Our neighbor, across the street was foreclosed on. I haven't seen him for months, even the police came by to do a welfare check on him recently. About a week ago, I was out front with the kids when the guy's garage door opened briefly. He walked out to get mail, picked up the newspaper in the driveway and went right back in. Shut the garage door behind him. I felt terrible. Knowing he had been inside all along but ignoring the door - feeling the world closing in on him...
This past weekend was the first time in a VERY long time that I saw his car pull out of the garage and drive away...Well today, must have been the day. The contents of the house were in the front yard. Everything from his leather couch, fridge, desk, dresser, bed, laundry baskets, books, movies....It made me so sad. I hated seeing his personal items sitting unprotected in the yard and wondered if he knew it was happening today?!? Why didn't he get his things? Was the plan to do that this week???
Soon the vultures and scavengers appeared. They swooped in, ripped open boxes, took his clothes, his pictures, his couch, his laundry basket - filled with his books, videos and things. One couple pulled up with a trailer hooked up to a truck- filled the trailer, filled the truck bed, then pulled up another truck and filled that truck too! I was outraged. This is the side of people I HATE knowing exists, and seeing it hurts me deeply. Connor was upset too. He gave me updates as he watched out his window...Mama, people are stealing more things now! UGH!!
I called the police - surely this is wrong...if a 7 yr old kid can see it, why can't the adults!?!? The police dispatch said that another neighbor had called with the same concern. The police have advised that if the owners were given notice, then the contents of the home were his responsibility and there really wasn't anything they could do. I cried. I said, how can this be okay?!?! How can it be that neighbors have trouble and that other neighbors are the ones taking advantage of it?
By the time the couple with the trucks left, this is what remained...Notice the boxes dumped and the remainder of the contents scattered all over. It's sick to me!!! No one has the right to HIS things...His belongings BELONG to him. How do you teach a child that just because something sits out in the open, it isn't free for the taking...when from his bedroom window he watches others do it?!?
Kameron's apartment was broken into a few weeks back too - someone took HIS things...$500 cash, PS3 and games, his laptop too. The guy chatted with Kameron as he headed out for the day to run errands...then when the coast was clear, he kicked in the door and robbed him!! My son was friendly and polite this guy, right before he robbed him! People and their love of things - other people's things...it's disgusting. Kameron seems to be moving on and past it...but I still hurt when I think about how long & hard he worked to have those things and then in minutes someone else takes them!!
I try to reconcile it in my head...and I try to keep it in perspective...it's just stuff., right? I am not materialistic at all...I would rather have people around me than things. But it does hurt me - a lack of respect, sense of entitlement, dishonesty, profiting from another person's loss, and priorities being out of order...it all hurts people.
Maybe the message in this is -
Love your family and love your friends...don't love stuff. It's just stuff...
People can take your stuff at any time, but it is replaceable.
So love your family and love your friends!!
No comments:
Post a Comment