I was reading the police blotter this morning, I saw that someone was car jacked - in my neighborhood, about 2 - 3 blocks down the street. I am totally shocked! Instead of being buried on page 9 of the newspaper, this should have been a headline.

This is stuff that you hear about in big cities, on lonely streets or back alley drug dens.

It happened around 1:30 in the morning - the only detail they reported was there were 2 idiots (OK, 3, if you count the guy that got jacked), 1 had a gun and the other a knife. That was all they mentioned.

They built a string of Apartment buildings in our area a few years ago, multi-family dwellings, the overflow wasn't so bad at first, but it has steadily gotten worse over the years. Maybe my prejudice is starting to show as I get older, but in my opinion - this can be directly traced back to those apartments.

I'm starting to feel all "Gran Torino"... this can't be good.

I guess I'll take a walk down the street, show this to the long-time residents see if we need to have a Crime Watch special meeting?  Never was much of a fan of in-filling apartments in a residential single family sub-division. All that turn over can't be good for building responsible neighbors.

It never ceases to amaze me that city boards gripe and complain about folks fleeing to the suburbs or to neighboring small towns, but they turn right around and zone crap like this, destroying property values and ruining perfectly decent neighborhoods.

Time to move out of that trailer park.

Even to this day, on my street - we will cut the next door neighbors grass if they are sick or out of town for a while. We have a few older couples, widows and widowers - that were original buyers. But this, mortgage fiasco has affected more than a few streets in the surrounding  streets. It ain't quite "tombstone" - yet, but if the market goes up, I would think seriously about putting the house on the market. I hate to move, but if I do - it'll probably mean leaving Cailfornia.

So true, I had to laugh  "....The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver." - famous quotes
Jay Leno

Car parts are hard to pack, moving all my toys means I'll need a lot of garage and storage $$$space - Ka-ching.

Hey just a tidbit for your amusment..

here in this town I live in.. there are 5 such townhouses and complexs.
it has provin over the years that the management of such facilities shows the true naturethe residents..

the management lets people hang out, loiter and do the "dumb shit" then thats the way the people will be..

on the other hand when the management, thru both rule enforcement and a level of working with and helping the tenants , gets the code enforcment part together, the places here seem to clean up ... ALOT..

i mean look at Chuck.. if you let him run wild.. it could get ugly, from what i hear, but when kept a good Chuck.. hes a riot... if thats good..

so remember you do have the chance.. big or small that the management of such places may also be down with hearing concerns.. the hard part is gettin something done bout it.. and that is tough.. 15 yrs ago a couple of the places here were not outsider friendly..

for the most part they were drug/crime zoo's now they dont look it or have that i wont drive by there feeling so ..

best of luck .. it sucks if its bad.. mines just 1.5 blocks away.. so i know what you feel.. and the high/middle school is on the other side.. so the foot traffic is always questionable..