Cue the Banjos

There is a family in my neighborhood that really should not be living in a suburban subdivision. They should be living far out in the country. Probably in a trailer (sorry...."Mobile Home"). With truck tires in the yard, turned on the side, painted white, and filled with potting soil, where they can grow geraniums, cabbage flowers and/or weed. And, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, directions to their house should include "turn off the paved road."

They keep their yard so poorly that it's an eyesore. They mow it, but not as often as they should. They have a shed in the backyard where they keep lawn equipment, but it's overflowing with crap. This is because of another little problem.....they took their garage and converted it to an extra bedroom or two, because there are so many people living under that roof. There appears to be a grandfather, a mom, a man in his early 20's, a teenage daughter, a young boy, and a toddler (the toddler might belong to the teenage girl). There might be more, but I don't know how many actually live there, because there are always about 4-5 cars out in front of the house. Their biggest form of entertainment, besides going to their daughter's fast-pitch softball games (which as everyone knows is brutal entertainment on par with watching "The Road Warrior"), is sitting on their front porch area, smoking cigarettes, watching cars drive by, and occasionally reach into a cooler of beer. It's like "King of the Hill" without the alley, the exterminator van, or comedy. Oh, and on Independence Day and New Years Eve night, they blow off about a thousand dollars worth of fireworks....from their front yard and the street.

This weekend, they built a deck onto their house. They did a quality job too, they got a Bobcat (which they ran until 10PM on Friday night, and fired it up again at 7AM on Saturday) and leveled the yard, and anchored it to their foundation, leveling the beams, etc. It's a very nice looking deck. Unfortunately, they built this deck on the FRONT of their house. It looks like any back deck you'd see on the back of any house in the area, where the family can relax, including deck chairs, cooler of beer (no grill yet), etc. But it's on the fucking FRONT of the house!!!

Here's the kicker....this house ALREADY has a back deck. They have a rather decent one, in the back yard. It's surrounded by grass that hasn't been mowed since May 2008, I'm guessing, and it overlooks a backyard patrolled by two pit bulls. So, this retarded family can't use their back deck, because the pit bulls will eat the toddler and the young boy, so they build a deck on the front of the house. Most of us, if faced with a similar situation, would opt for safety (removing the pit bulls), privacy (cutting the grass, planting hedges) and classiness (not having their shit in the front yard, and keeping mom off the front porch when she's wearing her ugly pajamas).

But not them. They live a "living on 40 acres, out in the woods, where nobody can hear our victims scream" lifestyle (much like the kidnappers in "Fortress" or the hillbillies in "Deliverance") in a nice suburban setting.

If only the housing market was better and we could sell the house and move.