They're baaaaack.....

The crazy next-door neighbors are in town. I guess they're not really next-door neighbors. I mean they own the property next door, but they don't live there. We'd heard of them, but we'd never seen them or met them before, but here they are. And when I got home this evening Mr. Beers was standing our front porch with her. The one who inherited the house next door. There she was, looking all kinds of crazy with long, thick white hair, and long, thick grey toenails hanging off the front of her orthopedic sandals.

The house has been vacant for at least ten years. There used to be a thirty year-old rusted station wagon with four flat tires in the carport, until recently. Somebody called Code Compliance and complained. Then arrangements were made and the car was removed.

But that's the only activity that's gone on over there in years. Until a few days ago. The heiress and her husband and the adopted daughter blew into town in their white minivan with those luggage pod things on it, and suddenly there's been a lot of activity next door. Brush-clearing, light-bulb-replacing, pecan gathering, all sorts of things are happening. It doesn't look like there's any real rehab going on though. Just a lot of general clean up kind of stuff.

They're mysterious folks. Everything that we - the neighbors - know about them has come in bits and pieces. They live in California, I think. The heiress has said that she'd like to return the house to the *great* condition it was in when her mother lived there. Then she'd consider renting it. The tenant would have to be someone who is "totally organic." They would have to agree to grow a vegetable garden in the backyard, and grow potato vine as ground cover in the front. Oh yeah, and the tenant would have to be fragrance free. No cologne or perfume. Because the heiress wore perfume when she was younger and as a result she was unable to conceive. That's why she has an adopted daughter.

And so this evening Mr. Beers was on our front porch with her. When I drove up, he looked like a trapped animal. She was *entertaining* him with stories about her life and the house and about cleaning it up. She gave a good amount of lip service to the idea of us all bring Good Neighbors. And then she casually started suggesting that we needed to call tree trimmers and have them cut back the branches on our pecan tree. It is her opinion that the pecans falling from our tree onto her house are contributing to the deterioration of the roof next door. Such talk does not seem very neighborly and certainly not very organic.

Oh well. Rumor has it that they are heading back to California tomorrow.