Neighborhood Junk House

This story starts 4 1/2 yrs ago. A family in the neighborhood had moved out, taking all their junk cars with them. Shortly afterward the owners (apparently it had been a lease house) hauled out all sorts of trashy junk from the house. It sat in the yard for 2 or 3 weeks before it finally disappeared.

Pic of the trashy stuff about 4 1/2 yrs ago

Another view, so you can see the full swath of the junk. On the right side of the drive the pile went all the way back to the house. See all the gummy oily stains on the driveway and in the street? It's all from these people. No where else any where in the neighborhood, or any place else I've ever noticed, have I ever seen such a messy street




After these folks moved out, the owners "fixed up" the house, which consisted of painting it a new color, as you'll see in the remaining pics.


The next folks moved in, had a bunch of miscellaneous folk living there with their many vehicles cluttering up the street. They moved out without much hooplah, at least none that I can recall, then the new folks moved in. It was common for them to have 10 cars in the drive and street at any given time, a couple were full-blown pimpmobiles. These last folks moved out a couple of weeks or so ago.

At first there was just a small manageable pile out by the curb, then that grew in a couple of days to a pretty large pile, then a couple of days later the two pods appeared with even more junk piled on the driveway. I have no idea what could be in the pods.

Believe it or not, I would call this most recent pile manageble in comparison to the enormous heap from 4 years ago

And here's a close up of the manageable pile. If you look carefully you can see some perfectly good stuff in there, like the baby bath, a pair of work boots, a bike than can totally be fixed. But what you can't know is the stench. The stench could be detected from the yard across the street and next door, but by two doors down you couldn't smell it. The reeking must have come from discarded, uncooked meat, or maybe disposable pets. It was really bad. This was taken with a zoom and I didn't get any closer.




Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the den and I heard and felt an incredible boom, I believe even louder than a huge transformer blowing. Ed was scared and dashed to and fro barking, finally parting the living room curtains to look out onto the street. I went out to the porch and saw my neighbors across the street on their porch looking toward the junk house. I walked out in my yard and saw a large truck, like a small moving van, in the street right in front of the junk house driveway. There was some hazy light smoke around the truck, and I figured the truck had some kind of problem, although I couldn't figure out what would have made such a loud boom.


A while later I was out watering the turtles and heard a fire truck in the distance grow a little louder. I ran in, grabbed my camera and hurried out front again. 

The truck was long gone, and the junk pile, now diminished to just a wee small pile, was blazing. You can't see it well here, but there were two areas of flames

Then neighbors across the street started putting out the flames from afar. They were doing a pretty good job, and the siren was getting louder and louder, then suddenly cut off completely

Here the fire fighters are extinguishing the rest of the burning rubble. Apparently they turn off their siren once inside the neighborhood, I assume to not draw looky-loos or to not scare folks. They worked a while, I went in, and they eventually left. Ed was so nervous, though, that I finally had to leash him up and take him out  front. My next door neighbor was also out with her dog for the same reason. She said she saw the people from the truck, who were there cleaning up the front and back yard, picking through all the junk earlier. Like I said, there was some decent stuff in there, but certainly not enough to reduce the debris by this much. They must not have been too picky. You can see there is only a very small pile up by the pods.




In the early evening I went back out and over there to see the aftermath. Of course I took my camera. I am sickened to inform that the stench WAS STILL THERE! And the flies...?  There were hundreds of them. When I moved in close they would hover and buzz around the rubble, and as soon as I stepped back they would disappear into the depths of the pile. So despite the fire, somehow whatever was/is causing the stench is still there, and the flies were braving the heat and ash to nourish themselves and lay eggs.


And through all this, the owner's have made a feeble attempt to rid themselves of this albatross by hammering into the ground a little fsbo sign. 

This is what was left after the fire fighters left. There was still stench. And flies. I wonder what the pod people will think when they come to retrieve their pods?

I'll see how long this tiny pile stays here before it is finally hauled away, and the pods, too.




Today during mid-morning I heard a fairly large "pop", certainly not the boom like yesterday, but I ran out to look. There was a regular pickup by the drive and I couldn't tell what the guy was doing. Later I noticed the rubble pile was still there and moved off the drive, so I took more pics of it.

So this is the progress the man in the red pickup made today. The pile looks hardly even noticeable, really, compared to what it had been

Close up of very tiny junk pile. Still stench, still flies.

And some more 'perfectly good stuff' near the front door

It will be entertaining (yes, I know I have a sad life) to watch either the progress or the demise of this property.