Long haul
Let's pretend we know the future and let's pretend that we are committed to staying. Anyway I ran into Jimbo at an event and Jim mentioned some suspected flippers in his neck of Shaw. He said he was going to write something on his blog about it so I'm not going to write about what I think he is going to write about, I think.Let me say this, I don't know how long I'm going to live in my house. Current plan is that I live here until I get too old for the stairs and then move to Florida to die. Of course, stuff could happen. I could get married, and that presents the question of your place or mine? I could get a dream job offer from the University of Florida, and well, see ya! I could get into a financial predicament where I have to sell the house. The neighborhood could become a student ghetto* and I'd move out. There are a whole slew of life changes that may get me to up and move. But as a homeowner it's kind of hard to do it on a whim.
But the default position I'm taking is that I am here for the long haul. With that mind set I make friends with my neighbors, with the knowledge that stuff happens and they could be here for 5 years or 10, or 20. I'd love to see their kids grow up. it was painful for me to leave a church I had been attending for many years because in part, I had seen several of the kids go from howly babies to curious toddlers to overly energetic children. I'd hope to get just as attached to the kids growing up here, and I'm willing to have my heart broken when those families decide it is time to move away.
So since I believe I'm going to be here for a while, I'll say hello to my neighbors. I'll fiddle around in the front yard, chat with passers by, deal with the guys looking for handouts or the kids trying to earn some extra pocket money. I will wander over to my neighbors' yards and see what they are planting or in general what's going on. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, neither does anyone else, so let's pretend we all will be here 10 years or more, and act like it.
*before someone decides to take offense to that statement, I call all neighborhoods with a high concentration of college kids, a 'student ghetto'. My first apartment was on the edge of the student ghetto across from one of the many UF parking lots. Student ghettos tend to be sad depressing areas where absentee landlords let their properties go to pot and renters do little to make the outside nice. Hardly any families, or long term folk stay in a student ghetto, except for the professional grad student.
posted by Mari @ 21.4.06
4 Comments:
I have a question since you mention the kids looking for side jobs. Kelly got approached by one the other day, & told him to come back in a week & we may have something. I'd like to pay a kid to clean up all the trash that ends up in our front yard. What's the going rate for that?
Last weekend or the week before that I had one of the neighborhood kids assist me with cleaning part of the alley. Cost. $5. That's the price we agreed on. Because I told them what I was willing to pay for two kids (one didn't show up on the agreed work day).
Supervision or direction is the biggest cost to you. You have to be clear in what you want. Define clean. Tell them what not to step on. Also you may have to provide the supplies. I had to supply the rake and the dust mask (sweeping throws up a lot of dust). I had to remind them to wear something they could get dirty in.
Your yard is tiny, I'd say $4-$5 if they pick up and bag every non-organic (are you counting leaves?) piece of trash including trash on your sidewalk. If they do a good job. Tip them. Compensate them for trash bags they bring on their own. If it is warm provide bottled water. Pay them after the work is done.
Ya know...since you mentioned that Florida is a dream of yours. Have you considered that if *gasp* shaw became yuppified like Bethesda (banal chain stores and yuppies as far as the eye could see) you could sell your place for a meelyun dollars and move to florida and buy 4 houses just as nice as yours (or one big house and have a fat load of cash in the bank). Does gentrification still sound like such an ambivalent concept?
Ninja,
It is not the banal stores that would bother me, as we had those in G'ville. It's the high number of thin blond trophy wives (not that I have anything against thin blond people, some of my closest friends are...) walking around what would bother me. It's a female, catty thing.
Prices have gone up in FL. So yes, I could buy 4 houses but not really nice houses.
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