The thugs next door

As you all know, jkf, meg-a-touch, and myself are all studying for our final finals of law school. During finals week I generally hibernate in my house: pizza for every meal, soft pants 24 hours a day, phone disconnected most of the time, etc. This is because my house is generally a quiet place to study. Except for the fact that 2 out of the 6 times I have done this the city has decided to tear up and repave my street--during finals. Why twice in three years, I don't know. And now, my next door neighbors are re-roofing their house.

This is the house where the old lady used to live (she passed away during finals last December). The new folks moved in almost immediately, so I think they're related to her in some way. I can't tell if they're just fixing up the house to move, or if they actually plan on staying there, but they sure are taking their sweet time on buying furniture or curtains.

Anyway, they've hired a band of teenage thugs to re-roof the house. There are about four to six of them depending on the day, all with muscle tees and baggy pants. They chain smoke and leave cigarette butts in my yard. They blast terrible radio on their boom box all day. They spend most of the day getting stoned and riding their minibikes (the ones with the lawn mower engines) back and forth to the Plaid Pantry. Just before noon each day a gaggle of overweight teen mothers arrive with babies and lunch. This they eat on my front lawn. Fortunately, they have stopped parking their cars on the grass strip in front of my house after I asked them not to. About 2 hours a day is spent hammering and sawing. I watched them transact a drug deal in front of my house (looked to be about 1/4 oz. of weed). My drapes and front door were open and I watched them from my couch. If it hadn't been weed I would have called the cops.

They have been working on the roof for almost 2 weeks now. Even though she hated me, how I wish that hideous old crone was still alive.