Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Neighbors Concerned, Hiring Notorious Blogger Mercenary As Slumlord Buys 1607 Hillside Ave. N. (Summer Visitation 2009)



Photo by John Hoff

While visiting friends in the Jordan Neighborhood and enjoying some grilled burgers, a fan of my blog came to the back fence of the yard and waved a $5 bill, saying, "I need you to blog about something."

A side note, here: the live link in the sentence above leads to my most recent back fence "open thread" discussion forum. I plan to make a habit of this, so readers will come to expect it, and the JNS blog will become even MORE of a forum for discussion, planning, neighborhood revitalization plotting, free speech, and maybe a few dinner invites. Because I just love going out for dinner, and life in NoMi is an endless series of dinners with neighbors.

But my point is people should feel free to talk about what they want to talk about on this blog resource, not just what topics I think are important at the moment. Delays in comment approval are mostly to keep this website from being buried in a meaty mountain of spam. I approve almost all comments, even those intensely critical of my point of view. Hey, I don't have the market cornered on righteousness. Who do I look like, Al McFarlane?

ANYWAY!!! It turns out Mahmood K. Khan--considered a slippery slimy slumlord by neighborhood leaders in Hawthorne, though I'm not saying WHICH leaders--has acquired a property at 1607 Hillside Ave. N., specifically a little yellow house with a porch so crooked it appeared to have been built by somebody cross-eyed.

It is expected Khan will...

...want to turn the property into yet another crappy rental in his crappy empire of crap but give the man this: he talks a good line. Somehow he's managed to keep the city of Minneapolis from crushing him like an insect, even while the dead, frozen, murdered body of a 15-year-old turns up at one of his run down properties. 

So where was I? Oh, yeah, earning my five bucks. Viva la blogger mercenaire.

After being told about the situation by the unnamed, oh-so-anonymous concerned resident (who lives on a small income, and was needlessly apologetic for the modest contribution, which is still more than I've been paid by, for example, all city officials combined) I walked over to eyeball the security of the vacant property under the city's broad "adopt houses" mandate.

Severe problems with the foundation of the house were obvious, even from the exterior. The back door was found unsecured, so I called 311. Way to take care of your property, Mahmood Khan, you scum-lord. Another individual in the neighborhood said the inside of the house had "poop everywhere" and further articulated as follows:

"Poop, poop, poop."

How I love writing about slumlords and their slummy ways. Keep the slumlord info and comments coming, folks.


1 comment:

Nitin said...

notorious is very good movie. i have watch this movie.this movie is woven around a person who rose upon the rode.its really a nice movie