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.

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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!

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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

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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!!!!!!!