Boarding Houses Up With A Camera Crew In Tow

(Photo from minnpost.com)

I guess I'm animated and make for good video. There are people in the Hawthorne Neighborhood Association who have been working for decades, I am sure, to turn the neighborhood around but this blog caught the attention of minnpost.com and arrangements were made to meet up with a camera crew...
The members of the crew were pleasant young men in their 20s, one wearing a cap with "Rasta" colors. We went on a tour of the block...well, OK, more like a patrol. We went to see the old "Re/Max Crack House" at 420 31st Ave. N., which was now boarded up...delightful.

Addendum, April 15: The crew was made up of Gabriel Cheifetz, (known as "Gabe") and "J. Daniel Valento" in the "rasta cap."

I explained the difference between a "low class" crack house versus a "high class, boutique" crack house: caring about human waste going outside instead of inside the building. Though "420 31st" is a low-class crack house, "415 31st" seems to be more high-end. You have to wonder if something like that will make it into the court case heading for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Anton Scalia would have so much fun with something like that.

I showed them how I had boarded up 415 31st...we toured the clothes-littered back porch, and I pointed out the scorch marks on the house. It's a lot worse inside, I explained. At the house on the corner of 4th Street and 31st Ave. (Keep in mind there is no "5th Street" in that area) I found a real estate sign smacked off its hooks...I remounted it.

"Some free work for the real estate company," I laughed. "No charge."

We walked down 4th Street, and I pointed out a house (admittedly quite secure) with piles of crap in the living room, visible from the front porch. Numerous copies of Spin magazine and piles of latex gloves. They probably had a "jack shack" going in there, but a pile of latex gloves doesn't prove much...except latex.

At 3018 4th Street N., I pointed out the padlock which had appeared after I called the security company repeatedly...and then finally the City of Minneapolis when the security company said "our lock, but not our house." I'd told the "311" service how house was unsecured, but needed only a lock. And a padlock appeared. No, not instantly like magic...but it did appear.

I pointed out the garage door I'd managed to secure--one day when I was literally down to my last nail--by nailing the hasp back in place. We walked up the steps of 416 30th Ave. N., which I dubbed (on the spot) "the problem child of the block." I'd expected to show them where the power company had disconnected the power, and the piles of garbage in the yard.

This was, of course, before the "Sanitation A-Team" arrived today...

I was surprised to see the line reconnected. I turned around and realized the board over the second story window--which I had seen nailed in place after the firemen left, which had been in place an hour before--was now removed, and sitting next to the door.

I don't know if expletives came out and were caught on camera. I explained the situation to the crew and said, "Perhaps you gentlemen would feel more comfortable leaving, now."

We had planned to shoot video of me nailing up the door of a garage next to Scott's house, on "Peter and Joy's Block," where individuals often went inside to smoke weed and (I speculate, though Scott didn't say so) engage in prostitution. But this problem at 416 (and keep in mind it is the "problem child of the block") required me to call the City Housing Inspectors (I left a message) and the electrical inspector, Name Withheld, who I hadn't yet managed to put in my speed dial because he was such a new contact, but I had his card in my wallet.

While they shot video of me talking on my cell phone, a prostitute who lives on the block got in a car with two guys and took off. I think they caught it on camera.

I told the camera crew we should "multi-task" and so I grabbed the board I'd planned to put on the garage and we walked over there while I talked to "311" about the ongoing situation at 416 30th Ave. N.

Forget a "reference number." The 311 operator told me there was now a Master Incident Number, which was 08-101346.

"Wow," I said. "Master Incident Number? We're really moving up the food chain, huh?"

So, yeah, we were going to board the garage, but then one of the crew said, "What about the front door?"

"What about it?" I asked. "It's secure, isn't it?"

"I don't think it is," he said.

He was right. At first I thought it was locked, but it turned out the door had been kicked in, and it was merely caught up on the door frame. The house was wide open to trespass...and still filled with numerous possessions.

Well, change of plans. The board I was going to put over the garage door was obviously more valuable to secure the front door of the house. First, though, we had to make nobody was getting boarded up inside.

I turned to them and said, "Gentlemen, I'm afraid I'm going to have to bullshit a little bit." I went through the house yelling, "SECURITY! MORTGAGE COMPANY! DOCUMENTING THE CONDITIONS IN THE HOUSE! YOU'RE FREE TO LEAVE. NOT HERE TO ARREST ANYBODY! YOU CAN GO!"

Why do I yell that? one of the crew asked.

"Because that's exactly who they'd be expecting," I explained. "And I figure I can play it off with what I've got."

I checked the house. Nobody inside. Time to board the front door. It was a serious pain in the (expletive) because there was an old metal porch light over the door, and the board was too big. I had to bow the board quite a bit, and drive the nails in hard, to get the door secured. But I got it in there, somehow, but not before slipping and getting mud all over my hands.

"Ew," I said. "It's stinky mud."

That was going to be the title, one of the crew said.

I didn't think it was THAT good of a title. I suggested they use my little motto at the bottom of my (at that time) most recent blog entry, "(Expletive) the crack heads, board that (expletive) up!"

There was a fascinating little moment of (how shall I phrase it?) inspiring legalism. Certain legalisms give me a chill...in cowboy movies, when a posse pauses for a moment to be sworn in. When "Taps" is played at a soldier's funeral. When the young couple makes a desperate dash, knowing everything will be alright if they can only cross the Macon County Line.

"Tell me what you're doing and why you're doing it," one of the crew asked. And I said something like this:

The City of Minneapolis made its wishes known through a newspaper article. They said, "Watch out for these vacant houses. Adopt these houses. Protect and take care of these houses."

That must mean, by necessity, boarding up the front door when the house is full of possessions and wide open to trespass. Furthermore, obviously I have to make sure I'm not boarding up somebody inside. So by the authority granted to me by the City of Minneapolis, I am going to check this house, and then I am going to secure this house.

So I checked it good, with the camera guy behind me. It was full of possessions. I paused by numerous cans of paint...home improvements planned but never made. How useful some of that paint could be to improve the block! But it wasn't my property to do with as I pleased.

As we left the house, I pulled the interior doors shut behind me. I explained doors were useful to stall the spread of smoke and flame, so it was good to shut doors.

So then I nailed it. And the video crew told me before they left how the video we shot was "kick ass" and they were already wondering when we could do it again.

The last thing I said to them was how they should talk to the Hathorne Neighborhood Association, how there were people who'd been trying to improve the area for many years, and I'd only been around the block for a couple weeks.