"Voluntary Boards" Appear On My "Eastern Perimeter" And Much More!

"Unofficial boards" which were NOT MINE appeared overnight, sealing off a newly-broken window on my "eastern perimeter." Either I am not the only grassroots volunteer who comes through my area of operations (could it be Jeff Skrenes?) or my blogging efforts are having some kind of social impact, as I've hoped.

Last night...

...I stayed up until 3 a.m. working on my Minnesota Daily opinion piece "Send the 'party patrol' to the North Side." It was tough writing in a somewhat sleep-deprived state after "Jane" pounded on my door at 8:30 to tell me about the crack heads in the garage, finding me holed up at my North Side property because of that problem with the gas gauge. But I can write asleep, upside down, on a candy bar wrapper...so I banged out the column because it's not only great ink, but it's 40 dollars cash money.

When I finally got it done and emailed to my editor, I really wanted to just skip a night patrol, go to St. Paul, and go straight to bed. But I had serious worries about 3000 Lyndale Ave. N. or (more honestly) I was hoping to catch some fixture thieves in the act. I thought, "Well, heck, why don't I just sleep at my house another night? The city doesn't seem to mind me keeping an eye on my condemned property, after all."

ANOTHER quiet night? Amazing

I checked the area very well, but there were no prostitutes or dealers to be seen, at least nobody doing anything which could justify a 911 call. Boards were exactly where they belonged, though I spotted something odd on the eastern perimeter...it looked like fence boards newly erected over one of the front windows at "The House of The Scattered Latex Gloves." (See discussion of that house in the videos associated with the Minn Post story)

"If it's boards, that's good," I thought, and I figured I'd check it in the morning. Maybe a window had been broken and the real estate company had fixed it really quickly, for a change.

It must have been 4 a.m. when I got to sleep, and I slept until noon. Before falling asleep in rough places, I consciously remind myself which noises would be alarming, which noises I must wake up for even if I am in a deep slumber. I placed a big rubberized bag of tightly-packed laundry between my head and the wall, to absorb any random or not-so-random bullets. (My sister once had a bunch of high-caliber rounds fired into her house when she was married to a rather--shall we say?--annoyingly by-the-book Wisconsin State Patrol Officer)

And I slept. Until noon. And not a minute more, eight hours exactly. First thing in the morning, I checked 3000 Lyndale Ave. N.

The chirp-chirp-chirp sound of abandonment

A green van was pulled up next door, on the other side of the fence. Four black males ranging from teens to late 20s saw me watching them, holding my cell phone. I caught just one little snippet of their conversation before they noticed me, the words "this house."

The four black males got in a green newer-model van, license plate XVW 842, and left the area. For all I know, they were merely parked in that yard to attend the church on the other side of Lyndale Ave. N.

I decided to explore the interior of "3000 Lyndale" to get an idea what was going on in there. I'd already called the real estate company but, of course, people are gone all weekend. You can't reach real estate agents, you can't reach 311...meanwhile, the copper and fixture thieves aren't knocking off for the weekend. They're working their butts off. With such a "weekend work ethic" you'd think they could find honest labor.

Here 3000 Lyndale is wide open to trespass, and I can't even secure the door for at least two different reasons, one being there is SUPPOSEDLY somebody in charge of the place whose name and number is on the exterior. The other being the nature of the door itself, and the house being new, shockingly nice from the outside even if the Virgin Mary statue decided to get the heck out of Dodge.

The smoke alarms chirped about their low batteries as I went inside. This is the sound of vacant houses on the North Side. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

Sinks were ripped out, upstairs and downstairs. The wood inside that place was spectacular, however. My word, it's a castle. It's both huge and really nice. You could live in such a place and entertain like royalty. I have my doubts how much longer those fixtures will remain unless the place can get secured.

Systemic issues weekends and late at night

We need 311 on the weekend. We need it late at night. That house is 48 hours behind in the system because of the weekend lag. Real estate agents need something on their voice mail which says, "If this is an emergency involving the security of one of our properties, press 7 to leave a message for Security Officer Big Billy Winchell."

(Oh, I sense an imitation coming on)

Beeeeeep. This is Big Billah. These messages get checked most ever' hour. If there's a problem wit' a house, be sure you say the address slooooowly, and repeat it. I'd like your number, too, if you don't mind givin' it, so I can call you. But just be sure to tell me what's up with the house, ya here?

Thanks, and I won't mind at all if you meet me out there with some donuts.

Really, any kind of pastry will do, but especially donuts. Not the kind with powdered sugar, though! You ever inhale one of those? Had me a bad experience, once where---

Beeeeep.

In any case...it's a real pain in the posterior trying to deal with a property security situation after hours or on the weekend. Copper thieves are busting in left and right, and this requires a more vigorous response which might--oh, gee, quite possibly--involve being able to get in touch with the system after hours and over the weekend.

I'm just sayin'.

After making sure nobody was inside 3000 Lyndale, I called and left a message for the real estate agent, emphasizing how I'd been able to confirm fixtures were missing and the place was WIDE OPEN TO TRESPASS.

Bangkok Market never does me wrong

I was hoping for a wonderful meal of talapia fish for a mere $5, but I had to settle for some delicious roast pork ribs.

I couldn't understand what the lady behind the counter was saying. I tried to answer the question based on context and said, "Um...to go."

A man standing nearby laughed. He said, "She was asking if you want them CUT UP."

"No," I answered. "I'll take care of that with my TEETH."

I love this place. I took my meal and drove back to 3000 Lyndale Ave, eating in my car. I thought, "I will just sit here near this house. As long as they see me, nobody will go inside and it will look like a lot of attention is being paid to the house."

If all else fails, maybe I can just fake 'em out. Clearly, I was going to eat my meal somewhere, so I tried to make use of what I had...ten or fifteen minutes to wolf down some pork ribs with sweet-and-sour sauce in the front seat of my car.

Coming soon! SHIRLEY'S BLOCK

I remembered about those mysterious boards, and went to check my eastern perimeter before heading to school. Upon closer examination, the boarding was a really rough job, like something I would do. (Had I been "sleep boarding?")

The boards appeared to be useful debri which had been just laying around, now pressed into service, exactly the way I do MY boards.

But the window was indeed secure. I figured I'd call it in to 311 on Monday, though, and also to the real estate company...the same one in charge of 3000 Lyndale Ave. N.

I was so excited to see those boards, precisely because they weren't my boards. But they were clearly not "official boards," not even "professional boards" like something a real estate company had done. Maybe somebody did indeed say to themselves, "If Johnny Northside can do it, there's no reason I can't. I'm not going to let the crack heads move in on my street."

Yeah, and besides...maybe everybody will think Johnny Northside was the one who did it.

I pulled out my Sharpie and wrote "It's being watched!" on the boards.

While I was assessing that situation, a lady came to look at the house next door, the one I managed to get padlocked a few weeks ago. I think her name is Shirley, judging from the email address she wrote down.

Shirley had a great phrase. "So you're The Blogger Of The Block," she said.

"I'm stealing that," I said.

She has lots of great thoughts and turns of phrase. She talks rapidly and enthusiastically, like an espresso-making machine which has miraculously acquired the power of speech.

In any case, I found out she's a one-woman tornado of neighborhood revitalizin' energy and enthusiasm. She has a bid on a house, quite some distance from me on 4th Street, the other side of Fairview Park. We actually went there, so quickly did we hit it off. I tried to give her as much useful information as possible about the neighborhood, including some neighborhood association email addresses. I showed her a brochure about the eco-village, the one Kevin gave me.

The block she has picked is really nice, one of those pockets of wonderful living NOT absent from the North Side, just not publicized well enough. (And this blog is guilty of that, though I am writing about the reality of my experience and trying to turn my block around. Please, feel free to leave comments about the wonderfulness and security of YOUR North Side block!)

Not one boarded house is visible from the doorsteps of the house Shirley wants to own. The houses have clean, orderly yards and decent fences.

She said there was one vacant house the block, however, facing Lyndale. We went up there to look. It turned out to be a house I had called in to "REO" a while back, and it was secured. I showed her where I had painted out some graffiti on a back window board. While there, I spotted some graffiti on the empty Wafana's store, so I said I'd come back and get it.

"Shirley" wants to pick up all the litter, meet her neighbors, fix her house, keep the vacant properties secure, and generally be exactly what neighbors would want in their wildest dreams, at least the "decent people." (As we talked, a "gang banger" walked by wearing his "Spider Man" jacket. All was not perfect on Shirley's block)

Shirley is very opposed to animal cruelty and involved in some of those issues. Her dear husband passed away from cancer not too long ago. Their cat is still alive and has traveled all the way from Jacksonville, Florida. Down in Jacksonville, Shirley says, the homeless are incredibly numerous.

"Well," I laughed. "It's because you can live outside all year." Shirley is very sympathetic to the homeless, but didn't want them breaking into houses. She was particularly opposed to "interior urination." I informed Shirley that "around here, on the North Side, people don't say 'the homeless' when they talk about folks squatting in vacant houses. We say 'the crack heads' this and 'the crack heads' that."

"It's implying there's no sympathy," Shirley noted.

"Darn right," I agreed. "But it's also because so many of these folks are--truly and literally--addicted to crack cocaine. There's a difference between 'crack head' homelessness and your more traditional under-the-bridge, riding trains, singing hobo songs kind of homelessness. What we have around here are crack heads."

But I made a point of saying, "This is a really nice block, though. You're not going to have as many problems, here."

If this hedge could talk

Shirley described what she wanted to do with the house. Raspberry trim. But, of course, so much to do on the interior, first.

I suggested she should do something with the exterior first.

"Send a visible message," I suggested. "Make it say, 'Somebody is here and taking care of this house' so the crack heads avoid it."

Shirley didn't like one of the hedges in the yard of a neighboring, vacant house. The hedge, she said, was saying, "Skulk behind me." I couldn't have agreed more.

"That's fine for my cat," Shirley said. "But I don't want anybody else skulking behind it."

I crossed my fingers she would get her dream house. But, oh, such energy and enthusiasm could go to good use on a much rougher block, I thought!

It sounds like Shirley is "coming home" to Minneapolis after quite a life journey. I was so glad to meet her, hopeful she'd get the house at her offered price, and looking forward to "one block I won't have to worry about."

Returning To My (Almost) Vomit

I went back to The House That (Almost) Made Me Barf, to see if it had been quickly boarded. Nothing yet, however. Wide open to trespass. I pulled some soggy official letters out of the mailbox and tossed this stuff in the nice dry porch. Maybe, down the road, some solid citizen might find those documents useful or, at a minimum, interesting and informative.

One craves the story of the house. The tale. The legend. How it came to be this way. I know my house was once owned by a Kathleen Osby, and a few years ago she took that ridiculously tiny structure and jacked the price up to $195,000 on a mortgage. These are things I can tell my son, the way I can say, "The farm where Grandma Vernie lives was owned by her father, your great-grandfather, Joe Brezina. He bought it after he was divorced and needed somewhere to live."

Across the street from The House Of Hurl, I noticed a dwelling with so many little children playing in the yard I suspected it might be a day care center. Great. A crack house across from a day care center. I walked over to speak to a lady gardening in the yard. She was Hmong, rather old, and grubbing at the soil like what she planted was going to feed her whole family.

She did not respond when I tried to speak to her over the fence, nervously pretending like she didn't hear. A little boy came up on his bike. He spoke perfect English. I told him the house across the street is empty, and dangerous people go in there. Had he ever seen people going in that house?

He had not, he said. I could tell he hadn't been conscious of the house, though, because I myself had just walked out of the house a moment ago. He seemed like such a solid and responsible little man, like my own son, the way he came over on his bike to see what somebody wanted with his (grandmother?) who didn't speak English.

I told this solid little citizen that if he saw people going in that house, he should tell a grown-up, and somebody should call the police, right away.

"The people who go in that house are dangerous," I said. "They will hurt you. If you see somebody going in there, the police should be called. Nobody is supposed to be inside that house. Those are BAD PEOPLE who go in there."

It was the best I could do. As I walked away, I heard the conversation taking place behind me in Hmong. This is what it comes down to on the North Side, I thought. Crack houses across from places where children live.

Painting over graffiti in two counties

I stopped at "Squat-O-Rama" behind the Merwyn's liquor store, and painted over some gang graffiti. It had the word "gang" in it. I'd say that's a clue.

I went to St. Paul to see about getting my muffler fixed, and went through some alleys where I like to paint over graffiti, (in one area, I even have permission!) and I had a good time expressed in four or five different colors.

Utility box. Dumpster. Walls. Rain gutter.

Citizens can't be waiting around for "abatement orders" and "clean teams" and so forth. Honestly, if folks are trying hard to match the colors, that should be good enough. And the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul should be saying so, and giving citizens this authority, instead of having folks think, "They'll prosecute me just like a tagger if I get some matching paint and paint over the words (EXPLETIVE) YOU on a wall."

No, they won't. But I think the authorities need to make it clear. We can't be waiting around for expensive "clean teams" and "abatement orders" going to mailboxes where mail probably isn't picked up anyway. Just drive around with paint. It's more fun than, well...tagging, I suppose.

(OK, one notable incident when I was 16. That's it. And when I paint over graffiti, I paint over more in a single hour than I ever slapped up in my whole life)

One piece of graffiti I saw on a utility box was a white hand making a peace sign, skillfully done. I left it alone. If the graffiti is aesthetically pleasing and has a comprehensible message, I'll leave it. Hey, it's my paint. I'll do what I want.

On a bridge over I-35, in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood, I recently painted over the following words.

I'll exfoliate your face with the acid in my stomach.

I couldn't help but think those words were clever and visceral, but it wasn't aesthetically pleasing, so I painted over it.

But I couldn't get the words out of my head.