Many people have asked me why we left Vallejo after so many years of loudly proclaiming how we were going to stick it out and make it work. Our move seemed sudden and unexplained, and some of my friends are still annoyed with me. So today (sans swearing . . . my father-in-law will be so proud), a more in-depth explanation of one of the reasons we left.
One of my least favorite things about living in Vallejo was also one of my favorite things: the view from our house.
The View From Vallejo
We had amazing views from almost every window in the house, but the view of the San Francisco Bay Area from the front of our house was the troublemaker. It attracted other people. Especially at sunset, but at other times as well. No one else on our long cul de sac seemed to care very much about the visitors, because all the visiting was going on in front of our house. We were the ones living across the street from the two undeveloped lots and the panoramic unimpeded view.
Sigh.
It drove me crazy.
The front of our house was basically a wall of glass on the upper main level. Which made the gorgeous expansive view a part of our everyday living, but which also brought interlopers to my immediate and annoyed attention. It wasn’t the cars I minded, but the people who did not get out of them. Very quickly after moving into the house, I made rules.
1) If you show up just before sunset to park in front of my house, you have until 15 minutes after sunset to be on your way. Yes, the sunset was beautiful, but now it’s dark. Nothing that needs to happen in a darkened car needs to happen right in front of my house.
2) If you show up during the day and stay in your assigned seat, you get to sit and enjoy the view for 30 minutes. Enough time to eat lunch, make some phone calls, and suck up all of the view-joy that can be sucked.
3) If you and your passengers do not stay in your assigned seats, you need to leave immediately. People seemed to think that climbing on top of one another in various states of undress rendered them invisible. It did not.
4) If your car fills with smoke? Move along. Giggling and waving, but move along.
5) If you arrive separately, but then park nose to nose or trunk to trunk with another car? You need to move along. I know a drug deal when I see one.
6) Littering? Leave.
7) Blaring music? Leave.
8) Public urination? Leave.
9) Arrival under cover of darkness? Leave.
10) More than 5 people in your car? Leave.
11) Standing outside of your car with your friends, leaving all 4 doors and trunk of car open? Leave.
12) Doing anything which causes anyone in my house to ask, “What are they doing out there?” . . . LEAVE.
It was exhausting.
I don’t want to give you the impression that this was a constant problem. It was not. But it was a problem.
A problem I devised various methods of addressing. And no, I am not insane. Mostly not, anyway.
Steps I took:
1) Noisily heading out to the front of our house to clean out our car, pull trash cans back and forth, and loudly yell into the house to imaginary people about the gardening and repairs that needed to be done out front. This was often all that was required to remind the carful of pot-smoking sex-having idiots that they were not alone in the universe.
2) Sending the dogs out. I would put the dogs out on our front porch to annoy people with their barking. This sometimes worked. It would have worked better if the dogs had actually faced out and barked at the intruders. Instead they would both press their noses to the door and bark to be let back in. Useless dogs.
3) Standing in the floor-to-ceiling windows and staring at them. Waving at them. Apparently I am not as intimidating as I like to think, because this rarely worked.
4) Pouring myself a cup of coffee and sitting out on our second floor porch with a magazine. This worked better if it was not raining.
5) Bringing out my camera to take pictures of the fabulous view (which they would worry included candid shots of misbehavior), accompanied by loud rhapsodizing about said view.
6) More obviously taking photos of car, license, and misbehavior. I never actually took photos, I just made a show of framing my shots and then setting off the flash.
7) Holding phone and ostentatiously pantomiming calling the police.
8) Setting off my car alarm and then emerging on our front porch with keys in hand, pretending that I couldn’t figure out how to shut it off.
9) Setting off the car alarm for about 30 seconds. Silencing. Waiting. And then repeating.
10) Sneaking about in darkened house to position robed cranky insomniac self before taking pretend flash photos at 3:00 am. I liked to imagine that they thought there was some sort of motion sensor security camera snapping their photos. Actually just me, full of crabby adrenaline, high-fiving my sleepless self when the car squealed away.
11) Much like #10, except with flashlight beam directed into their car. I scared the SHIT out of them, which made my heart sing with vengeful triumph. I wanted to buy a huge movable spotlight, but Mark wouldn’t let me.
12) Note-writing. I didn’t do this too often, but sometimes it was required. Like this time:
To the guy sleeping outside our house this lovely Saturday morning –
We have set off our car alarm several times, sent our dogs out to bark at you, and wandered loudly past you getting our newspaper and cleaning out our car.
I’ve taken a photo of you and your car.
I’m sure you had a rough night, but the next time this happens, we’re calling the police.
And that brings me to my final point, which is this . . . Not once, over the course of our ten years in Vallejo, did I call the police. Not once. I figured the police had enough real stuff to do, and I had our little corner of the city under control. Besides, the idiots parked in front of our house knew that I could and would call the police if it came down to it. The idiots and I all knew that the police could be called at any time. That the police were there to back me up if I needed them.
But there came a time when it became apparent, even to the idiots, that things had changed. Bankruptcy, cuts, layoffs, dwindling emergency services, frightening stories of escalating violence, ominous newspaper articles indicating that there was no one left to stop crime in Vallejo.
I was alone.
That realization stripped me of my invincibility and my superpowers. Suddenly I was just a crazy half-naked woman with a high-powered flashlight in the middle of the night. Shining her light onto the naked asses of now belligerent and unfrightened drug dealers and drunkards.
And that’s not good.
It was time to go.
A bull-horn might have been effective, too. But probably would have had your neighbors calling the police on you. I can also see you walking around with an orange hunting vest, Elmer Fudd hat and a pump action shot gun…but you lived in CA, I imagine that would have been less acceptable than the pot smoking thing. Can you tell I live in Kansas…married to a Texan?
A bullhorn would have been much more openly confrontational than I wanted to be. Although I could use a bullhorn to issue directives at members of my own family — that would be highly entertaining.
And no guns for me . . . although I did have paintball fantasies.
Orange hunting vest would be excellent!
OMG! I about peed my pants laughing!!
I’m not sure whether having you for a neighbor would be a GREAT THING or not!
Imagine all the fun to be had in the middle of the night with orange vests, illegal deer spotlights, and paintball guns!!
I am a fantastic neighbor, but an unpleasant enemy. I’m sure you and I would get along just fine.
Our little burg suffers the loss of such an interesting character.
I was missing the “Leave a Reply” so I too, took matters into my own hands. Closed my eyes, scrolled and clicked. This is where I landed. Funny, we just moved and really didn’t “tell” to many people.
Chance can be good.
**too** many people. Sheesh.