the planter is gone, and now maybe so is the junk

the past couple of years, david and i embarked on a project to beautify and build community on our block. we persevered through planter and entire plant disappearances, a few episodes of tagging, and various piles of garbage left inside and outside our planter. finally, our landlord asked to dispose of the remaining planter, and we agreed to that term.

but the garbage continued a few doors down. we always hypothesized that it was our neighbors who were hauling and dumping enormous amounts of junk on the street--furniture, bags of clothes, mattresses, all tossed in an untidy pile for the street cleaners to scoop up with their shovels. what made the unsightly mass even worse was the nightly scroungers who'd pick apart and distribute the junk along the block. well, last night as david and i were returning home from dinner, a u-haul truck was parked up on the sidewalk. as we neared, we visibly startled two women as they scurried from the truck to their home, filling it quickly. i sensed something was up.

this morning, two sheriff's cars drove slowly by our home, pointing at a building nearby. they stopped, got out, and began talking with someone on the street. david overheard someone--likely the building's owner--say, "thousands of dollars of damage." he shared that the inhabitants left in the middle of the night. turns out something WAS up, and we're hoping it may mean the end of the mess.