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Fortunately, for the most part, I’ve been blessed with good neighbors. From the nice retired couple on the corner, the quiet recently widowed lady two doors down, and on the other side of me two wonderful families that have become good friends. An alert reader will notice I skipped a house. They are the exception.

At first it was a couple from Africa, and while pleasant enough, they clearly had no idea the basics of maintaining a house in good order. After them was two divorced women, who stayed for a couple months before moving back to Kansas, but still kept ownership. They rented to a family that had 4 dangerous* pitbulls, 2 other dogs, a couple lizards, cats, 5 kids and God knows what else. Fortunately they were evicted and the house stayed vacant for many months. Well a little over a month ago a new family rented the place. Five kids and a dog. Pleasant enough people. Not all that social, keeping mostly to themselves but still a marked improvement over past inhabitants. My stars, would I finally have decent neighbors?? I proceeded to hope against hope that this would be true.

I’m starting to wonder now…

This last weekend, after having moved my utility shed to make room for a new patio, I was doing some landscaping work. Two of my new neighbor’s kids were playing in their backyard, probably 10 and 8 year old, respectively, sister and brother. Now while I have a large enough yard, it’s still a suburban yard so I can hear what is happening on adjacent properties. And while I try not eavesdrop and even though I don’t have kids myself, even my ears perk up when I hear the phrase…

“I bet I can jump off the roof into the pool!”

Uh hello, what?! I lift my head and for the first time notice the kids have somehow found their way onto the roof and are running across the roof a full two stories off the ground.

“Heh!! You kids should get off the roof!! Your parents know you’re up there??”

Of course the expected reply was returned… “……….yeah??…….We were just picking rocks off the roof, my mom doesn’t want them up here……”

Right, and I wonder how those rocks got up there. Nevermind that….

“Well why don’t you come down off the roof, it’s easy for you to slip, fall and bust your head open. And I’m working on my lawn here, I wouldn’t be able to help”

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, but I’m trying to work on the fear factor here, not the encouraging “go ahead and play on the roof because if you fall I’ll be here” angle. Reluctantly they came down, and I figured out how they got up. Their deck ends close to where the garage roof line starts. And it’s a relatively easy step (for an adult) up onto the garage roof and from there up onto the house roof.

They sheepishly moped around the backyard for awhile, until I figuring it was about to rain again, wrapped up what I was doing and went inside. Once inside, I thought about what the kids had said. I wonder if…

….wait…a…sec…

….both the parents cars were in the driveway…so at least one was likely home…

….the porch door was wide open….my voice yelling at the kids should have been audible inside…

….surely one could hear two kids running around on a roof from even the basement…

Perhaps the kids were telling the truth. But who lets their kids run around unsupervised on the roof?? I’m starting to re-evaluate my new neighbors. I mean surely coming home to two kids face down in my neighbors pool is going to put a bit of a damper on my day.  I mean seriously, I have landscaping to yet to do.

* I don’t toss out the phrase “dangerous pitbulls” easily.  In my opinion, at least two of them should have been destroyed.  On at least one occasion I was faced with asking myself which part of my anatomy I’d least regret being mauled so that at least I had a chance of inflicting enough damage to force it off me.  And keep in mind this comes from someone who has more than once valued the life of a dog over that of a human (and you thought I was joking CC!).