Thanks for Lowering My Equity!

(From Confessions of a Model Mom)


I really wonder what makes some people take such little pride in their homes. After taking a stroll with my son today, I just had to sit down and write about this, contemplate on it a little.....because I just don't get it.
I pass way too many houses with four or more derelict vehicles parked on their front lawns. Cars, trucks, and campers that will never again feel the joys of the road moving beneath them. Houses with weeds growing waist high and promising excellent adventures to anyone willing to go on a dandelion safari. Trash heaps, broken down toys, rusty swingsets, boxes of random crap all just tossed on front lawns....why? Broken beer bottles....what the hell? And no, I don't live in an urban distress area, just a regular middle-class neighborhood....although I'm starting to wonder about this a little now.
I didn't grow up with much money, always lived in small apartments and rented houses with my family, but we always had house pride. We always kept things immaculate, inside and outside. So, I don't think lack of funds is justification for letting your property look like the city dump. And now that I'm a homeowner it irks me to no end that these people are and can actually lower the equity on my home. Who wants to buy a house near a property with a broken down sofa and recliner on the front lawn and a kiddie pool with swamp water in it left over from a summer 5 years ago? How do you go home at the end of the day or look out your window and not feel bad about living in such squalor? And I can't even imagine what the interior of these people's houses looks like.....
And since I do go on walks regularly, I notice who lives in some of these homes, and they are youngish and able bodied....so there's no excuse with the inhabitants being disabled or aged. I do also know that a lot of the houses in this area are rentals, but that again is no excuse in my eyes. Just becasue you don't actually own the home you live in doesn't mean you should let it fall to pieces. Come on people...a little house pride goes a long way!
I've gotten lucky with my neighbors on either side of me and the little old lady that lives across the street. We all take care of our homes, work on our gardens, mow, and don't use our lawns to store things that are better left at Goodwill. But half a block away....ugh....at one home someone actually left a box of tampons out for days...this is Oregon, it rains A LOT. You can imagine what happened to that box and it's contents after a few days. Expansion and explosion. Real attractive.
At another house that is ramshackle and who's fence is about to fall over the next time someone walks by it and sneezes, they have a brand new Chrysler 300 on chrome rims and a brand new Dodge Magnum, also adequately decorated, parked on what once could have been a rose bed. You have the money to buy new, non-economy cars & keep their gas tanks full, but you can't mow your lawn or fix your dilapitated garage door so you can park the cars inside? Interesting.
A move to the countryside or mountains might be a good thing for me. I would love to look out my windows and see pastoral views or a babbling brook and not 10 pizza boxes precariously balanced on a driveway.
Have mercy.