A rainy day in the neighborhood

It is overcast again today.  I keep hoping for a sunny one so I can go pick up the branches the next door neighbor left on the yard.  Our yard, not theirs.  I can't understand why anyone would cut down half a tree, scrape the neighbor's house (just freshly painted last fall), leave all the branches and cuttings on the neighbor's yard, and just let everything sit there.  I wouldn't be so mad if they had just come and told us that they scraped the house with the huge falling limb they cut off. 

But then, if you saw their back yard, you would know they aren't really interested in gardening or having a nice area.  They are fairly new.  But in the not quite a year since they have been here, they have left a stove and a washer in their front yard for months, worked on cars in their front yard and left car parts strewn all over, build things in their back yard that they never finish, and generally lowered the look of the neighborhood considerably.   I would say something to them but my husband is a good guy and doesn't like to make trouble.

Speaking of the "good guy", some weeks ago, he came inside to tell me that the neighbor brothers were fighting in the front yard.  He asked if he should go do something.  I said "Of course!  What if they hurt each other?"  He and the young neighbor to our north side went across the street where
the local trouble spot is and made sure that they weren't having a slug fest.  It seems the younger brother who has mental issues and has been in and out of jail his whole life had been upset with the older, responsible, hard working  brother and had keyed the side of his car (which he had just had repainted due to an accident).  The older brother saw him out of the kitchen window and ran out and tackled him to find out why he had done it.  They were down on the front yard with one brother straddling the other.  No one threw any punches, it was just a damn it Bruce situation. 

Now, this family has had troubles.  The mother is on medication for a severe mental illness, the  father just died of a heart attack, and Bruce, the youngest, has a long list of drug abuse, criminal activities, and is generally rather weird and creepy.  Several times over the years, the family has wound up at my house due to his erratic and abusive actions.  He also went way off the deep end (not that he isn't always there) and stabbed himself 7 times in the stomach, almost severing a kidney.

This is not a bad neighborhood.  It is generally tidy, and quiet.  There are children living up and down the way.  People tend to work hard, pay their bills and keep up their yards.  But it seems to me that it is going rapidly down hill with Bruce across the street, and the messy neighbors next door.  We also have a foreclosed home mid block that has been vacant for some time.  That family fell apart after the mother (a nurse) was caught stealing and selling Oxycontin, and the father was jailed for stealing the
propane tanks under the warming house for the skating house at the park.

To get back to the story:
This morning I answered the door to a summons server.  My husband has been summoned to court to be a witness for the Plaintiff in the State's case against Bruce.  He is not one to get involved and was trying to help, but it has turned into more that he bargained for.  I am sure the young neighbor (neat, tidy people) will be served too which will make it hard as he is a school teacher in Buffalo, and that is quite a distance from here.

Having a family disturbance is one thing, but dragging your neighbors into it is another.  I am just tired of the whole situation over the years.  We have been good neighbors and tried to help, but the mother (even though there have been numerous restraining orders against Bruce) keeps letting him back in the house.  The other siblings have done what ever they could to take care of her, but they are so frustrated that I think this last court case is a sign of that.  They have done all they can for Bruce, but he goes back to the drugs and stops taking his medication.  What do you do in this case?  While I do feel for them, I want my neighborhood to stay quiet.  It seems police cars are in our street all the time!

Anyway, I will have to wait for the weather to clear so I can go heap up the downed limbs and twigs on my yard as I know the neighbors probably won't do anything.  Ever.  Maybe it is time to start looking for something else.  We have lived here for 26 years and it is getting worse.  It is sad.  We raised our children here, are part of the community, have a lovely garden and yard, but it has to change.  Maybe I should start some sort of neighborhood thing when I get back in September. 

I have a week before I go up north.  I am excited to be leaving, if only for a few months.

Rain, rain go away.......