Underwear Tree!-- a Life in Elmhurst post

Some folks have taken to flinging their underthings on the trees over the Woodside Ave and 72nd St overpass.

Other people keep their front lawn filthy (surprise surprise).

But wait!-- I found some beauty just steps away!! Thank you to these neighbors on Woodside Avenue!

43rd Ave Drug Baggies = Art?

Last night the husband dragged me to free night at The Whitney. I wasn't very enthusiastic- I mean, the line was 2 blocks long. But it moved pretty quickly, and once inside, I was rewarded with an up-close view of the most amazing piece of art I'd ever seen in person. I am not talking about a Hopper or O'Keefe. No, this was a piece that "touched me deeply", "spoke to me", or whatever people say to describe a profound and visceral reaction to a piece of art. Here it is:

This is Found Dope, Part Two, by Candy Jernigan (1986). For each crack vial, she wrote the location in which she found it.

I TOTALLY have to do something like this with my ever-growing collection of 43rd Avenue drug baggies. I mean, I have been writing the date and location on each one. But I will need a REALLY big poster board if I want to make something like this.

By the way, I just did my weekly OGCLE. Five baggies found on church steps >:(

 

Speaking of my collection of found drug baggies: on Saturday after my OGCLE clean-up, I washed the drug baggies I'd just found and left them to dry on the kitchen counter (as all normal people do, no doubt). Later in the day, it so happened that I had to call the cops because two of the guys who hang out by the abandoned house drinking in the hot sun got into a big fist fight. It only occurred to me as I was walking through the kitchen on my way to talk to the cops that if they wanted to come inside, I'd have some serious splainin to do about the drug bags laid out on the kitchen counter!

 

Drug baggies on church steps :(

This is the collection I found on the steps yesterday (43rd Ave near 72nd Street), along with a big empty bottle of Beam...

And this is the collection I found this morning, along with a can of Bud in the flowers:(

Nice things here too edition: The Community Garden

Behold: The Community Garden on Woodside Avenue and 72nd Street!

I don't know who is responsible for this garden, but I am very grateful to this person. This is an oasis in the desert of filth and muck. It looks so out of place, actually, amidst sidewalks strewn with litter (it's on Woodside Ave, not 43rd, so we're talking litter of the food wrapper variety, not used condoms, blunts, and drug baggies, but still!). Anyway, thank you, wonderful (and talented) gardener(s?)! Your work goes a long way towards improving our quality of life. Plus, it's real perty to look at.

There's filth on 74th, but some beauty nearby

Yet another example of the care and respect (for self and neighbors) displayed by this building's residents. Thank you!

And below is yet another Elmhurst "water" balloon that I passed yesterday. Unlike most, this baggy wasn't even sealed.

Elmhurst Water Balloon

Speaking of baggies, I collected no fewer than TEN drug bags on 43rd Avenue between 72nd and 74th Streets on Saturday. Only a couple were large enough to hold weed; the rest were tiny, multicolored bags that I assume held something much stronger. So for all of the people who say I'm a whiney beeyach for complaining about "just some kids smoking pot"- sorry, but the majority of drugs that are used around here are not pot (based on the evidence that I collect).

 

Also, as of Saturday, August 8, there was a pile of about 8 oddly-shaped and too-heavy-to-life black trash bags dumped on 43rd Avenue near 72nd Street (construction dumping?). I called it in that night (2015LKG06076). What is wrong with people? The worst part is, people threw random litter (bags of takeout food, etc) on top, to flutter away in the wind. Why? Why?

 

In general, my faith in humanity is waning. But there are SOME decent people who seem to not want to live in filth, and who actually want to make things look nice. For instance, some good resident of a building with a concrete "lawn" managed to cultivate these beautiful flowers.

Gorgeous fleurs on Woodside Ave in the 70s

 

And another local resident, on Woodside Avenue in the 70s, added these accents to the front of their building (which was glaringly lacking in litter too, compared to their neighbors' domiciles). So at least SOME people have pride, dignity, self respect, and appreciate the little things that can make life so much better (ie, keeping the property clean and even planting some flowers here and there).

 



 Thank you, neighbors who give a sh*t!!! You save me from utter despair!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

UPDATE: Regarding the pile of mystery garbage bags left on 43rd Avenue: the DSNY picked them up within a day or two of my call to 311. THANK YOU DSNY! You all are the best! And, see, calling 311 does work. Please, if you see a dump pile, call it in. It only takes a few minutes, and it keeps the neighborhood livable. Thank you everyone!!

Why don't folks care as much about clean streets as they do about clean ears?

 

If I had to say which item I find littered on the streets of OGCLE territory more than any other, it is the Q-tip (or off-brand cotton-tipped swab). At first I thought these must have fallen out of garbage bags/cans when people put their trash out. It's unlikely, but what is the alternative?- that people walk around cleaning their ears in public? I've never actually witnessed a Q-tip in use on the streets, but they are EVERYWHERE. Here are photos of a couple that I passed just this morning walking one block. WTF??!?! 

 

So maybe people aren't using them to perform ear hygiene. The only other use for them that I know of is to apply make-up. But I've never seen any that have make-up on them. So what's the deal-a-roo?!? (actually, I probably do not want to know).

A Q-tip blooms

Yummy, this one looks well used.

 

In case you're wondering, the second most common item I find all over the streets and sidewalks is the used dental pick. Gross as it is, it makes a little more sense- I mean, people could be coming from restaurants and picking the remnants of dinner out of their teeth. Of course, flossing in public and then tossing the used pick on the sidewalk is disgusting. But it makes more sense than cleaning your ears in public.

Nothing should surprise me anymore.

FWIW, I did pluck up these two Q-tips after photographing them. Some bloggers photograph this kind of stuff and just leave it there, and they get their blogs featured in Gothamist and other local news outlets. I'm not bitter though, really I'm not!* (*That's a little CBT I'm performing on myself; I'll let you know if it works.) Hey, the person who picks up a stranger's used hygiene products has a right to be bitter.

Here's a funny thing that happened recently though. The other night I was b*tching to my poor husband about this while we were exiting the train station (which always has quite a collection of Q-tips and dental picks). I said, "Why do people leave dental picks and Q-tips all over the place?!?" and a man walking by, without skipping a beat, said, "Oh, those are mine, sorry." Har har. Actually, I did laugh out loud when he said that; but overall, the situation is a sad, pathetic reflection on human behavior.

Which parked item is not like the others?

This is actually a scene from 44th Avenue, not 43rd. Dang, I can see why the druggy losers prefer to hang out on 43rd; 44th is getting real grungy. And the funny thing is 44th Avenue is more populated- they even have a fancy fully-occupied new condo whereas we have an abandoned building/now-crackhouse. But 43rd Ave has its very own morbidly obese cleaning lady (ca c'est moi!). I'm just surprised that the many people who live on 44th don't seem to give a crap about all the litter (you can't see it in this shot, but trust me, t'was litterful). And if it not for Fire Alarm Guy and the Woodside Neighborhood Association, there would be graffiti tags all up and down the 44th Avenue overpass. I just hope someone called 311 about the freakin FRIDGE. You'd think they would be bummed about losing a parking space to an appliance!

UPDATE: July 27, evening: Someone DID get fed up with this fridge taking up a parking space. Did they call 311? Nah! But they did drag it onto the sidewalk. Thanks y'all! 

 

Reported to 311 on July 28, 2015. Ticket number 1-1-1133574121.

 

Gee thanks, 43rd Ave Crappification Group!

The usual crap went down today on 43rd Ave... these insipid scrawlings appeared sometime between my morning cleanup at 10am and now (7:30pm). 

But I painted over them with a quickness!! (not the same shade as the wall, unfortunately, but I wanted to cover the tags lest the scribblers think they have some kind of ownership of the neighborhood). I will enjoy a victory that will be sadly short-lived, as I fully expect new tags to appear tonight :(

Meanwhile, in case you don't believe my tales of 43rd Ave Whitefish (as, indeed, I haven't posted any pix lately), behold the following:

              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the end of the day, I had sustained a cut and some bruises. No one said amateur garbage haulin' was easy!

It's smoke or snooze over here

Last night I decided to test my mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques by walking home via 43rd Avenue after work. It was a worthy test, for I discovered that mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques do not work at all. (That's one self-help book I can recycle.) What I encountered on the Avenue made me furious. Well, let me back up to Woodside Avenue, which I passed first on my walk from the train. The lovely Community Garden that some kind neighbor planted on Woodside and 72nd was strewn with trash. (You know the phrase "This is why we can't have anything nice"-?!?) I picked up the trash as best I could. And, sigh, then I proceeded up the block to 43rd. Of course, the wacky weeders were already out. This was about 7pm. It was still daylight, and there were still plenty of people walking home from the train. But there were two large groups of weeders, just standing right out on the sidewalk puffing away: one group close to 72nd Street, the other group right in the middle of 43rd (on the overpass).


This is what it looked like when I did my lie-down-in(?) protest last night. But the lady
 in the photo is a generic internet person; I myself am much wider.
Say, I guess I could have lain down on that dumped mattress-
that would have made me look even crazier!

 

What made me so mad last night, and continues to irk me all the time, is that NOBODY CARED. There were so many people walking by, through clouds of pot smoke- all kinds of people: young, old, families with little kids in hand or babies in strollers... and no one cared at all. Well, I care. I sometimes feel like I am the only person who DOES care.

Since I'm a little bit crazy, what I did was lie down on the sidewalk about 10 feet from the overpass group. I wanted to see if any of these nonchalant pedestrians (or drivers, for that matter) would stop when they saw a body on the sidewalk. Obviously large groups of people doing drugs right on the sidewalk do not bother them at all. Well, it turns out that neither does the sight of a person lying on the sidewalk, eyes closed. They just walked around me. Some must have been creeped out at least a little though because they walked in the street. Anyway, my great test of whether or not anyone gives a fork about anything yielded the expected results: no, no one (who was walking around here last night at least) cares about anything, or anyone. That is why people can do drugs in broad daylight on the sidewalk. And why people can graffiti whole panels of overpass (this happened a few months ago on Woodside Avenue, which is MUCH more heavily trafficked; many people saw the graffiti in progress, but no one called the cops).

The subject of graffiti reminds me that there actually are people in the next 'hood over- Woodside proper- who care about such things, namely, Fire Alarm Guy and the Woodside Neighborhood Association. They have helped clean up our neighborhood- including its graffiti- many times. The problem is, until people who actually live here start to take some interest in what goes on, we are pretty much screwed, and it will remain a garbage dump/drug hangout.

Please people, if you see something (like those a-hole kidults who smoke pot every single night here), call the cops on them. And if you see a body lying on the sidewalk, at least stop and see if it has a pulse! (and ideally ask if it's okay, and if no response, call 911). Sigh.




The 43rd Ave Crappification Group

In the mythical la-la-land that likely only exists in parts of suburbia and in my mind, sidewalks are bordered by flowers or hedges, or at least by grass that is NOT infested with drug baggies, used condoms, and Phillies wrappers. But in Elmhurst we do things a little differently. Sometimes we even go all out and decorate with filthy mattresses and television sets. Well, not "we". I am convinced that this is the work of The 43rd Avenue Crappification Group. Their mission: maintain the status quo of filth and neglect and lawlessness, despite the efforts of the disgusted neighbors who are trying to clean up.

The tv on the lefthand side of the photo has been here for at least a week.

For what it's worth, I made a 311 complaint about filthy sidewalk conditions the other day. At the time I only reported the television; the mattress just appeared yesterday. I hope the DSNY isn't gonna be pissed!

P.S. Not sure if they are dues-paying members of the Crappification Group, but the nightly drug-smoking losers definitely contribute in spirit. I for one feel sick to my obese stomach every time I walk down the Avenue at night. It's not even a feeling of fear, but of FURY and disgust, and frustration that no one seems to care about this drug problem except me.

It's very lonely being angry.

P.P.S. I think my crazy garbage-obsessed ranting steered away one group of potheads last night. I had encountered a pile of trash on the Ave near 72nd, and was SO infuriated, mainly because I had done a thorough clean-up over the weekend. So I was probably saying things along the lines of "What the eff is wrong with people?" and "Disgusting effin pieces of sh*t!!!" (Yes, I get VERY angry when I see  litter.) Anyway, the smokers (these were the older, suit-wearing smokers, as opposed to the a-hole teen smokers that gather further down the Ave), all hopped in their (maroon sedan) car and sped away before I even got within 10 feet of them. Woohoo!

Your scenic tour of Elmhurst continues....Also, CAKE is a LOSER.

This is a photo of an apartment building's garbage. For some reason, the collected trash is stored out on the sidewalk, where people probably add to the overflowing receptacles whilst walking by.

 

Oh, who am I kidding? No one really bothers trying to put their trash IN a garbage can.

 

**On the door, you'll note the artistic stylings of one of our local artists- "CAKE." This mysterious scribbler is very prolific in the Woodside/Elmhurst area. I've even seen his (or her?) work on Queens Boulevard heading towards Sunnyside. Now, I enjoy cake as much as the next [fat] person, but does the word belong on the door of someone's domicile? Methinks NOT.

I saw the sign...

Behold the work of a complete and total loser!

 

Graffiti on parking sign, 74th Street near Roosevelt

Behold the slipshod work of a person walking by with nothing but alcohol prep pads. (I know, I have to go back with some more powerful ink remover, but at least it's a little faded, no?)

The sign, after I spent about 10 minutes and multiple alcohol pads trying to scrub off the graffiti.

By the way, when I was up their scrubbing away at the GRAFFITI, a gentleman walking by said, "Are you trying to get free parking for life?" I thought that was pretty clever.

What part of "No More Cloths" don't you understand?!

On this site t'was a clothing bin.Thankfully it was removed a few weeks ago. So why do people still bring their  clothes here? Do they not notice the absence of the large metal bin?!

43rd Avenue Vice!

 

This past Saturday, June 28, the day of my encounter  with the creepy perv, I collected the usual number of drug baggies on 43rd Avenue and on 74th Street. What the fork is wrong with people?!? Also, while I was picking up litter on 43rd Avenue, I met Brian of the diaper leaves and buds. When he saw me rolling the garbage cart towards his car, he got out and scraped the contents of a blunt into the can. Then he declared his intention of replacing that nasty stuff with more fragrant dried leaves (those weren't his words, of course). Whatever, as long as he does it in his own home or vehicle and doesn't litter Phillies Blunt crap all over the sidewalk like the stupid loser 43rd Avenue smokers do, I don't have the energy to care. I just found it remarkable that this encounter happened so early in the day- say, 9am, 9:30 at the latest. Apparently the term that applies to such activity is "Wake and Bake" (I just learned this yesterday).

Weed weed weed.... if only that were the only drug round these parts. But most of the drug baggies I pick up are too small to hold pot, and many still have white powder/crystal residue.

Case in point: this morning as I was walking down 74th Street towards the train, I found a used alcohol pad and wrappers on someone's steps. I carry alcohol pads when picking up trash (so I can give my hands a scrub with them, followed of course by a "wash" with hand sanitizer gel). Stupid me, the first thought that popped into my head was that someone else must be collecting neighborhood trash and just got careless with their alcohol pad wrapper. My second thought was that maybe the wrapper had been left by a diabetic who had given himself an insulin shot. But no, I don't think that was the case either, because next to the discarded alcohol pad and wrapper was a discarded tiny pink drug bag that still had white grains in it. The grains were like the size of fancy chunky table salt, ie, bigger than powder or sugar grains. So I don't know what that is. Crack? Do crack smokers need to use alcohol pads? Or was this a drug that could be injected? (If so, I'm glad they took their needle with them at least.) Anyway, it's freaking DISGUSTING. Imagine being the person who lives in that house, and walking out your front door to find drug paraphernalia. Imagine opening the door and sending your kid ahead down the steps, and he picks up the little pink baggy. It's so gross. WHY WHY do people think it's okay to do drugs out in public, right on someone's front steps? This stretch of 74th, a block and a half up from Roosevelt Ave, is very busy at all times of day and night. Yet someone felt it was okay to just whip out the drugs. They assumed no one would say anything about it, much less call the cops, and they were right. :o(

By the way, this past Saturday morning I also passed a car in which a lady was servicing a fellow. Again, SATURDAY MORNING. Broad daylight. So gross. So very very gross :o(

There's also some perty stuff 'round these parts!

Even though the purpose of this blog is to chronicle the filth of the neighborhood, I must say that there are some pretty areas/places/things.


The beautiful door of the Sherpa Association meeting house on 76th Street

Some beautifully cultivated fleurs on 76th Street

Another neighbor's garden...

Another neighbor's beautiful garden on 76th Street

...and an adorable garden guardian.

~~~~



Welcome to the Trash Shed Motel

I always thought of this as just a stinky shed full of trash.
But apparently it can also be used as a makeshift motel room.
Well, I'm sure it's not much dirtier than the rooms in the motels along
Queens Blvd.

I had a disturbing encounter on Saturday morning on Woodside Avenue. It was around 10am. I was collecting litter around the overpass between 72nd and 74th. Sometimes when I'm rollin' around with the garbage can, people come up to me and deposit their trash. They always ask first. Actually, sweet story that occurred right before the yecky event: 2 moms with strollers, and one little boy of about the age of 5, were walking down the block while I was litter collectin'. The little boy picked up a bottle from the curb and deposited it in my garbage can. Aw! A Junior OGCLE! Of course the mom yelled at him for touching garbage, and honestly I would not encourage anyone to touch trash with their bare hands. But I still thought it was really sweet of the little kid.

A little further along Woodside Ave, closer to 72nd Street, a man came up to my can and stood there holding out what looked like the remnant of a blue slurpy. I said, "Yes, you can put it in here"- actually I had to repeat that a couple times, because he seemed to be spaced out (AKA, drunk). Finally he dropped the cup in the can, and I thanked him and went back to picking up litter. I assumed he had walked on, because he was no longer in my peripheral vision. But when I got to the garbage shed (pictured above), the blue-slurpy guy was suddenly right there. I had walked inside the fence (not pictured, but there is an unlocked fence around the shed area), and he walked in right behind me. He caressed my hips when he passed. I was so freaked out that I backed out of the fence. Meanwhile, he went up to the shed and started trying to pull open the door. There was a cinder block holding it closed, as you can see in the photo, but he was so drunk(?) that he didn't see that all he had to do was drag the cinder block out of the way. Good thing, though. Anyway, he kept gesturing for me to come toward him/toward the shed. So naturally I hightailed it out of there. I went up about a block, and pretended to keep picking up trash (tho the bag was too full to add any more crap at that point). After a few minutes I figured surely he would be gone, so I headed back to the shed. Actually, first I tied up the trash bag, so I would only have to throw it into the shed and get out of there ASAP. I didn't see the drunk dude when I got there, and I was able to throw the bag into the shed (first I took a perfunctory look to make sure he wasn't inside). A second after I closed the shed door, the guy appeared again, right there within the fence. He said something to me which I couldn't comprehend, and then stumbled over to lean against the side of the building next to the shed. I noticed that his fly was unzipped this time, and he was about to start touching himself. I did not stick around to see anymore. I just grabbed my garbage can on wheels and headed back onto Woodside Avenue. The creepy little drunk guy followed me at least halfway up the block (I didn't turn to look back after that, I just accelerated). Ugh.

He was like a foot shorter than me so I don't think he could have done any physical harm to me (plus, I had the advantages of not being drunk, and also of having my trash-picker, which could be used to clunk him over the head I guess). But still, the encounter made my heart beat really fast. Who the heck wants to experience such a gross thing? Shouldn't he be doing this in the privacy of his own home, or on the 7 train? (ha ha, just kidding). Blech. Just thinking about it now made me vomit in my mouth a little. TMI?

For what it's worth: he was very clean and "normal" looking (that is, he did not look homeless or derelict or obviously drunk). He was wearing a spotless white tee shirt, tucked neatly into light-blue jeans that were also clean. He was clean shaven and didn't smell. Heck, I didn't even smell booze on him, so maybe it wasn't drunkenness that made him act weird. Maybe he's just a gross perv (gee, ya think??).

They have a frontyard full of sh*t, What can I do about it?

(Post title is a paraphrase of the ol' 80s song "Do It Clean" by Echo and the Bunnymen)

 

 

This is the lawn that temporarily housed the disgusting, broken, and overflowing clothing bin (see previous posts). For those nostalgic for filth, fear not! The collection of barely bagged or outright unbagged household trash is growing again.

The tree on the front lawn has even started to bloom accordingly: check out these lovely garbage blossoms!

 

 

P.S. [only read this if you are NOT prone to cringing and vomiting] The title of this post brought to mind the scatological encounters I had during this weekend's 43rd Avenue cleanup: I found two huge piles of feces. One was right in the middle of the sidewalk (thankfully on the side with less foot traffic, but still!), and the other was along the curb. This did not look like dog poo; plus, there were fecally-stained napkins around the pile, so I'm pretty sure the sh*tters were human. People around here are freakin DISGUSTING. First the plastic bags full of urine, then the Starbux cups full of crap, and now just outright crap on the street. Every time I think I've seen just about the nastiest thing a human being can do on a so-called-civilized city's street, I find something new. At least when folks crapped in Starbux cups I could pick them up (with one of those picker things, not my hands) and transfer them to a garbage bag. But I'm not going to mess with piles of loose street crap. The rain will have to take care of those. Meanwhile, I harbor fantasies of the losers from the corner crack house stumbling and falling face first into one of these piles. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

P.P.S. Speaking of the druggy/crackhouse 43rd Avenue losers: I was just catching up on my reading of the COMET web site, and I saw that last month someone was stabbed and robbed of his cell phone on Queens Blvd and 74th Street. Thankfully the perpetrator was arrested. He's 17 and a member of "a well-known gang." Great. So this happened about 3 blocks away from the 74th Street crackhouse. I'll bet  the a-hole mugger/stabby kid has hung out with the other upstanding people who frequent that edifice. :o( 

   

First the good, then the bad

I returned from vacay Friday night to find that my neighbor's disgusting clothing bin was gone!! "Oh happy day, calloo, callay!!" Before I left, the DSNY had slapped on some orange removal stickers, and shortly thereafter the neighbor(?) painted over them. But the DSNY was not fooled, for they came back and hauled away this receptacle-of-nastiness. Hopefully this neighbor will not try to plant a new one on the other side of his lawn or in his driveway. I certainly wouldn't put it past him. But for now, I will just revel in the fact that there are currently no bins on the block. No more mountains of wet clothing all over the sidewalk, no more people shoving themselves headfirst into a broken metal box to dig through a pile of crap (it really was a pile of crap: broken toys, single shoes, etc). All that remains of the bin now are scattered puzzle pieces.

So that's SOME good news, woohoo!! Thank you DSNY!! And thank you Community Board 4!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, 43rd Avenue did not disappoint. A new TV set appeared, along with a bucket of what looks like cat litter but was actually labeled as some kind of construction material (I forgot what it was). And as you can see, a random bag of garbage joined the collection too. I called this in last night (1-1-111537-0321). Actually, when I walked by the pile a little later, I saw that someone had picked up the cat litter/construction material bucket. But that still leaves the dang TV, the third one deposited on 43rd Avenue since the city stopped picking up electronics. What the heck do they expect people to do with their TVs now? Wait for a disposal event that is close enough to home that we can put our old TV sets in a shopping wagon and walk them over? Apartment buildings of a certain size can arrange for pick-ups of electronics, but what about people who do not live in such buildings and do not have vehicles? I just predict that I'll be seeing many more television sets on the Avenue :o(

43rd Avenue dump pile, June 14, 2015

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

New crap on the side of the sh*tty empty building on 43rd Ave

 

And what weekend would be complete without a visit from the 43rd Avenue "artist"? He or she added this new marking to the side of the empty building/scene of my recent death threat. Maybe our artist has enrolled in a medical program. These scribbles vaguely resemble V-tach ECG waves. Well kudos to you, young artist, kudos to you! Just don't let all this fancy schoolin' get in the way of your nightly 43rd Avenue pot smoking!

Can it be? Is the lawn ornament on its way out??!

UPDATE: 7pm. The saga never ends.

So it seems the owner just bagged up the trash (which is a big step, for sure), but then just painted over the Sanitation stickers-?!?

UPDATE: Friday, June 12, evening: It's gone! The bin is gone! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Who wants to jump into this JUICY pile of clothes?

Looks like fun, right? Akin to those Chuck E Cheese ball bins. Or Scrooge MacDuck's coin-filled swimming pool. Yeah, dive right in and swim around in some discarded clothing... and belts, bags, a plastic keyboard, puzzles and other broken/missing-pieces-of toys, etc etc. I can't guarantee that you will not encounter bed bugs, feces, or urine (sure it has rained on these items a few times, but you never really know what they are wet with). Anyway, enjoy, this colorful addition to the 74th Street sidewalk. I know I sure do! Yeah!!

Neighbor's lawn ornament

 

Update: June 1, 8am.

Last night it rained and rained and rained, and more rain is expected today. So now this pile (which has grown over the weekend, since this photo was taken) really is trash: I mean, I don't think that even a bootleg used clothing company would pick up a mildewed pile of clothing. (The company name on the box is Spingreen, fyi, but good luck trying to contact THEM directly.)

 

This situation makes me so sad. I'll take more photos today. The front part of the lawn is covered with other, "regular" household garbage including a large suitcase that has been there for weeks, a mattress frame, and now the mattress itself, as well as half-assedly-bagged garbage, and stray litter all over. So, it's a pretty depressing situation. I reported the sitch to 311 several times. The problem is that since the bin is on his own property (lawn), they cannot remove it. I contacted my community board, and they said the same thing pretty much. They did alert Sanitation, but they expect that all that can be done is that Sanitation will keep giving the guy tickets for a filthy yard. Oh, and people have also started to add  food "donations" to the pile: this weekend there was a case of Westbrae soy milk containers. (I put "donations" in quotes because I doubt that any of the food items are actually safe to eat anymore.) Why, why?!? I am so disgusted. How can someone live like this? Forget about how obnoxious it is to subject one's neighbors to this, but how can he himself live in this filth? He has a pretty young wife, and a couple of young children, and this is what he subjects his own family to?? Why doesn't SOMEONE in that house take responsibility for cleaning up their property?- the wife, the renters, SOMEONE?!?!? I can't take it!

 

I guess this is how we live in Elmhurst, huh? We just enjoy a garbage dump of a lifestyle.

 

Update: June 1, 7pm

The clothing piles have been removed! The bin still on the property though, so I'm sure it will be back to normal (ie, a filthy pile of clothing) in no time. But I'll enjoy the clothing-free side yard as long as possible (a few hours?).

 

Now, about the FRONT lawn...

 

So I got my first death threat :o(

Ye Local Crack House

 

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the empty building on the corner of 43rd Avenue and 74th Street. It was built around 2011, but the owner supposedly ran out of money (tho he drives a shiny new luxury car), so it has been sitting vacant (of legal/paying tenants at least). Neighbors have told me that they see people go in and out. I had never witnessed this myself, until this past Sunday (May 24).

 

I have to set the scene a little: it was a beautiful sunny day, around noon. Families- yes, including lil kiddles- were walking about, to and from the two churches in the immediate vicinity. When I was coming upon the corner of 43rd and 74th, I noticed 5 or 6 teenaged-appearing people, including one gal, circling the abandoned house. I thought, what the heck, they can't be seriously considering plopping down and unwrapping their stash in broad daylight with all these people walking around. But no, of course not. They were planning to do their business INSIDE the festering crap hole house.

Point of entry?

I paced back and forth on the 43rd Avenue side, trying to make my presence (and watching eyes) obvious. When I got to the front of the building, the kids were no longer there. I heard them inside, banging around. I assume one of them crawled in through one of the broken windows on the side and then unlocked the door for the others. In any event, they were in there, bikes and all. I couldn't believe it. At first I thought maybe one of the kids was related to the owner, because they weren't even trying to be discreet about being in there. Honestly, that's why I didn't call 911 right away. I kind of stood there dumbfounded. After only a minute or two, though, the FRONT DOOR burst open, and all of the kids stormed out. Most of them hopped on their bikes and sped away. However, one gentleman paused long enough to let his fury be known.

 

There was an elderly man walking in front of the building, just passing by, but I guess he made the mistake of glancing at this little effer who had just stormed out of the front door. The kid started hollering at the old man, stuff like "What the F--- you looking at?! I'll F--- you up!" Then he noticed me standing there just staring at him in disgust, and also a young woman who had just parked her car in front of the building. He turned his attention to me and the other lady too, and said to all three of us collectively the same kind of thing.

I couldn't help it: I said something along the lines of "What were you doing in there? It's not your house." And he replied/hollered, "So what?" and more along the lines of "Eff you! I'll eff you up". Then finally he said "I'll pop you!" [this is the phrase that I interpreted as a death threat, cause like, that's what "pop you" means, no?- tho I admit that I'm not totally up to date on slang terms of today's youth]. Anyway, he hopped on his bicycle and sped away after that. I was pretty shocked and unnerved, and really really angry. I asked the young lady who had just parked if she thought I should call 911, and she said yea-zers!, so I did. I mean, even tho the little effers were gone, at least the cops could see that the door was wide open and that someone obviously had broken in. Three cop cars showed up, and 6 police officers went in. They said it was real dirty, and I'm pretty sure that one of them said something about finding drug leavings (if I find so many drug baggies OUTSIDE that house, I can only imagine how many must be inside). So, hopefully the precinct at least has this local crackhouse on its radar now!

Some additional points and thoughts:

1.The little effer who yelled at me and the other two people bore a striking resemblance to the "43rd Avenue Artist" that I imagined in a recent post. He was VERY scrawny- I thought to myself at the time that his arms looked like stringbeans. I certainly wasn't afraid that he could do any physical harm if we were to fight mano a mano, but his RAGE and temper were terrifying. If, God forbid, this idiot ever were to procure a gun, I think he would really end up shooting someone.

 

2. The little effer was wearing a surprisingly* holiday-appropriate garment: t'was Memorial Day weekend, and he had on a tank top with an American flag design. [*I say "surprisingly" because I wouldn't expect that people who break into gross crackhouses to do drugs would care about Memorial Day or any other holiday... honestly, it was probably just a coincidence.]

 

3. What REALLY freaked me out about this encounter is that I relayed it to some friends (okay, I posted it on f-book, but just for a few hours), and other people seemed freaked out by it. My friend's mother has some serious psychic abilities. Scoff if you will, but I know of too many things that she has been "right" about. Anyway, when she read about this encounter, she wrote that she sensed "great danger" around me, and told me that I should stop confronting criminals (obviously) and even trying to clean up. Her warnings pretty much were enough to keep me off 43rd Avenue the rest of the weekend.

So, yeah, I'm kind of freaked out. I feel VERY conspicuous doing my OGCLE cleanup now (luckily I had done it Saturday morning, ie, before I encountered the little angry fella).

 

Here is the only photo I caught of the group of kids zooming away.

Pull up a seat!

I don't know why someone would choose to remove a perfectly decent appearing car seat (I mean, there are no rips or stains). But if you have to do it, the place to leave it is 43rd Avenue of course! I am sure that the drug smoking losers appreciate having a place to rest their weary bones- all of that smoke could make them lightheaded, poor dears!

 

**** I reported this to 311 on Sunday morning, the day I spotted it. Of course, Sunday afternoon was ~eventful~ to say the least (see next post), and I've been too chicken to go back to the Ave to see if this car seat was hauled away yet. 

As to WHY someone would ditch a car seat, someone suggested that it was from a stolen car that was being used for drag racing (and hence, would need to be as light as possible). Well, nothing surprises me anymore. 

Absolutely Revolting

The bin that my neighbor planted on his lawn about a week ago looks worse every day.

:o(

 

Related posts:

 

http://ogcle.blogspot.com/2015/05/hey-heres-neat-way-to-make-few-extra.html

 

http://ogcle.blogspot.com/2015/05/lawn-ornament-just-got-little-dangerous.html

 

This is what the front of the house looks like:

http://ogcle.blogspot.com/2015_04_01_archive.html

Warm weather dumping continues

 

 

I just did an OGCLE clean-up of 43rd Avenue on Saturday. It was spotless- both sidewalks and gutters- when I finished. It didn't look bad on Sunday afternoon either. But when I walked down the Avenue this morning, I was appalled. It was DISGUSTING. I had only brought a little shopping bag for garbage, because I was on my way to work and planned to just do a perfunctory clean-up. Also, for some stupid reason I never imagined that SO much trash would accumulate in just 3 days. But it surely did. I filled my shopping bag before I even made it halfway down the block. At the end of the block (closer to 72nd Street), I found an actual dump pile: a huge TV (pictured), along with a couple bags of clothing. And lotsa litter too. I had to go home to get a real trash bag, and managed to bag up most of the debris, except for the TV obviously. It looks pretty small in this photo, but trust me, it's a biggy. I submitted a report/pick-up request to 311 just now.


Service Request #: C1-1-1105243881
Date Submitted: 05/20/15 1:41:10 PM
Request Type: Dirty Condition
Details: Dumping

I am SO tired of picking up after people. The crap on 43rd Avenue today included a lot of the nasty stuff that the Ave is known for (to readers of this blog, at least): many drug baggies, blunt wrappers, condom wrappers... but thankfully no whitefish today! It's just SO disgusting!! Situation Team, please, come visit 43rd Avenue ASAP!!!!