Trailer trash neighbors

We live in a very economically mixed town outside of Boston. Bought a house here about eight years ago, and have put a ton of time and money into fixing it up. It's a nice neighborhood of older houses, in very mixed architectural styles. The houses across the street are big Tudor style houses. About 100 years old. They are worth about a million bucks each.

Out our back door (which is our main entrance, and where we spend most of the time) is a 1970s style raised ranch. It hasn't been painted in 20 years. There are big piles of discarded lumber in the front yard. A couple partially dismantled cars sit in the dirt driveway. There is one of those plastic garages for the "good" car. A couple big piles of dirt with weeds growing out of them are on either side of the yard. Four trash cans sit outside the FRONT door. Until recently when the kids were out of diapers, the Diaper Genie sat on the front step.

There are four generations that live in this house. A nice old lady, a next generation couple that must be either her son or daughter (this seems to be the skankiest generation). A young couple that must be their daughter and her husband. And two little kids, just about the age of ours.

They have a pool in the back yard, and about 50 people come over nearly every weekend in the summer—they must have the best house in their circle of friends. They have one of those extra large blue plastic tarps that they make a tent out of. It usually goes up in the back yard around Memorial Day, and stays there till the first snow in the winter brings it down.

They are always friendly to us, and we are cordial to them. Even invited us to a couple of their parties. We dropped in once, just to be neighborly. It was very frightening. There were about 100 people in the back yard under the blue tarp. It looked like a block party at a trailer park in Kentucky. We left very quickly. We felt like The Keatons dropping in on The Bundys.

Or remember the episode of The Simpsons where the neighbors were trying to sell their house, and the prospective buyers looked out the window just in time to see Homer, laying in a kiddie pool, looking for the hot dog he dropped in the water. "Oh there you are". Picture that scene.

So this brings up many questions and dilemmas.

• How do we teach our kids to not be judgmental, and that all people are created equal, when we go out of our way to avoid contact with this family.


• How do we tactfully ask if they could at least keep their trash cans outside their BACK door.


• When did we turn into yuppie snobs?


• What the hell is going to happen when the old lady kicks the bucket? Will even more of the extended family move in?


• If all the neighbors chipped in, how much would it take to get them to sell their house.


• What kind of tall bushy trees can we get, that will fill out very quickly, that we can plant in the back corner of our yard, so we can block the view of their house from our deck.


• How come I get nothing but porn, when I type "trailer trash" into Google Image Search. Oh great, now I'm gonna be in the top list of hits on Google for trailer trash porn.

Cookie cutter neighborhoods

This is a neighborhood that was built in my city a couple years ago. Before it was here, this was a forest. They came in and clear cut the whole thing. It was cheaper and easier to just mow down everything, than to leave some trees and create a nice wooded neighborhood. It's called Hawk Hill. There are no hawks, because they left when the trees were cut down. By the way, I'm not a tree-hugger, I just hate stuff that is cheap and lazy.

These are not inexpensive houses. They sold for $600,000-$700,000. Aren't they just the blandest things you've ever seen? If you had $600,000 to spend on a house, is this what you'd want? People snapped them up pretty quickly, though. I guess there is an allure to some people for a big, new, and open house, no how bland and sterile they look. First off there must have been a sale on beige, soft yellow and white paint, because that's all they used. 32 houses that just alternate beige, soft yellow, white, beige, soft yellow, white, beige, soft yellow, white. A few gray ones thrown in. Clapboard covered chimneys... big flat sides with no windows... a big rock ledge for a backyard, with another big bland ugly house behind it. Yuk, they are just awful. And starting at $600,000! Nuts.