Excuse me while I remove my Weirdo Magnet...

Dan and I have a problem.  We're cursed.


No matter where we move, an empty house is always right beside us, and eventually (usually sooner rather than later) a family of freaks WILL move in.


It's just a matter of time.


Our house in Crescent City was a prime example.  When we first moved in, the house across the street was empty.  Soon, a family of four moved in.  We called them "The Weirdo Widebottoms."  


I have never seen a fatter family in my life.


Now that, unto itself, is not what made them weird.  What was weird was that they always wore their pajamas, rarely left home except to run across the street to play World of War Craft with the Geeks next door, and their teenage daughter would lurk in the picture window of their house and stare openly at my boys when they were being normal and doing things outside.  


Eventually they moved out and Karma bit us squarely in the ass for all the jokes we made at their expense.


Because when they left?  The Hell's Angels moved in.


Lord, how I wish I was exaggerating.


For two years, Harleys roared up and down our street.  Long haired dudes wearing leather Hell's Angels jackets silently went in and out, and their evil, evil children would throw rocks at our cars, call us names, and sic their nasty pitbull on our cats, us, the neighbors, etc.  Cops would slowly cruise by at odd hours and no one... NO ONE, from the police to animal control would do anything about their vicious dog running loose in the neighborhood.


I could read all about our neighbor's criminal history on Megan's Law because suh-prise, suh-prise, he was on there, too.  


Niiiiiiiiice.


Oh, how we missed the Widebottoms.


Then one day, when I opened the morning paper, who should be staring menacingly back at me from the front page but...


Our neighbor.


Shockingly, he had been under investigation the entire time he was living a stone's throw away from us for a double murder that took place 20 years previously.  He had been arrested and was going to be tried in a death penalty case for killing two young girls in the 1980s.


FABBBulous.


After the arrest, his horrible family moved out and followed him to the county where he was being held and tried.


As a small footnote to this, when the landlord went in after they left, he found a 6 foot python abandoned in the home and left to fend for itself.


The curse continued.


After the Hell's Angels, we had the old lady and her toothless, brain damaged, 40 year old schitzophrenic son who very carefully tended the dandelions growing in their front yard and practiced his version of karate in the middle of the street.  His equally toothless, brain damaged, schitzophrenic girlfriend moved in and called the cops on him regularly because he kept forgetting who she was.


Then came the 60 year old man and his 30 year old girlfriend whom he'd met online.  He would knock on our bedroom window to say hello if he heard us in there.


And so on.


When we moved here, the house next to us was empty and being renovated.  For a month, we had peace, quiet, and relative tranquility.  Bliss!  (It's not that we're antisocial; we just don't like neighbors.)


Last weekend, a couple moved in.  


With them, they brought a chihuahua and a cocker spaniel.  


I tend to love it when the people around me have dogs... that way, if mine are obnoxious or do a little barking, they don't tend to mind.  I mean, let's face it:  A dog will bark.  If you have a dog, you know this.  If you don't?  You tend to forget that and get annoyed by it.  


So anyway, Yay!  Dogs!  


Dogs that they open the front door and let out to careen through the neighborhood barking their asses off at all hours of the day and night.  


Yappy, high-pitched, REALLY FREAKING ANNOYING little dogs.


And oh, goody!  SHE likes to sit on her front porch smoking and blabbing at the top of her lungs on her cellphone ALL DAY.  


And when hubby comes home?  THEY ARGUE.  LOUDLY.  CONSTANTLY.


Maisy has taken to standing in the window and woofing at them.  I'm pretty sure she is saying, "Oh my God, seriously... SHUT UP."  


Yesterday morning, Trailer Trash Barbie and Pussy-whipped Ken (our personal, cute names for them) had it out in the drive way as he was leaving for work.  Couldn't hear him too well (not that I was trying) but she was yammering on and on at the top of her lungs, throwing around the F-word like it was confetti, while her two little dogs barked continuously on the porch.  


At around 3:00, Animal Control showed up and informed her that her dogs were a nuisance and she needed to keep them confined and quiet.


This involved even MORE tossing around of the F word.


At 6:00, after Dan and I had eaten dinner and were settling in for a wildly exciting Friday night of, well, nothing, sirens started flooding our street.  We could hear Barbie outside F-ing this and F-ing that at the top of her lungs, while the dogs barked and barked and barked and barked.


We peeked outside and there were two fire trucks and every.  Single.  Volunteer.  Fireman.  In Norwood. In the middle of the street.


Smoke was pouringggggg out of their house and Barbie had her phone glued to her ear.


Apparently, she'd caught the newly renovated kitchen ON FIRE.  


What I found to be ironic is that the entire time the fire crew was there (about an hour) she NEVER got off the phone, she NEVER put out her cigarette, and she NEVER told her dogs to STOP BARKING.


And even more priceless?


Ken never came out of the house.


Heee heee heee heeee heeeeeeeeee....