Dawn of the Dead

My blog server problems were apparently from being the featured blog on myblogdirectory.net. A fine site, by the way, I highly recommend everyone visit. I guess all the hits there bogged me down somehow. Anyhow, I'm back to smooth sailing with Firefox and everything works again. My hellish blog is now back to normal with no viewers and no comments.

Bob is now working the day shift at his friends' business. Yes, the zombie is venturing out into the daylight. I figured he might turn to dust in the daylight, but I guess not as he left this morning at 9:30am. Of course he came home after work with a 30 pack of 'Extra Gold' and he's working on it now as I type. He'll probably go back to his 2 part sleep routine now - go to bed at 5am, sleep 'til 9am - come home at 6pm, sleep 'til 9, commence drinking.

I have to get up early tomorrow to run some antiques up to New Hampshire. I'm praying for a quiet drunk-free night here. I submitted my first offer on a house today with my realtor. It's a lot more complicated than I thought. I've looked at 20-30 houses so far, I liked this one the most but it's overpriced so I made a lowball offer. It's been on the market for 5 months so they may wiggle a bit more with the price, we shall see. The average home price here has fallen by almost 1/3 since the peak in Dec. '05. Houses are taking a long time to sell here now, the bubble has definitely deflated.

Tag Sale In Hell

Back to the subject of my landlord. She lives next door to us. Just like Bob, she has some motivation issues. She had a tag sale in her driveway in the spring of 2005. All the large furniture that didn't sell was left in her driveway and it's still sitting there as of today. It was a large antique victorian couch, an antique oak table sewing machine, a coffee table and a non-working lawn mower.

I'm a full time antiques dealer. I told her what prices to ask for her stuff before the sale. She thought I was too low of course. The couch was a real ornate one with a nice carved frame with birds, just needed new upholstery. It was worth $200-300 easily as-is, the sewing machine was worth $75-100, the coffee table was 70s junk. I told her to ask for less than those values at the tag sale if she really wants them to sell. She got many offers on the couch and sewing machine but turned them all down. After the sale they were left in the driveway, out in the elements to this day.

The couch is now totally collapsed, wood is all split and covered with mold, the oak top to the sewing machine eventually fell apart and someone took the base, I don't think she cared. Our neighbor has been complaining to the city about her trash pile for the last 6 months.

Our city has a blight law which took effect about a year ago and the city deemed both her houses as blighted. She's been getting letters and phone calls from the city all summer to remove all the trash and paint both her houses. She just ignores it all. Last Friday, she had a large notice from the city tacked to her front door, says she has 24 hours to remove all the trash or she will be fined $100/day. 4 days later, the trash is still there. Nothing ever changes here at hell house.