortable with its industrial side as you could be walking along in a neighborhood, turn a corner and find garages where people work across the street from houses where people live. Washington wouldn’t stand for it. DC’s industrial areas are shrinking and being replaced by housing. At some point we’ll be nothing more than offices and housing, with a little retail on the ground floor. Yes, I know of the small breweries and distilleries, but we are not going to sprout a tiny Brooklyn (NYC) anywhere as there is very little industrial space for this sort of experimentation without having to hop through permitting and zoning hoops. DC may give industry lip service but our heart is not in it.

Poor White People
Baltimore has plenty of what you don’t see in the District of Columbia. Poor white people. Goes back to that industry thing. We (DC) don’t have a lot of the kind of jobs that hire poor people. No industrial jobs and job gentrification, where the job is more costly for the employer than it needs to be, so the employer is less likely to take a chance on someone with less education and experience.

Loosey-Goosey
It is hard to put my finger on and it does not apply in all areas.
The best example was experienced when the Help and I went dancing in Baltimore. The Help remarked there was more “flailing” on the floor than we were accustomed to. When we dance in around DC, even beginners make an attempt to do it the right way. The message we got in Baltimore was there is no right way, just have fun. And when people are just having fun it looks like a whole lotta chaos to those of us accustomed to more orderly events.
Sometime ago somebody foolishly tried to make “Keep DC Weird” a thing. That’s Austin, TX thing, not ours. Something like “Keep DC Wonky” is more appropriate, because we can get wonky. What do you expect in a city based on a knowledge economy? Baltimore is friendly, but not at all wonky.

Vacant Houses
As you may know I still control the DC Vacant Properties blog. It’s a slow project because really, we don’t have a lot of vacant properties with our real estate booming and all. Not a lot when compared to Baltimore. O-M-G! I see vacant houses coming in on the train, walking around scoping neighborhoods, they are all over the place. Blocks upon blocks, rows upon rows of vacant properties.
I know 20 years ago, DC also had blocks of vacant crumbly rat holes. Say what you want about gentrification, it does cut the number of vacant houses down, leaving the hard to deal with sticklers (Shiloh properties, 509 O St NW, etc).
Baltimore has a great vacant properties blog, Baltimore Slumlord Watch. I love how the blog’s author names the city council person, state senators and state delegates for where the vacant property sits, along with links to those politician’s contact info or websites. By naming those persons of power in the posts and tagging them, it can tie that vacant property to their name.

Maybe just don’t talk on your cell phone on the bus/train

Friday. 79 bus to Silver Spring. Woman, maybe 50-60 years old reads her credit card number into the phone on the bus.
I was close enough that if I were younger I might have been able to read her expiration date.

People. Do not do this. You are not in a cone of silence. I wish you were. But you aren’t.

I ride the bus and the train and for fun the MARC. I can hear people yabbering off very sensitive information like credit card numbers, the last four digits of their social security number, their address, oh and one time a “counselor” talking about a juvenile and his issues.

When I am on the bus, and sometimes on the train (I can’t hear my phone, I have a subtle ring for everyone but the Help) and I think the conversation isn’t confirming where I am or a meeting, I say, “Can I call you back in ___ minutes? I’m on the _____.” It doesn’t always work, but most of the time it does.

So to the woman with all those mystery charges on your card, I wish you well.

Old timers, new timers, and possibly misplaced credit

If you work at a place that has been around for a long time and in an industry is not known for quickly chewing up people and spitting them out, you may have a number of old timers about. You know, the guy down the hall who has been working there since the 70s and should have retired a decade ago, but hasn’t because this is all he knows. Those are the folks with seniority, with lots of institutional memory, but if they are an asset or burden really comes down to the individual.

 

I thought of this during a portion of the last BACA meeting I attended. There was the perennial “we should respect the old-timers” discussion that came up. Yes, some neighbors helped make the neighborhood what it is, but there are also scores of people who also made the neighborhood a better place who have since moved on, and a bunch of lumps who at best have been neutral assets and at their worst helping hold the neighborhood back, who never left.

 

It’s a great injustice to have the lumps receive the credit of those who did positive work.

 

Jim Berry, former ANC and former BACA president moved on to Bates in the 80s maybe and moved out in the 21st century, he deserves a lot of credit. That man worked hard. Very hard for the residents of the northern half of Truxton Circle and parts of Bloomingdale. So hard I doubted he had a personal life. I have not encountered anyone since who was as dedicated and caring as Mr. Berry.

On my own street we have a range of hard neighborhood workers and useless lumps. We’ve also had people in the 15 years I’ve been here who have come did well, pitched in, started something, be the right man/woman at the right place/time, and move on. Miss Becky, Emil, Kelly, Liz, and Paul are the names of a few of those who came to my street, actively did their part to make it better, and moved on.

 

There are also those who did a lot of activist work for the neighborhood when they were younger or working or whatever and have faded in the background. I haven’t seen Mary Ann Wilmer lately, I know she’s still around. Nor some of that crowd of older women (who I’d complain about) whose gift was constantly complaining and calling the police. Newbies can be a little bit too tame in calling the cops, so the older women’s persistence was how they helped. I feel obligated to mention a neighbor, she and Miss Becky got me involved with BACA, and an accident and it’s super long road to recovery has kept her at home. She is one of those neighbors who deserves a lot of credit but isn’t getting it because someone else is swiping it up.

The Last Roommate

The Last Roommate By Mari on August 30, 2010 1:45 PM

Well this weekend my last roommate moved in. After the Help and I get hitched (when he actually has a legal right to all that equity I’ve built up) he’ll move in and I’ll no longer be renting out the extra room. This house is way too small for 3 adults. So in thinking about 9 years worth of roommates and the whole renting your room out, here’s what I’ve learned:

Let the market determine the rent- not your mortgage

I think I charged by first roommate Belinda $500 in 2001. I can’t remember if I included utilities. I probably did. My mortgage was a little below $600. This was pre-renovation. I had the kitchen counter-space of a Ouija board and crappy cheap carpet. I also had active drug traffic on my corner and back then Cindy the Crackho was actively working (now it seems she’s retired) so I couldn’t really demand a high rent. But neither was I going to charge ½ of my mortgage, I had to make it worth my privacy. Then came the kitchen renovation and the whole house renovations and the second mortgages that followed. The kitchen renovation had no impact on what I was charging for rent as it had no impact on having drug dealers on the corner. Strangely, neither does having a new kitchen reduce gunfire heard at night, which really allowed for raising the rent. (more after the jump)

I did increase the rent from the $500-$550 range to $700 and above after the huge renovation in 2007 when my mortgage total went into the land of $1600 a month. I was charging less than ½ my mortgage and including utilities. In 2007-08 a renovation at that time made sense. The drug dealers were decreasing their hours. Other houses on the street were getting renovated so I wouldn’t be overbuilding, and I was finally making enough money to support a bigger second mortgage. After the renovation, I checked Craigslist and the City Paper to get a sense of what to charge for a room. Then I would post an ad for a certain amount and depending on if I got any real bites, I found out if I was asking too much.

Do a thorough interview and follow up on references

One reason I hear people say no to roommates is that they’ve had a bad experience with a past roommate. Of my worst roommates since leaving my parents home they’ve been people I didn’t choose (dorm situations) . It helps to pick people based on something in addition to their ability to pay rent on time. I’ve always required references and I interview those references, over the phone, before offering the room. I demand an in-person interview with the applicant. In the beginning it was to make sure the person was ok with the neighborhood. It was also to make sure they were the kind of person I could get on well enough with for the next 3 to 6 months. Yes, even though I do short term rentals I did the big interview, check your references, confirm employment dance.

The questions I would ask references were roommate, temperament questions. How are they about cleaning up behind themselves? Does So-in-So smoke? How does s/he handle conflict when a problem arises? Would you describe So-in-So as dependable/responsible? And general descriptions of the person. These interviews have been helpful in adjusting how I related to the roommate and made me aware of things I’d have to be sensitive to as well. And I made sure they were not all email references and I called the employer (or former employer in some cases.)

Know your market, know yourself

As I mentioned, I do short term rentals. Mainly because I get bored with people and sometimes I just want my house back. That was the know yourself part. So, who would I rent to? Well in the summer there are interns. I’ve had a law firm intern, and international org intern, and some educational non-profit intern. Because of all the non-profit think tanks and other research institutions there are also fellows, who are like interns, but older and definitely paid better. Some fellows I got from friends who were searching for housing for their research fellows who were going to be in DC for 4-6 months. Other types of people who needed the short term stays were people who were hired on a trial basis, a commuter and someone here for a short detail at the home agency.

My preferred roommate was someone with a life elsewhere. My commuter, lived with her partner on weekends. The person on detail had an apartment back on the west coast she was returning to. The law intern was a homeowner in Philly. And to accommodate them I would provide a furnished room, and provide kitchen wares so all they had to bring was their suitcase.

Ect

Sometime this year I contacted DCRA about the legality of renting out my extra bedroom and was told by Michael Rupert, Communications Manager, that I could have up to 5 unrelated people living together in a home – as long as they share kitchen and living spaces – without having to get any license and it’s perfectly ok in terms of zoning regulations.

I also reported the income on my taxes taking out the expenses associated (utilities, the odd time I paid the WP for an ad) and it has been good income. If you pick the right roommate (lives elsewhere on weekends, workaholic, never cooks) it can be the easiest $600-$700 bucks a month.

I did increase the rent from the $500-$550 range to $700 and above after the huge renovation in 2007 when my mortgage total went into the land of $1600 a month. I was charging less than ½ my mortgage and including utilities. In 2007-08 a renovation at that time made sense. The drug dealers were decreasing their hours. Other houses on the street were getting renovated so I wouldn’t be overbuilding, and I was finally making enough money to support a bigger second mortgage. After the renovation, I checked Craigslist and the City Paper to get a sense of what to charge for a room. Then I would post an ad for a certain amount and depending on if I got any real bites, I found out if I was asking too much.

Do a thorough interview and follow up on references

One reason I hear people say no to roommates is that they’ve had a bad experience with a past roommate. Of my worst roommates since leaving my parents home they’ve been people I didn’t choose (dorm situations) . It helps to pick people based on something in addition to their ability to pay rent on time. I’ve always required references and I interview those references, over the phone, before offering the room. I demand an in-person interview with the applicant. In the beginning it was to make sure the person was ok with the neighborhood. It was also to make sure they were the kind of person I could get on well enough with for the next 3 to 6 months. Yes, even though I do short term rentals I did the big interview, check your references, confirm employment dance.

The questions I would ask references were roommate, temperament questions. How are they about cleaning up behind themselves? Does So-in-So smoke? How does s/he handle conflict when a problem arises? Would you describe So-in-So as dependable/responsible? And general descriptions of the person. These interviews have been helpful in adjusting how I related to the roommate and made me aware of things I’d have to be sensitive to as well. And I made sure they were not all email references and I called the employer (or former employer in some cases.)

Know your market, know yourself

As I mentioned, I do short term rentals. Mainly because I get bored with people and sometimes I just want my house back. That was the know yourself part. So, who would I rent to? Well in the summer there are interns. I’ve had a law firm intern, and international org intern, and some educational non-profit intern. Because of all the non-profit think tanks and other research institutions there are also fellows, who are like interns, but older and definitely paid better. Some fellows I got from friends who were searching for housing for their research fellows who were going to be in DC for 4-6 months. Other types of people who needed the short term stays were people who were hired on a trial basis, a commuter and someone here for a short detail at the home agency.

My preferred roommate was someone with a life elsewhere. My commuter, lived with her partner on weekends. The person on detail had an apartment back on the west coast she was returning to. The law intern was a homeowner in Philly. And to accommodate them I would provide a furnished room, and provide kitchen wares so all they had to bring was their suitcase.

Ect

Sometime this year I contacted DCRA about the legality of renting out my extra bedroom and was told by Michael Rupert, Communications Manager, that I could have up to 5 unrelated people living together in a home – as long as they share kitchen and living spaces – without having to get any license and it’s perfectly ok in terms of zoning regulations.

I also reported the income on my taxes taking out the expenses associated (utilities, the odd time I paid the WP for an ad) and it has been good income. If you pick the right roommate (lives elsewhere on weekends, workaholic, never cooks) it can be the easiest $600-$700 bucks a month.

Monday Ramblings

I must say I love, love, love the Bloomingdale Farmer’s Market. I ran into my ex-roommate who, though lives 2 blocks from me now, I lost contact with. Reunions, yay! Also Painted Hand had bunny rabbit. Add a sticky-bun and a apple danish, good times.

Since I’m in the general area, congrats to the Big Bear for being in a commercial for a cable company and NBC Universal (YouTube). Yes, BBC you are a beautiful indy coffee shop and would make a lovely filming location.

This weekend a family began moving off the block, and I was told it was the schools that did it. We’ll miss this family as the mom threw some pretty great neighborhood parties. There was the one they held in the middle of the snowstorm, and one where the back gate was opened and the party got extended down the alley with small children running up and down. Add to this with another family with small and very socialable kids who are also planning on moving this year, our little section of the neighborhood is going to lose some of its character. The good kind of character and I hope whomever takes their place will add to the awesomeness of the block, or at least someone else fill the spot of “cruise director”.

Lastly, let’s talk sibling rivalry, that is Thai X-ing vs Beau Thai. I like Beau Thai’s Pad Thai better than Thai Xing’s Pad Thai. However, I like Thai X-ing’s Panang a tad bit better than Beau Thai’s, mainly because there are some odd veggies thown in (last time I had the Panang Tofu) the Thai X-ing version. Beau Thai’s Panang is good, the sauce is good and thick and hangs on to the rice. As a left over for lunch I liked it even more.

Do you give a fig?

Lunch today will be some goat cheese from the 14th & U St farmer’s market, some charcuterie boar meat stuff from the Cork Market on 14th, and some figs from the next block. I can’t believe I have never noticed this fig tree in all the years I lived here. I know about the plum tree at 3rd & Q, but the fruit is too high and the resident at the place there couldn’t tell me if the fruit was any good. But a few days back  I was running some finishing things related to Flower Power that was held back on June 26th. While running around I noticed this fig tree, with rip figs, and picked a few that were hanging over the sidewalk and they were delicious. I snuck back the next day picked a few and more from the sidewalk. Today I noticed signs of someone being home, knocked on the door and asked if I could pick their figs.
I was given permission and started throwing figs in my bag. About halfway in my picking another family member came out and asked how would you know when they were ripe for picking. It’s just like tomatoes, you give a gentle tug and if they come off, they are ready. I will wash them, as I also picked up some of the perfectly fine looking fruit that fell to the ground (I trashed the ones that looked like the birds or ants got to them).
The take away from this experience is to ask people with fruit trees if you can pick and the reward is some sweet lunch.