So we’re not very good landscapers. Shoot, we barely remember to mow the lawn. DanO is so busy working on the inside of the house that we tend to neglect the outside.
If the outside were fresh and sparkly and perfect, would it make me happy while I toil over load after odorous load of cloth diapers? I submit to you that it would not. So here we are, with no illusions of keeping a well manicured lawn or having a walkway without weeds in the cracks. We do have some yard dignity, though, and would like to at least avoid being the eyesore on the block…
but it turns out we had failed to do even that.
“From the city of St. Paul: An Abatement Notice…” it read. Then, it proceeded to tell us that we were in trouble, expensive trouble, if we didn’t “Remove trash, garbage, or other waste from the boulevard by July 12th“.
Oh, you mean this little thing?
What did a little avocado green fridge left in our basement by the previous owners ever do to you, City of St. Paul?
It’s not like it was rusted out and generally hideous. Plus, we totally complied with the city ordinance that appliance doors must either be removed or strapped shut before it is placed on the curb for removal.
Oh, what’s that? Placed on the curb for removal, you say?
Why yes, for removal. With no “free!” sign and absolutely no intention of leaving it out there for more than 12 hours, we moved the refrigerator to the front boulevard Monday evening at the direction of our garbage company, whom we were paying to pick it up the next morning. We would have put it in the back of our house with our regular trash bin (we have alleyways around these parts), but the lady at the disposal company said, verbatim, “We don’t goes in no alleys for those large item pick-ups”.
So, the refrigerator didn’t goes in no alley, either.
It sat on the boulevard in front of our house very patiently Monday night and Tuesday morning until a non-alley-goesing truck came by and took it to refrigerator heaven… which must have happened shortly after one of our neighbors called the city on us.
This officially makes us the eyesore on the block, doesn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t even there for one half of one day and a neighbor was SO sure we were the kind of folks who just leave 1970s appliances on their front lawn for months that they called it in pronto. So pronto, in fact, that the public works employee got to our house before the Allied Waste truck did.
We have failed to prove ourselves to not be those kind of neighbors, apparently.
“You know those new neighbors with the horrible lawn, Marge? Look! Now they have an avocado green fridge just camped out in their yard! What next? Are they going to start popping out babies that cry at all hours of the night?! “
I really want to laugh at this, but I don’t know if that would be appropriate. My husband lived in an apartment once, and he planted 2 tomato plants in his front “yard.” Well, they died in the summer heat while he was away one weekend, and the office gave them a notice to remove the dead plants immediately because they were an eye sore. So they got removed, and the office planted two of those grass bushes in their place. Only they looked dead when they were planted, so I don’t know how those weren’t considered an eye sore, either. Well, sorry for my eye sore rant. But we *sort of* know how that is.
Oh, laughing is always appropriate. And it can never happen too soon in my book either! I just hope that the neighbor who called felt really, really stupid when they saw the waste truck hauling the sucker away shortly thereafter.