DESIGNED BY RATS

    It was quite a scene on the 3600 block of Loquat Avenue yesterday. There were five police cars with lights flashing and several neighbors smiling as an old house was torn down. 

    This one had to go as its owner, a feisty old hippie, had refused to be nice to his neighbors.  For years he collected junk and down-and-out roommates. 

    The yard looked like it had been designed by rats. The owner created an eyesore that drove his neighbors nuts.


  The former library

    Finally, his house was officially declared a nuisance last week, unfit for habitation. The police officer in charge told me the owner had been given a 48-hour notice of the tear down.

    Apparently his five roommates were not made aware of this.  The officer added, "His house was so filled with crap you could barely walk through it, a hoarder's dream". 

   Yesterday morning tenants woke up to a loud knock on the door. A police officer announced they had fifteen minutes to vacate the place before a huge steel claw would to tear it to shreds. 
 An older musician, "Ivan", pleaded for more time to retrieve his belongings. When the police refused he ran back in followed by the boys in blue.  They took him away in handcuffs. 

   In jail he might have been the only roommate that had a place to stay last night. 

 A lone pea-fowl (who some like the former house, also consider a nuisance) watched from across the street.

    When I was there the other roommates were camped across the street amidst piles of their possessions. The cops assured me they were doing their best to find them shelter. "Melanie" pleaded for a place that allowed pets. Fittingly, her dog "Charlie" sat in a trash basket.  He seemed to be wondering where he'd be spending the night.

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