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