NMTF Website Up And Running...

Stock Photo By John Hoff

The new website of the Northside Marketing Task Force is up and running at www.northminneapolis.com, click here.

Just in time for Art FLOW!

(Do not click "Read More")

Who Wants To Buy A Condemned Building? CHEAP?!

Photos by John Hoff

On my way to last night's Fourth of July celebration on the Jordan Pond, I went by this house at 2011 26th Ave. N. which appears to be for sale on a contract for deed with easy and affordable terms.

What the sign doesn't tell the casual house shopper is this: the sructure is condemned, and registered as a vacant building.

Anybody looking for homes in North Minneapolis would be well-advised to do their homework. All the same, for somebody who has the money to fix this building--and fix it rather quickly, I might add--this might actually be a good deal. And, hey, I guess a little free blog advertising can't hurt. Though 26th Ave. N. used to be rough, lately there has been a dramatic improvement in livability issues.

(Do not click "Read More")

The Foreclosure Crisis Hits Even Exclusive Homewood...

During the Johnny Northside movie party a couple days ago, our host Brian Reichow took guests on an impromptu tour of his neighborhood to point out two houses going into foreclosure. The Homewood area of Willard-Homewood is a highly desirable neighborhood, and foreclosures haven't been hitting there in the way they've hit, for example, Hawthorne and Jordan...


All the same, the word is two houses are going into foreclosure: 1111 Russell Ave. N. and 1001 Russell Ave. N.

So if you know somebody who wants a home in Homewood, spread the word. Brian (pictured posing near "The Gates of Homewood") tells me this neighborhood is full of teachers and school administrators, who have somehow formed clusters. There's also a good share of lawyers.

Kleindl Property Empire Being Sold Piece By Piece?

As I reported a couple days ago, two properties owned by the Kleindl housing empire ("United Homes") are suddenly for sale in the Eco Village area of Hawthorne. Now another Kleindl property appears for sale at 2105 Bryant Ave. N. City property records confirm this is a "United Homes" property.

Approximately a year ago, United Homes appeared to be in the process of creating a large rental property empire in North Minneapolis, but now their properties are hitting the market like...like...OK, like used cars hit the market after a hurricane rips up the Gulf Coast.

Like that.

You really have to wonder what's going on, here, what economic pressures or opportunities are forcing the sale of these homes.

However, in my observation the Kleindls are smart, self-made people and I have a hunch they'll find a way to make good on their investments.

(Do not click "Read More")

A Lovely New Crop Of Official Paper (Be Still My Foolish Heart!)

Just when you think you've seen every cool variation of "official paper" that can hit the doors of vacant, foreclosed houses...something new appears to keep the avid placard watcher interested and excited.

In the last few days, salmon-colored tax delinquency placards have been hitting both doors and vacant lots...

...including this property, pictured above, in the Hawthorne Eco Village cluster project. It seems to be another wave of the foreclosure crisis. Though it takes years for a property to become tax forfeited, it can take less time in North Minneapolis because this is a "targeted area" and therefore delinquent properties fall into the hands of the county more quickly.

I doubt these properties will ever sell at an auction, however. I think most of them will fall into the hands of official and quasi-official entities as part of our ongoing revitalization efforts. That's OK, though. If you want a cheap home, you don't need to scour tax forfeiture lists. Just get yourself a Realtor and start looking in NoMi (North MInneapolis).

The Rare, Beautiful, Lemon Yellow "Unlawful Occupancy" Placard...

Photo By John Hoff 

What is it I love so much about "official paper" slapped on the doors of houses? I am like a birdwatcher who sees the flash of colorful plumage, and must draw near to gaze in wonder.

Recently, I saw a placard of the purest shade of lemon yellow, and right away I thought, "I haven't seen THAT color before!" Oh, sure, I'd previously seen the slightly-green tinged lemon-lime color, which is the generic "official notice" placard demanding, for example, abatement of conditions such as "boarded building."

But this was not lemon-lime, this was sunshiny yellow. I came near to see what it could be...

It turned out to be an "unlawful occupancy" sticker. I'd never even SEEN one of those before. I'd heard rumors of their existence, but here was one right before my very eyes. I snapped a photo and drew away quietly, so as not to disturb the sticker's natural habitat.

A Young Man And His Mower In NoMi... (Summer Visitation 2009)

Photo By John Hoff


My son, who just turned 12, had never used a lawn mower before. So I figured it was about time he learned. Ah, the feeling of owning your own lawn--purchased so affordably in this amazing housing market, owned outright with no mortgage here in North Minneapolis "Divorced Daddyville"--and watching your son learn the manly skill of lawn maintenance...

At first, my son was reluctant to even approach the mower, let alone push it around.

"Are you AFRAID of the lawn mower?" I asked. "Are you afraid it will spit rocks at you, chop off your feet?"

My son nodded. He was indeed afraid of these things. How had his father KNOWN?

"Good," I told him. "You're smart enough to be afraid of the mower. NEVER lose your fear of the lawn mower. It's fear that keeps you from making a stupid mistake and hurting yourself. Lawn mowers scared the hell out of me when I was your age. But guess what? They're actually fun. You can have a good, healthy fear of the mower and still have a lot of fun with it. So let's learn about STARTING it. This one is actually very easy to start..."

In no time at all, Alex was cutting the lawn.

We'll talk about optimum grass-cutting patterns later...

Sun Setting On A Rental Property Empire...

Photos By John Hoff

Hawthorne's major "cluster project" economic development is the Eco-Village, and so neighborhood movers and shakers tend to follow events rather closely within that rapidly-improving four-block area. Recently, we noticed something was up with two of the rental properties of the Kleindl family...

The Kleindls--who have quite handful of properties and were involved in an epic battle over 400 31st Ave. N--have now put at least two of their Eco Village rental properties on the market: 420 30th Ave. N. and 3033 4th St. N.

(Note the house numbers, painted green and orange. So far as we can tell, all the Kleindl properties have these distinctive colors on the house number, kind of like Keith Reitman tends to paint his houses a particular shade of blue. The orange is now fading to red, but used to be a very orange shade of orange) 

And you have to wonder, gee, why did these properties suddenly hit the market?

Part of the reason might involve the intense scrutiny which properties receive in the Eco Village, since this used to be a very troubled area which required superhuman effort to turn around. Part of it might just be seeking an opportunity in a housing market which is, so I hear, creeping upward.

But one can't help feeling a little sad as it appears dreams of a rental property empire have reached their apex, and are now in decline.

Then again....nahhhhh.

Who Will Flowers Bloom For At A Foreclosed House?

Photos By John Hoff

A dear friend of mine...a fine human being, a good neighbor, an excellent cook, a lover of animals...is losing her home to foreclosure. Despite all the talk of various kinds of help available, there is no help for her. All the talk of programs and assistance from the government is pretty much bulls***t, as far as she can tell.

Piece by piece, she deals with her soon-to-be-vacant house. Some candles went to a mutual friend who is crazy about candles. Plants in the yard will be "fostered" by other neighbors, but not all the plants. Some of the plants my friend is leaving, wanting the yard to remain pretty for whoever gets the house next. But who will that be?

"Who will those flowers bloom for?" she asked me, as we sat on the steps, my son inside the house playing on my computer, as he so often does.

I answered that...


...flowers do not bloom for particular individuals, but for God. They bloom because that's what God has flowers do, not because it is the will of the owner of a particular house. The flowers will bloom for God, no matter who owns the house, and we can take comfort in that fact. All is right in heaven. There is purpose and meaning to our tribulations, even if these things are not readily apparent.

In the flower bed are decorative onions. I've informed my friend that (like decorative cabbage) decorative onions are an affront to God, and we should pluck up the onions and grill them to savory perfection. This thought horrifies her, so I let it drop, but the other day the onions were drooping in an advanced state of maturity. My friend pointed out their droopiness. In my mind, I could hear a hot skillet sizzling. Why give up the yard, I thought? EAT THE YARD. If you eat something, it's yours forever. It becomes part of your essence.

Therefore...eat the yard.

As the foreclosure process moves to its ultimate conclusion--yet another vacant house in a neighborhood with too many vacant houses, already--endless arrangements are made for the particular items in the home, and I think how this same painful process is repeated a hundred times, a thousand times, a few thousand times all over North Minneapolis. Some stuff goes here, some goes there, some just gets thrown away. Some stuff gets stored one place, some another, but plenty of it ends up on Craigs List. The other day I helped to carry an entertainment center to a truck. I thought it must be hard to part with it, but my friend told me not really...it had sat in the garage for SEVEN YEARS.

I asked some questions of the man who came to get the entertainment center. Did he have a wife? Children?

Yes, he had children who were grown, he said. Now he had grandchildren. I imagined the grandchildren watching Saturday morning cartoons, arrayed around the entertainment center, as we secured it in place on the truck trailer.

The emotion of these moments of loss and letting go floats over North Minneapolis like a cloud of incense, the raw feelings hang in low grassy spots like a morning fog.

Yes, I see a neighborhood being reborn. I see good coming of all the bad. But up close and personal, when you have to figure out whether to take the precious antique cobblestones with, or leave the stones behind and hope the new owner will appreciate their history...it's hard to have perspective, objectivity, a sunny outlook in the midst of deep personal pain.

Where does all that emotion go? How will it be harnessed, sublimated? My dear friend talks of new life goals, new paths. Without a mortgage to pay, living with a friend, certain doors of opportunity will open wide. And yet...all is unsettled, packed away in boxes, neatly stacked but not entirely orderly on the inside, not by a long shot.

I can't help but think of the Battle of Seattle in 1999 during the World Trade Organization conference, and how black clad anarchists took out their raw feelings on the windows of, for example, banks.

But my friend believes in law and order. She would never do something like that.

I believe in law and order too. Mostly.

But these are the moments when part of me wants to grab a crowbar and smash, smash, smash, smash....

Trying To Make NoMi Converts At The Jordan Community Garden...

Photo By John Hoff

Yesterday, Jeff and I were on the way to dinner with delightful female friends, and as we drove past the Jordan Community Garden on 26th Ave. N., we saw a couple young guys in suits and ties, walking around with paperwork in their hand and taking pictures. Right away I told Jeff, "Pull over. Let's see who they are." I added, "Yeah, I know we're in Jordan, but we look out for Jordan, too, right?"

This is what "Pro City" people do. When we see what look to be public officials we ask their business, we find out what is up, information is conveyed, business cards exchanged...

So we approached. I saw slight nervousness on the face of one of the young men, so I waved with my hand, in the age-old custom: "See, I come with an empty hand and intend no harm."

As we got close, I saw the name tags and it told me all I needed to know: Elder This And Elder That. They were Mormon missionaries.

I explained that Jeff and I are neighborhood activists, and it is our custom to walk up when we see people who seem to be involved in city business. I explained we were not in our own neighborhood at the moment--which is Hawthorne--but rather we were in the Jordan Neighborhood literally wearing our Hawthorne affiliation.

After telling the Mormon missionaries a bit about neighborhood history and housing issues, we went into The Pitch: all of North Minneapolis (NoMi) is dramatically turning around, and home prices could not be lower. Jeff went into some whole thing about the precise amounts of money needed to buy a home and finance some fixes.

The Mormon missionaries could not get a word in edgewise. They had no opportunity to make converts, because we were too busy making NoMi converts out of THEM.

Attention Real Estate Investors: NoMi Neighborhood Associations Will Put Your (Expletive) Head On A Pole...

Stock Photo By John Hoff

I guess I've been subscribed to some sort of real estate auction mailing list, because I get junk mail notices every so often advising me of auctions. Yesterday, a little canary-colored card told me about an auction taking place June 20th, 2009 through "Williams & Williams Worldwide Real Estate Auction."

Oh, gee, it's "sell absolute" and there is talk of "nominal opening bids" that start at $1,000. And--surprise, surprise, NOT--a few of the addresses listed are in North Minneapolis. Sounds like a slumlord's dream date with destiny!

OK, I guess what I need to do, here, is first list the addresses (so they will turn up in search engines when would-be investors HOPEFULLY research the properties) and, secondly, say how our North Minneapolis neighborhood associations treat slumlords which hit our radar.

Then there is a third thing...

First, here's the list:

2415 Bryant Ave. N.
2023 Queen Ave. N.
2939 Newton Ave. N.
1339 Upton Ave. N.
1510 44th Ave. N.
3927 2nd Ave. N.

Now, then, in regard to how we treat slumlords who hit our radar--including scum who try to act like they are creating an "owner occupied" but, in fact, they're just playing games and intending to create a run down, slummy rental--I would suggest using the internal search engine for this blog and plugging in terms like "slumlord" and "head" and "pole." I'll let history speak for itself in a bloody, graphic way, but here's the ultimate message: DO NOT THINK YOU CAN COME TO NORTH MINNEAPOLIS, BUY UP PROPERTY CHEAP, CREATE SLUMMY RENTALS, AND GET AWAY WITH IT. Neighbors are pissed off and we are ORGANIZED and we have the ear of public officials.

We will get your name. We will get lists of your properties. History shows that juicy stuff will end up on the internet, kicked this-a-way by anonymous sources. And, oh, gee, there is history of neighborhood activists PICKETING YOUR HOUSE, wherever it might be, some swanky suburb.

On the other hand, real and true "owner occupieds" owned by decent people who aren't involved in criminal behavior will be welcomed with open arms and maybe even (what's the word?) SLACK.

It's our neighborhood, and we're not angling for awards in moral consistency. We're just trying to live in a safe, decent environment. Owner occupied housing usually contributes to a better quality of life. (Not always, lord knows) Slumlords, on the other hand, tend to tear down our environment. It becomes pretty easy to pick a side. Around here, a landlord is a slumlord until proven otherwise, and sometimes even then severe backsliding takes place.

I do not SPEAK on behalf of any neighborhood association when I say this stuff. No, rather, I am just saying what I have frequently seen, spitting out my observations in an oh-so-truthful and frank way. See, me being a blogger whose blogging is in the employment of nobody (though I am the grateful recipient of small, infrequent donations) I can say this stuff. And this is stuff "investors" need to hear before jumping in with both feet. So, would-be investors, take this blog post and print it out for your "due diligence" file, because YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

STAY THE (EXPLETIVE) OUT OF NoMi. Take your scummy real estate wheeling and dealing elsewhere. Here we take slumlords and put their head on a pole.

Oh, yes, the third thing...

Residents of NoMi committed to changing this place for the better need to buy up and get control of as much property as possible. Dig deep in your bank account. Take out a loan. Sell your extra vehicle. GET CONTROL OF REAL ESTATE AROUND YOU FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR SAFETY AND SECURITY.

No, you can't buy up EVERYTHING. But you can buy something nearby, something where new slummy neighbors would impact your quality of life, but here and now there is an opportunity to prevent that with a little decisive action. The forefathers of this nation pledged their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor." Idealistic NoMi residents could, at the very least, scrape up a grand or two!

I Lived. I Existed. I Wrote A Report About Sedimentary Rocks...

Photo By John Hoff 

Some weeks ago, I may have become the first employee of the "ad hoc but red hot" NoMi organization, when I was paid a small sum of money to get a house "trashed out" for a home tour that was happening in, oh gee, a few hours. Going through the house, I found remnants of the people who lived there prior to foreclosure. In an upstairs bedroom was...

...a poster which looked like some kind of exhibit for a junior high school science project. The poster was leaned against a wall, carefully and deliberately, and left behind. It was almost like a message to whoever would come along to clean out the house, or live in it:

I lived here. I attended school. I wrote a report about sedimentary rocks. THIS WAS MY BEDROOM AND I LIVED HERE DOING MY SCHOOLWORK.Who are YOU? Who are you to be here inside MY ROOM?

Admiring the science project, I thought how some little girl spent time and effort to create it. Well, now the precious science project was just another piece of trash to clean up.

But before I got rid of the poster board, I snapped a picture. I wanted to memorialize it, somehow, the fact somebody lived here and--in those last moments, before the very end--it seemed like in a very deliberate way they left something precious behind as a marker and a message.

An Accident Waiting To Happen At 3020 6th St. North...

Here is a photo I took a couple days ago at 3020 6th St. N., the former crack house which is rapidly turning into a neighborhood success story. For now, however, it is still owned by a distant and impersonal bank. The bank doesn't seem to have a lot of time or attention for minor details like, oh gee...

One of the basement windows is an accident waiting to happen. Somebody could just fall right in there and break a leg. This house is right next to an alley which presents a constant shortcut, so such a scenario is hardly implausible. Only the other day, I advised some school age children not to be cutting across the yard of that house...and I got a whole lot of attitude from their mother, who said nobody should dare tell her children pretty much ANYTHING, including not to trespass across the yard of a former crack house.

ANYWAY...

Accident waiting to happen. Enough said. This is what the foreclosure crisis is doing to our neighborhood or, more precisely, this is what big, aloof, distant banks are doing to our neighborhood through mortgage foreclosures.

(Do not click "Read More")

26th Ave. N. Street Repairs Finally Happen...

Photos By John Hoff

Yesterday, a work crew appeared on 26th Ave. North, a street which has been severely in need of repair for SEVERAL YEARS. I first saw them near Dupont Ave. N. They were working very hard, putting their backs into the task.

The repairs are very welcomed, especially with so many home buyers coming to NoMi and looking for bargains.

(Do not click "Read More")

In Flanders Fields The Poppies Blow, Between The Crosses Row On Row...

Photo By John Hoff

Like many red poppies, a couple days ago scarlet-colored notices appeared on many doors around my neighborhood, all dated June 2, all announcing a pending water utility shut off...

I hadn't noticed the vacant nature of a few of those houses, until the day that paperwork hit the door and, oh gee, now I see the grass has gotten quite long.

I thought of the poem "Flanders Fields," about the flowers "between the crosses row on row." The poem is about soldiers who died during World War One, and it's a rather famous poem. The red poppy image lives on in the paper poppies sold by wounded veterans organizations for fund raising.

I see those shut off notices, and I see red poppies. Here a dream fell. Here a home died. Maybe the dream was just a dream of making lots of money in real estate. Maybe the home was not particularly happy. Or maybe the home WAS happy. Maybe that home meant EVERYTHING to the people who lived there. On the porch of this house, pictured above, children's toys are tossed about, helter skelter.

It was, however, a beautiful day and these were beautiful houses. The dreams may be dead, but the houses remain, ready to be reborn and filled with new families. In the midst of this terrible struggle over mortgage foreclosure, and outright mortgage fraud, and houses missing their copper pipes...in the midst of this chaos comes opportunity.

The larks, still bravely singing, fly/
Scarce heard amid the guns below/

Volunteer Lawn Mowing Under The "Adopt Vacant Houses" Mandate...

Photo By John Hoff

As June rapidly approaches, and empty, foreclosed properties are becoming havens for tall grass prairie all over North Minneapolis, this might be a good time to bring up the city's "adopt vacant houses" mandate...

There was a flurry of publicity more than a year ago when public officials in Minneapolis announced in the media how it was PERFECTLY FINE to enter the yards of vacant houses for purposes of mowing grass and picking up litter. (They could have made a point of mentioning wet, rotten, dumped off phone books from companies like Dex, but oh well)

In fact, if you call the city's 311 service and get put on hold, often you will hear an announcement reminding callers to "adopt" vacant houses and, of course, call 911 if you see somebody breaking inside.

However, memory of the "adopt houses mandate" seems to have faded from public memory, judging by the litter I've been picking up and the overgrown weeds I'm seeing everywhere. On Memorial Day, I mowed two yards at vacant houses: one on Bryant Ave. N., one on Aldrich. I only mowed the front because, well, I just wanted to "spiff up" the houses, not deprive the city of an opportunity to slap charges on some absentee owner, probably a bank. (Especially when I'd already called in the houses to 311 personally)

I believe "spiffing up" these vacant properties is very important right now, as would-be home buyers are house shopping in this lovely summer season, gathering impressions of neighborhoods. I've set a reasonable volunteer standard at TWO FRONT LAWNS, which is less than an hour's work, and it's good exercise.

If somebody has taken charge of more than two lawns under the adopt houses mandate, and started mowing two lawns regularly, I'd love to hear about it.

A $20,000 Conversation On Lyndale Ave. North...

Photos By John Hoff

A couple days ago I was calling 311 on vacant houses with weedy lawns--calling in so many you'd think I was getting a COMMISSION or something--when I came upon a house on Lyndale Ave. N. with owner contact information prominently posted.

I won't call the Minneapolis 311 system when I can reach an owner THIS easily. Posting this kind of information is a way of saying, "We give a rip. Please, call US first." I just assume the other owners of vacant properties don't give a rip, since they don't post any information. 

(Personally, I think posting owner contact info should be a REQUIREMENT for owners of vacant houses but, hey, I'm an idea-a-minute kind of guy, just like my son the robot enthusiast)

So I called the number. Left a message. How unsatisfying. Get me a live human being. I called the OTHER posted number, and reached a friendly, chatty woman. I informed her the lawn was weedy (in excess of 8 inches) plus crack heads had started to strip off the siding...


My smoking hot Realtor Juley Viger used to say metal thieves were desperately trying to feed their families. I'd reply their families were hungry, sure...because their breadwinner was ADDICTED TO CRACK. I think we ultimately had to agree to disagree, but who's the one left in North Minneapolis actually DEALING with metal thieves? Well, that would be me, while Juley's living large in South Minneapolis.

(Suggested branding effort for South Minneapolis: This Place Is SoMi)

Anyway...

The chatty lady was dismayed to learn siding was being stolen, and informed me copper thieves had already made off with the pipes. She thanked me for calling her instead of the city, and promised to get somebody out first thing Tuesday after the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

"Just because I'm curious," I said. "What is the list price of this one?"

She informed me it was $49,000. I laughed out loud. And then I apologized and said, you know, the going price around here for a decent little house missing its plumbing is holding pretty solid around $17,500 to $18,000.

She explained to me the house had Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) and this was part of the reason the price was listed so high, because somebody was trying to avoid writing off a loss. However, she said, if the house was starting to lose pieces of its siding, then condemnation might be looming in the near future. Maybe she could fire off an email. Maybe she could see about lowering the price...

"COULD YOU?!" I said, hardly able to believe how well this conversation was going. "I mean, really, $18,000 is where the price should be."

The woman on the phone thought $29,000 was a better price. She'd see about lowering it to $29,000. I swore up and down I'd try to keep an eye on the place, so there would be something left to sell. Thank you, ma'am. We're trying so hard to turn this neighborhood around. THANK YOU.

And she was all, like, no...thank YOU.

As I hit the power button on my cell phone, I realized this little conversation had caused a fluctuation in the local real estate market to the tune of $20,000.

Polishing Up A "Diamond In The Rough" At The $7,900 House Of Connie Nompelis...

Photos By John Hoff

Getting an incredible bargain on an antique house in NoMi and having a wine-n-cheese party is the fun part. After that comes a lot of work and a lot of expenses.

If part of the point of buying the house was to support neighborhood revitalization, then it's important to start changing things for the better within the first few days, even if these are just minor cosmetic changes. So it was I found myself helping out at the $7,900 house of Connie Nompelis (No-buhl-iss, it's Greek) in the days after the housewarming party, click here for some details, oh, and also click here.

It's amazing how what looks like a...

...relatively minor amount of leaves in a yard of modest size filled up the truck bed of a Ford F-150 three times. I pulled a good amount of firewood into a pile, too, some of which we burned last night at the birthday party of Jeff Skrenes, (parody alert) just starting to get his life back through physical therapy after a dramatic and bizarre mishap involving unwanted phone books "power dumped" by Dex.

There were certain things I found in the yard I figured Connie might want to glance at, since these fragments are sort of like history of the house. An old, rusted metal "dream catcher" turned up at the end of my rake. What dreams did it once catch? What new dreams is it catching now? I also found a bizarre device--clearly a corkscrew, but ten times the size of a regular corkscrew, apparently made to uncork something of vat-like size. What on earth?

Well, since NoMi revitalization forces tend to drink a lot more wine than beer, I figured the gigantic corkscrew was some kind of good omen. I left it on the porch for Connie to examine, since it was the history of HER house, and I was just working there like a peon performing manual labor on her hacienda. (Si, Senorita Nompelis)

Other pieces of "ersatz archeology" were minor, but told a story that flashed as quickly as an internet pop up: a child's black and red cloth glove, beneath a bag of leaves that hadn't moved for a year. A busted piece of a lug wrench, in the alley near the garage, right where you would change a tire. Personally, I find it helpful to put some WD-40 on a lug nut before loosening, but some people have to learn automotive repair lessons the hard way.

In a narrow, neglected space between the house and the ugly chain link fence (but ugly only in the sense ALL chain link is ugly) was an incredible accumulation of pet food cans. Clearly, somebody would feed the a cat or dog on the porch, and then just toss the empty pet food can between the house and the fence.

Here are some other things I found:

# Plenty of plastic baggies. (Sarcasm font) No doubt evidence of lovingly-packed bag lunches for "Straight A" students.

# A brown hair extension left in the yard. In that moment, one pictures a scene...people in the back yard, drinking and smoking dope. Words are exchanged. "Bitch," comes the declaration. "I will RIP YOUR HAIR OUT!!!!"

But the declaration was incorrect. It wasn't REALLY her hair.

# What I thought at first was some kind of tree root, but it was an old string of Christmas lights. Here's valuable advice: You can't compost Christmas lights. They are NOT bio-degradable.

# Numerous fossilized chicken bones, from millions of years ago when primordial fowl were the undisputed masters of what is now Farview Park, their only formidable foe being Pitbullasaurus.

# A phone book, exposed so long to rain and sunshine that it was becoming compost and could, arguably, turn into a tree again, given a few more years and a lot of hard work by the worms.

Thanks, Dex, for MESSING UP OUR NEIGHBORHOOD WITH YOUR UNWANTED PHONE BOOKS. YOU SUCK.

Did I mention the nearly-fatal injuries to our Housing Director? Oh, yeah, I think I did. Much more on THAT later.

The picture at the bottom shows Connie's apple tree. It is almost but not quite dead. A few branches are putting out buds. My theory is the tree, if cut down, will spring up new shoots and the tree will replace itself, but Connie says cutting up the dead tree is not really a priority, right now.

It's her house. She can do what she wants with it. And, really, isn't that the point of home ownership? A man is a king, a woman is a queen, though their kingdom be small. These kind of incredible bargains are to be had all over NoMi.

Jennifer The House Flipper Works Her Magic At 3114 Knox Ave. N.

Contributed Photos By Either Jennifer Olstad Or Jeanie Hoholik


Somebody loan this woman a million dollars on easy terms!

I say Jennifer The Flipper needs to stop transforming one HOUSE at a time, and buy up ENTIRE CITY BLOCKS to renovate and revitalize. If only North Minneapolis (NoMi) could somehow multiply Jennifer's work exponentially, this one-woman force of revitalization could usher in a golden era of urban utopia VIRTUALLY ALL BY HERSELF...

Jennifer's latest creation is 3114 Knox Ave. N., pictured above in a "before and after" fashion. Here's some of the things Jennifer wrote about the challenges of transforming this property:

# On the front of the house, what you can't see is the porch was pulled away about three inches from the rest of the house. Now, it's gone.

# On the back of the house, the "balcony" is actually at the top of the stair landing. Nice place for a balcony. Now it's a window, not a door.

# In the living room, there was a closet strangely placed in the middle of the room. I got rid of the closet and added a 1/2 bath at the main level.

# I had to completely gut the kitchen. There was wallpaper on top of paneling on top of wallpaper. It was bad.

# In the upstairs bedroom, apparently somebody thought it was a good idea to let their kid finger paint on top of wallpaper.

# In the upstairs bathroom, there was so much rotted wood we had to replace EVERYTHING.

# We found some newspapers from 1929 at this property. There were some advertisements like dresses for 10 cents.

Johnny Northside says: Oh, the more things change, the more they stay the same, my dear. I bet it's still possible to buy a dress made in 1929 for a mere ten cents.

If anybody is interested in this house, best to contact Jennifer Olstad's Realtor, Jeanie Hoholik, click here for a link to Jeanie's blog.

There Goes The First House I Ever Looked At In NoMi...

Contributed Photo

It seems many years ago, though it wasn't that long. So much has happened in such a short time, as NoMi (North Minneapolis) seems to be changing overnight, transforming, revitalizing and somehow--by accident, fate, design--this blog has ended up right in the eye of the storm.

It was a small white house on Penn Ave. N., not too far from a gas station where scary people hung out selling drugs on the corner. On a kitchen counter inside the house, I found a skanky red thong with rhinestones...

So many times I've driven by that property, and I always took note of it. A few days ago, however, me a member of the JACC organization were driving around--looking for hookers to photograph, if you must know the truth--and you must--and I saw the humble little white house was now nothing but a vacant lot, black dirt covered in straw.

And, off the top of my head, I don't even know the address. Unlike 2125 Lyndale Ave. N., I can't even properly remark upon its passing.

Every day, Northside neighborhood activists work to make the scary people get off the corners, so that part of the Jordan Neighborhood can be revitalized. Some of the worst housing is being sacrificed to The Backhoe of Doom. And I'd have to say the little white house with the red jeweled thong...well, that one needed to go.

As my Realtor Juley VIger would have expressed it so well: What must the REST of a person's life be like if they had to leave their red rhinestone thong on the kitchen counter of a vacant house? Ewwwww.