KAR, where is your house payment?

Some of you may have noticed that I did not list a mortgage in my last post. That's because I don't have a mortgage, bitches. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (Pretend that is maniacal laughter.)

When I bought this . . . house ten years ago, I made a little more than I do now as an office assistance for the local Department of Family and Children Services.  What I really wanted was a huge log cabin with two bathrooms,  mudroom, office, wrap around porch, gym room, solar energy, a pool, five bedrooms, ballroom, guest house and ten acres of land.

What I got was this 900 square foot tin box sitting on someone else's property. After carefully reviewing my finances, the box was what I could afford and still be able to eat. I paid $235 a month for some 108 months to become the proud owner of my very own home. Including the lot rent (which began at $60 all those years ago) I paid an average of $300 a month for housing. This was around 30% of my income.

If I recall correctly, this is the average percentage of one's income one should put into living arrangements. If I'd bought anything cheaper, I'd be living in a cardboard box decorated in Frigidaire designs. Anything more expensive and someone just doesn't get to eat. (At that time, I had one child and was more or less capable of handing most expenses on my own.)

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Why would you buy something that doesn't appreciate in value? You'll  never get the money back that you invested into the trailer."

I know that, but that's what I could afford. If I had opted to rent a home all these years, I'd have paid a minimum of $400 a month for a place to live. And that's living in some crowded town area where everything is all asses and elbows. I've lived in a rural area most of my life and the idea of sharing a wall with anyone sends me into some claustrophobic breakdown.

On top of that, I'm just like everyone else in the world and I want to own my own home, such that it is. If my daughter wants lime green walls, I want to be able to paint the walls lime green. If I want to randomly paint a chalkboard on the wall, then I want the opportunity to do that.

It's a trade off, though. If something breaks, that's on me. Circuit breaker boxes, water heaters, polybutylene plumbing, crumbling subflooring, some kid throwing a pair of underwear down the toilet - those are my responsibilites. Some fucking shitfaced asshole dumping his cats out here because "they'll find a nice home" and then the stupid ass cats pick my house to gut out my insulation and have fucking kittens - that's all on me to replace.

Boy, I'd really like to find these delusional animal dumpers and give them a good kick to the crotch. Seriously? Why pick a trailer park? Do we really look like we can afford your extra animals? Why don't you assholes drive uptown and let that bitch in heat out in front of the three story brick home with the pool in the back yard? Ya pansy mother fuckers.

The upside to being a homeowner is I don't have to fight with a landlord to get important repairs completed and I've learned a good bit about house repairs in the process. The downside is I don't have a landlord. I have to get these repairs done with my own limited money and time, which is the case with the any home owner.

I've been lucky that my roof seems to be in good shape. Of course, I'm also scared shitless to climb up there and look at it in case my happy ignorance is dispelled. 





My trailer park isn't quite what you would imagine. Or maybe it is. The only reason I ever moved here was because the trailers weren't set out in rows belly to ass so if you open your front door you're staring right at someone's back door. I always imagine it as sort of like a couple of small wagaon trains. The homes are laid out end to end with about thirty or so feet of space between each one with a fairly decent back yard and a nice little front yard. I have enough room my children can run and play and I could plant a garden if I could ever get the bitch to live. I am the Dark Garder. My superpower is killing off plants with a single stare.

The thing about trailer parks is some fucked up cracker always moves in and just messes it up for everyone. Not every park dweller is a white trash cumdumpster, but you do get those with their issues.

The only other person who has been here longer than me is the neighborhood drug dealer. All in all, he's not a bad guy. I've known him since he was ten years old. His grandfather was our county commissioner and lives down the road from my parents. His mother stocks my produce. He . . . I don't know. . . doesn't have good sense.

Once, I called the cops because I was convinced someone was manufacturing meth in the hood. We actually ended up talking about my neighborhood drug dealer and they all agreed that he was a real nice guy and just didn't know what in the world was wrong with him. He's a really nice guy. I don't think he's actually dealing anymore as the traffic through his yard seems to have significantly slowed over the past year or so. 

Then there were the two crackhead sisters writing stolen checks from their mother's church and selling off blow jobs for crack. I think one of the sisters has cleaned up rather nicely and I hope the best for her.

And there were the really freaky people with the Boo Radley fence. A Boo Radley fence, for the uninformed, is a warped, weathered and unpainted fence some crazy methface stuck in his front yard. I'm all for being proud of one's yard, but seriously - a fucking fence? In a trailer park? A crappy Boo Radley fence? I especially loved how his druggie friends would take up the driveway with their shitty trucks because he'd fenced off  nearly all of his parking.

That's what snorting that shit does for you. Next thing you know, you're living in a trailer park with some shrill screaming little 19-year-old, hoping for knob jobs on the down low from the manly bitch next door while your wife gets the house.

They were seriously some fucked up people. The guy made decent money, but apparently the electric bill got in the way of their drug bill so when their lights were cut off, they broke into the meter box and set up their own "free" electricity. Of course, when the electric company finally noticed, they cut the electricity off and issued a warrant for theft of services.

That apparently didn't stop their proclivity for failing to budget for utilities and crank, so it happened a couple of more times. And once their water was cut off so they ran a water hose from the neighborhood drug dealer's house to their house so they could have water. I don't quite know what they did with the water as they didn't appear to be the type of people to bathe with it or anything. I think they used it to water their plants which, amazingly, thrived in a crack yard.

I was really glad when they moved away. Another neighbor took it upon herself to remove the horrid fence.

It's fairly peaceful around here since the knob slobbing sisters and the utilities borrowing crankfaces moved away. I haven't seen a deputy in months.

My neighborhood is a working class neighborhood. With the exception of the former drug dealing neighbor, it's a drug free neighborhood. Everyone here is raising children and we work toward providing a safe environment. People speeding through the driveway get called out and told they can cool it or not come back. There has only been one fight here that I've ever seen and it was over the electricity stealing crank faced girl. Her "man" was off in jail for something or other and she is apparently not one to do without vaginal company.

As one of the pugilists was driving off, he stopped and apologized for causing a commotion in our neighborhood. My neighbor and I accepted the apology and informed him that it would be best it not happen again as we do not allow violence in this neighborhood. What people do in their own homes is not our business, but if carry it over into the potential viewing area of children we take it upon ourselves to put you in line.

For all the issues some of these people have, they are some polite mother fuckers.

Even former drug dealing neighbor has been a good neighbor. Except for the traffic flow and that DEA bust, he keeps his business to himself. He helps his neighbors and keeps us informed on the trashier 'hood inhabitants. In fact, he was fairly instrumental in getting the crazy people with the Boo Radley fence to move. Even drug dealers just want a little peace and quiet.

If there is any bonus to living next to drug addicts, it's the opportunity to enhance the drug talks with children. All I have to do is point out some black toothed mother fucker with a cro-magnon forehead hunched five inches over his chest as if his spine had somehow not genetically developed to allow his neck to hold his head up instead of forward and say, "You see that guy right there? That's what drugs do to you. Not only do you get to spend your life thinking cheetos and ham sandwiches are a "meal," but you get to look like the evolutionary process excluded your gene pool from moving forward."

So that's a little insight into living in a trailer park. Other than the trailer part, it could just be some little suburb somewhere. Everyone gets shitty neighbors sometimes and it isn't like you get to ask for a background check and five non-related references before they move into your peaceful neighborhood.