Dear Editor,
It was the first one to go on the block and we all watched a part of us go with it. It hadn’t been taken care of much in the later years and was starting to show its age, but it had good bones, we said.
We watched as the new mansion took root on the lot. No more backyard with children playing.
Instead, a slab of cement. The front yard is a slab of cement as well, for the three- to four-car garage.
This mansion sold in the millions of dollars. It dwarfed our house. Then we watched the beautiful furniture being moved in, and we were looking forward to a new family being next door. We saw the shoes outside their door, but we never saw any people or children.
We went over to welcome our new neighbours, but no one ever answered the door. Then we saw all the new furniture being moved out — apparently it was just to stage the house for sale.
The mansion went up for sale again and renovations were done, even though no one had lived in it, and, again, it sold — and again, and again.
Every year since it was built, it has gone up for sale and yet no one has ever moved in. It just kept selling every year for millions of dollars.
The landscaping was beautiful when the house was finished, but it’s never been touched since. Three years of overgrown lawns, weeds, dead hedges, garbage all over the lot, sprinkler systems going on for days to feed these weeds and stacks of newspapers and flyers everywhere.
This is what we got, but no people. My son finally got fed up and mowed the lawn a few times so it wouldn’t be an eyesore. We had to pick up the garbage before it ended up on our lot anyway.
I talked to the real estate agents, but to no avail. They said they would pass on the message to the owners, but nothing’s changed. They even showed this house with the lot looking like this. No one seemed to care because they don’t live next door, we do.
The city is turning into a city without people. Will the last one out, please turn off the lights.
Linda Cooper
Richmond
