My (hot) wife and I are sitting at the settlement office down in Alexandria, Viriginia.  We're ready to close on our first home and have been signing a litany of papers that some stranger who I'm paying good money assures me is all legal and routine.  As I'm filling this stack of papers out, I start to realize how the housing crisis happened (does anyone read all this shit? If so, what did I just sign?).  And then the seller starts to speak up.

 "There's something you should know about the neighbor."  He says.  This is after my pen lifts off the last page of paperwork.  The settlement attorney hands me the keys  to our new rowhouse.

 "Go on," I say.

 "About ten or fifteen years ago there was a fire in the kitchen and the firemen had to go into the house next door to make sure the fire hadn't spread at all."

"Okay," I say.  I know which neighbor he's talking about.  To our right is a cute little family, cute wife, cute daughter, fine husband with a fine fence and a fine yard.  The neighbor to our left has a "blame Obama" sticker on the front door, and a step-aerobic step in lieu of a piece of wood on her missing front stair.  There are four shopping carts in the back of the yard. This is the neighbor in question. 

 "She's a nice lady," he says.  "She's lived there for forty years, and she's about seventy now." 

 "Go on," I say. 

 "Well, the fire department went in there and condemned the place because she's a hoarder." 

"Go on," I say. 

"And a smoker." 

Hoarders are the folks who never throw anything away.  This is why when our front door was replaced, the next day we found our old door in her lawn.  This is why she has four shopping carts.  

"But the place clearly isn't condemned anymore," I note.

"No, she got a boarder to help her out with things."  He says 'boarder' like this is a term I should know, and that it is not a good term.  I did not know what it was until last night. 

My (did I mention she was hot?) wife and I are on the back step taking a breather (read: drinking beer) from moving late last night and there is noise on the back step next door.  It is the old woman, and a man.  An angry sounding man. 

"Gary skipped parol," the voice said. "so he is not to come near this place any more, you get it? Now you're going to go inside and get his bike tools, and his CD, and his clothes and you're going to give them to me right now."  Whether this guy was a pimp or parol officer, I don't know.  

The old lady closes the door.  My hot wife and I are afraid to move.  I think about our seller.  And the word 'boarder', which is really a nice colloquialism for ex-con.  Then I think about buying a gun. 

The joys of the first home.