Neighborhood has gone to hell

Pinellas County is in a no outdoor burning zone due to dry conditions and one neighbor is burning piles and piles of tree cuttings and a another guy is using his Oak tree as a car lift. Well sort of, He got a car frame hanging from the oak tree and today there was a trailer, a Jeep and a pickup and another car some old pickup all parked on the lawn along with this frame hanging from the tree. . this neighborhood has gone to hell! Pictures to come....

You can have that kind of stuff anywhere Rick. Being a car nut usualy means you end up living in non gated communities so you have more freedom to work on your cars at home, but then you are open to the type of activities like you are describing if there is not a home owners association.

Boy do I know all about neighborhoods going in the can. That's the ONLY reason we moved. I loved my old house and property, and the convienience of living around the corner from the shop was fantastic, but we just couldn't fight the onslaught of the "tribe" alone. We tried to form a homeowners association to combat the problem, but people just stuck their heads in the sand. The worst offender on the block was (still is) a wigger (let the comments fly, I don't care) who ran a junkyard out of the house. A renter whose landlord flat told me he didn't give a shit what the guy did as long as he paid his rent. The gangster rap, loud cars, loud monkeys, and garbage on the street escalated so fast in the space of a year that we said to hell with it. Calls to the county brought very little action although I did manage to have a couple cars removed from the right of way and some garbage cleared by just plain threatening to have someone's job for indifference. What was once a very quiet and pretty neighborhood dissolved into a "hood" in the space of a year. Now we live in the "county" among good 'ol boys and I feel like dusting off my stars 'n bars tag and sticking it on the front of my old pick up. We have a contract on the old house and it lools like the new owners will fit right in...they can have the place and I will have their $$$$$. Studebaker George

Now you just need a nice new house in a gated subdivision where you can't park anything in your drive way and the grass can't be more than

Obviously you saw what was coming, and acted immediately while you still could get a decent $$ for your house. Looks like your neighborhood is in for 'block-busting', where nearly everyone is selling out at once. I believe Harvey, Illinois, went through this phase back in the early seventies, and the results of it are still there; boarded up stores, the infamous Dixie Square Mall that has sat abandonded for 25 years, etc. (I drove down Dixie Highway by taking a wrong turn when on the way to South Bend in 2002). Same with Highland Park, Michigan; the tax base got so depleted, the civic government had to be disbanded and the state take over running the area as there was no more money in the coffers to pay for wages and other services. There is a fine line where I don't care what my neighbor does. The only time I do now is when an 'investor' buys a house in the area for rental income. Luckily this hasn't happened too much in my area, but in the area I used to live, there were more than enough of them to make an impact on the surrounding properties.

Craig

Craig, Harvey finally came up with the money to tear down the infamous Dixie Square Mall which by the way had a car connection. It was the site of the Mall car chase from the Blues Brothers movie. Harvey also housed the foundry where many of the Packard cranks were produced. Harvey is now a town to be avoided! I once worked as a consultant to their school system. It was a shame to see such beautiful old buildings falling into irreversible disrepair. MikeW

No gated community for this "redneck". Besides, my shop is six thousand square feet with two acres of fenced property and zoned for a junkyard. The only cars that come home are ones that DRIVE....and still just eight miles and three traffic lights away. Studebaker George

Oh, the "blessings" of diversity. If your community has become uninhabitable, thank a liberal for forced integration, "fair" housing laws, wide open borders, welfare, affirmative action, sec. 8 housing, and for forcing minorities into office. Once in office, they have little or no sympathy for white voters who live in what they euphamistically call "neighborhoods in transition". Forced integration & bussing of public school students usually results in white flight from communities with large ethnic populations because public schools become unusable for white kids. When those families move out, immigrants, minority, &/or low-income people move in & then the rest of the decent people begin to move out to escape the crime, decay, & noise. Cars in the yard become pretty low on the list of objectionable issues from these kinds of people. You do not want to be among the last non-ethnics to remain in a "changing" community or you will be very sorry, because tolerance is something most minorities demand, but seldom exhibit toward others. You will be tormented, ripped off, harrassed & even killed if you stay. Liberals seem to believe that having a decent lifestyle is for rich people who can afford to live in expensive suburbs, & that the poor whites deserve to live in crime-infested ghettos.

BH

"Mike Williams" wrote in message news:9uWdnXEbPfO3WeTZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

another guy is using his Oak tree as a car lift. Well sort of, He got a car frame hanging from the oak tree and today there was a trailer, a Jeep and a pickup and another car some old pickup all parked on the lawn along with this frame hanging from the tree. . this neighborhood has gone to hell! Pictures to come....

Sounds like my kinda place. Better than an uptight neighborhood with CC&R's. .

Yes indeed. That was how I figured out what it was I drove past by seeing it on a Blues Brothers website afterwards. I have read that they finally scraped some money together to tear the poor thing down, but last I heard, its only partially demolished. There some dispute over the asbestos hazards within it, and that proper safety measures weren't taken out by the contractor doing the demolition which got the state involved, so its halted for the time being. And as a "town to be avoided!" is an understatement!! How glad I was it was mid-afternoon when I drove through it; not at night!

Craig

Harvey also housed the foundry where

George,,,that sounds like a great garage!!!!!!!!! How many cars can you fit in it?

If I pack 'em in real tight maybe twenty some. I don't remember the most I ever had inside. Oh, and forgot to mention...two lifts, three phase power & mega compressor, paint booth behind the building (hasn't really been used in several years and is currently housing the CE project) and various other "amenities". I used to rent it out but the last two tenants had to be formally evicted, so NO MORE OF THAT! Just me now... but I'm getting so busy I wish I could find a kid that wanted to learn or another "semi retired" Stude nut.... Studebaker George

I bet you could fit more than 20 George. I can get 7 without effort in my 32 X 40.

Studebaker George wrote: