THE SLITHERY STRANGER

My neighbors called their mortgage company back in September to tell them they would no longer be making payments and planned on declaring bankruptcy. They declared bankruptcy, divorced, and moved there separate ways. She didn't move out until March but it has been empty since. They have a pool and hot tub in the backyard aka breeding grounds for mosquitoes and frogs. In April I hooked up the pool in an attempt to empty it to ward off the mosquitoes and frogs! No such luck they had already begun their vicious cycle and you can only empty a pool so much and even that took two days. Needless to say we have a major infestation of mosquitoes and the boys can't play outside without being eaten alive and the mosquitoes always manage to make it in the house too! The boys enjoy catching the hundreds of frogs we have in the yard. We even have two rather large ones that come every night to sit under our front outside light to eat the bugs it attracts! Anyway the yard is out of control!!! I went several months ago to trim around the fence area since some weeds were poking through our fence. WOW! I opened the gate and had to walk with the weed eater in front of me to even create a path and ended up weed eating about half of the yard. It was unreal! Most of it was to my mid-thigh but other spots were up to my neck. I was really scared small forest creatures would attack me for destroying their home!! I called Helen, the neighbor, to tell her how bad it was - we are friends but she just said I am so sorry! Sorry really doesn't help me much now does it!! But I don't want to make her mad since she is also my hairstylist and I like my hair right now!! Well we have managed to keep the front mowed and edged since it is small and we just do it when we do ours. However the back is a completely different story! Martez tried to go in the other side of the fence but of course that half of the yard has not been mowed since only God knows when so it was taller than him and he could not even get back there. The side closer to our house wasn't as bad since I had weedeated part of it before but the mower won't fit through that side of course. Well now months later it is sooooooo freaking tall in the back and the mosquitoes are out of control! I was telling all of this to get to this: this morning I hear Elijah yelling at Isaiah then he comes in the bathroom to tell me there is a snake in the house. He is in to telling tall tales now so I didn't believe him until he was yelling at me about in tears that he wasn't lying. He said Isaiah kept trying to pick it up calling it a worm but he shut Isaiah in his room! Martez and I go out there and sure enough there was a snake between the backdoor and the dining room table! Granted it was just a baby but who wants a wild snake in there house with two small children. Sure as hell not me! So I called Helen and asked her to call her ex to see if he could arrange someone to tear down the forest because when I call the city they will charge him anyway! Well when and if they ever get around to it! So today we did our normal yard work which includes their front yard and now I am planning on going to the other neighbors to ask them to also call the city and complain about the yard, mosquitoes, snakes, etc and hopefully if enough of us call it will get taken care of sooner. I know the other neighbors are sick of it because a couple of them will stop every time we mow it and thank us for keeping it mowed, but I guess they aren't bothered enough to pitch in and take turns!!!! Gee there's a thought! But hopefully they are bothered enough to just make a phone call because if I can just get someone to cut the back I will try my hardest to keep it up until one day their foreclosure takes effect and it gets sold!! For now I will be dropping moth balls over the fence since my mom said that will hopefully keep the snakes from sneaking into our yard! Doubt it!