Keep Worcester Clean…or That Time I Became the Neighborhood Snitch

Three Decker aka The Main Housing Option in the Woo

For those of you not from the Worcester area, this is a three decker. Also called a triple decker. Or a three deckah. Back in the day, I'm fairly certain that 3 deckers were built to jam as many people as humanly possibly into densely populated urban areas in order to provide local housing to the large number of workers needed to fuel the industrial revolution. Today, the industrial revolution may be long gone, but the 3 deckers still remain. In 2015 they still serve the purpose of jamming as many people as possible into densely populated urban areas, while allowing the tenants to enjoy a relatively large living space at a relatively low price. This 3 decker actually isn't in my 'hood. Despite living smack in the middle of a cluster of 3 deckers (the "hole in the middle of the donut" so to speak), since you know, I can't walk right now due to the aforementioned derby incident and a boat load of snow, this photo stolen from Wikipedia will have to suffice.

Anyway, one of the best things about 3 deckers are the huge laundry windows out back. Almost all 3 deckers follow the exact same floor plan. (So if you've been in one 3 decker, you've essentially been in them all.) They have an enclosed rear stairwell/porch area that has this huge window that opens and closes with a giant sliding wooden "door". (I scoured the internet for a picture of one of these and couldn't find one. There are at least 6 of these about 10 feet from my building and I can't get outside to take a picture. Worcester fail.) Originally, a close line thingy was attached to the house here and you would slide open the window/door and hang out your laundry. Today, most of the clothes lines have broken off, and most people go to the laundromat anyway, so these windows have been used for more creative pursuits. In our 'hood, this is generally the place you go to argue with your significant other late at night so as not to wake the kids sleeping inside (Or as we like to call it, where we go to watch the nightly installment of the live action soap opera "As the 'hood Turns…). Or it's the place where you sit with your boys and drink cheap liquor when your girlfriend throws you out of the apartment. (And in m 'hood you don't bother recycling those cans and bottles. You just chuck them right out of said laundry window.) And in some very specific cases, this window becomes your method of waste disposal. This is how I became the neighborhood snitch.

At the time, our porch overlooked the backside of three 3 deckers. We would sit out on that porch, channeling Francie Nolan from a Tree Grows in Brooklyn…aka the BEST book in the history of the world. (A tree grows in Worcester?) From our awesome vantage point, we were able to see some pretty incredibly sights. Like this evil squirrel, who was known for stealing donuts from the Dunkin's dumpster and running by with an entire donut in his mouth.

Evil Squirrel. Fat from excessive donut consumption. Note the glowing red eyes.

And my personal favorite, the neighborhood car detailing center…

Hard core business doings going on here.
Please excuse the quality of this picture. It was taken on a Blackberry. Remember those?!

Well, one particular nearby 3 decker contained residents who like to get their drink on mid-day and follow that up with crazy shenanigans. These included throwing bags of trash (in the yellow city trash bags that you have to PAY FOR!) out into the backyard from the 3rd floor. Because if you are actually going to pay for the city trash bags, you might as well just toss them into the backyard instead of, you know, PUTTING THEM OUT ON THE STREET so that the trash truck will pick them up. (I would think that if you put any thought into just tossing the garbage into the back yard, you'd just use dollar store trash bags to save money…) Eventually, this must have gotten old, because one day while we were sitting out on our little oasis in the 'hood, the neighbors appeared in the back window and started tossing out small appliances. Mainly old TVs. So essentially at this point our porch was overlooking what was essentially a third world landfill. I had officially had enough. I consulted the Google and called the nuisance control board (Yes, such a board really does exist.) and complained about my neighbors and their shady trash disposal techniques. The person I talked to that day obviously hated their job or just the city in general because they were 100% unwilling to help. (I may or may not have given them a talking to in my best angry teacher voice…) What to do? What to do? Once again brushing off my best Nancy Drew skills, I got in touch with a friend who "knew people" (important people) in the city. She hooked me up with a direct phone number that went to an actual, Worcester loving person. I called. We had a nice chat. And she promised to look into the situation (after I begged her not to tell them who called. Because you know-snitches get stitches and all that…).

Imagine my surprise when just a few days later, I looked out of my bedroom window and saw the tenants of that apartment cleaning up their backyard. Under the watchful eye of city workers. It. Was. Awesome!!! The 'hood never looked so sparkly and clean!

A few days later, a package from the city arrived in the mail. It included Worcester pencils, little Worcester trash bags for picking up litter, Worcester coloring books, a Worcester growth chart for charting your child's height, and several Keep Worcester Clean bumper stickers, one of which I promptly stuck on my daughters' Cozy Coupe. Because nothing says, "My mom is NOT the neighborhood snitch" like a KWC sticker on your slick ride…

Keeping Worcester Clean…since 2009

The Mercury Incident or Who Needs TV When you Live in the 'Hood?!

An alternate working title for this story could be, "Why does that tree have legs?" (Keep reading to find out why…)

This was a good time in the 'hood. We had just moved across the hall to a bigger apartment (which prompted my husband to continuously sing the Jefferson's theme song…you know, about the deee-luxe apartment?). We had a new baby. (Eeee! So cute!) And best of all? Moving across the hall gave us a new view! New neighbors! New shenanigans! It was like upgrading to a better cable package and suddenly discovering the amazing shows that had been just out of reach all along.

So it was the fall of 2010. I was home on maternity leave. Not sleeping ever. Watching a lot of daytime television while attempting to take care of myself, a two year old, and a newborn. Never leaving the house. (Whoa. Sort of like now, except the kids are 4 and 7 these days.) Anyway, one day I woke up to an incredible amount of chaos in the school parking lot next door. (Yes. We live next door to an elementary school. Which somehow hasn't deterred multiple neighbors from growing and selling drugs in and around our building. Sheesh. You can't fix stupid.) Imagine my surprise when I looked out of my window and found this.

The Red Cross?! This can't be good!

And this….

A little Environmental Protection Agency action?! I smell a meth lab!

There were also multiple network news trucks reporting from the street. You just KNOW something terrible had to go down to see all of this action on your street. Well, being the sleuth that I am (I was a HUGE Nancy Drew fan back in the day! Ned! So dreamy! And that car! *swoon*) I immediately looked out to see which channels were currently reporting live and then put that channel on the TV. (Genius, right?!) The "crime"? A student had allegedly brought some mercury into the school. Not a lot. Maybe the amount you would find in an old thermometer. But enough to shut down the school for days at the start of the new school year.

Now one thing you need to know before I go on. I have this neighbor. You know, the enterprising man who built the (entirely up to code) "garage". Well, enterprising is probably the best word to describe him. He also build an entire deck out of old wooden pallets, upon which he hung a sign stating that he was "looking for young boys to do odd jobs," which set me on a feminist rant about "why weren't girls good enough" until I realized just how creepy that help wanted sign really was. He also allows local businesses to pay him for "advertising" and then hangs giant signs advertising their businesses on his house. (And yes. Multiple businesses actually do this.) Now, this entrepreneur was not about to let this golden opportunity pass him by. An environmental "disaster" is an obvious gold mine! So what did he do? (Here is where I REALLY wish I'd taken a picture. You're going to have to paint a picture in your mind for this one…) Apparently, Mr. Pallet Garage took a little field trip into some nearby town where they actually have trees (my money's on either Holden or Shrewsbury) and ripped some (rather large) branches off of someone's (formerly) nice apricot tree. And there he stood. On the street corner by the news trucks. In his ripped off, Gilligan's Island style pants, holding these massive branches filled with apricots, which standing next to a sign that read, "Fresh apricots-50 cents." No lie. Like I said before…you can't make this stuff up.

As part of a (self-created) anthropological study, I watched this guy for a bit. No one was buying his apricots (Shocker.). The news people were giving him nervous sideways glances and you just KNOW they were talking about how they couldn't wait to get out of Worcester. But this guy was not about to give up! The good thing about having a mobile apricot tree is that if no one's buying, you can just walk your tree closer to the action. So he did. Like I said-entrepreneur.

The mercury clean up action went on for a few days. Apricot guy eventually gave up and started selling furniture items on the street instead. When that didn't raise funds, he just started giving stuff away.

Who wouldn't want a free roadside toilet?
Five bucks said someone tried to use this during the week it was on the street!

And the show goes on…never a dull day in the 'hood...

32 Days...

It's been 32 days since my roller derby drill gone incredibly wrong. 31 days since I had surgery to put all the pieces together again. 30 days since I arrived home from my little adventure in the great state of Connecticut. 30 days of sitting on the couch, staring out into my 'hood. 30 days of thinking about how I've always meant to start a blog about life in my little corner of the 'hood and all of the exciting things that go on here. So here it is. My life in the 'hood as a mom, a runner, a domestically challenged wife, a derby girl, and a teacher. We moved here in 2008, when children were part of our "five year plan." Two months later, children were suddenly part of our "two month plan" and we had a mortgage on a one bedroom condo in a questionable part of the city. Living the dream! That first summer, I started noticing some strange goings on in the 'hood and realized that this neighborhood was story telling gold! My first clue? At the time there was a factory of sorts next door. They fixed wooden pallets. You know. Those wooden things that goods are shipped on? Well, suddenly I noticed that the three decker next door had amassed a large amount of these pallets (either legally or illegally-that's still up for debate). They sat there, in between 2 three deckers for about a month. As the size of the pile approached the height of the first floor windows, I debated reporting them to the city, but at this point I still wanted to avoid becoming the neighborhood snitch (That quickly changed…). What followed was about 24 hours of non-stop hammering. When I looked out the window the next day, I was surprised to see a "garage" built out of these deconstructed pallets with some sheets of tarpaper stapled on top.

Behold! My neighbor's "garage"!

Good stuff, right?! "Sided" with old plywood that didn't quite reach the top. Sandwiched amongst three buildings in a densely populated area. There isn't a thing wrong with this situation! And although you can't see it in this picture, there is a rickety wooden ladder leading to the roof. Those bottles you see scattered up there? Beverages that my neighbors drank and left up there while relaxing on their new and entirely up to code oasis in the ghetto.

Now, I figured it would end here. There's no way it could get better than this. So imagine my surprise when I woke up to MORE hammering the following morning! I stepped out onto my porch that overlooked this little gem and laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants!

Math. It's important.

Yup. When my neighbor went to put their car in the "garage," they discovered that the door wouldn't close all the way. I guess they'd neglected to measure accurately-or measure at all. That hammering I heard? My neighbors cutting this hole in the front of the "garage" so that they could close the door behind the car. You can't make this stuff up. I laughed all the way until the snow fell because once those little helicopter things started falling off the trees, they stuck to the hood of the car, totally defeating one of the purposes of having a garage. And yes, this happened 7 years ago and I still share these pictures with my class when we start learning about measurement and why it's important to learn to measure accurately.

So there you have it. The start of our life in this part of the city. Always a good time! In time I've come to love my neighborhood, but I still get lots of laughs out of the neighborhood shenanigans. Including these from my pal Turtleboy...

Turtleboy. One of Worcester's most-loved citizens.