The Story of Someone Else's House

Once upon a time, this house was next door to us.

We used to be so jealous of its yellow-ness, because if your neighbor's house is yellow, you cannot also paint your house yellow.  It is...well, it isn't written.  But it's definitely a rule, I think.

A nice guy lived there, and he had an awesome Mustang that our children loved to listen to morning and evening (you could hear the vrooming through the walls, over the sound of the A/C.  Old house problems).  He used to have a beautiful backyard garden that we could see from the kitchen window, but he got tired of taking care of it, so he tore it out.  Oh, well.  It was his yard. We built a fence so we couldn't see in his yard anymore, and he paid for half, like a good neighbor.

He bought a new house and sold this one, quick as a snap.  He didn't even have time to list it.

The new buyer was a builder who wanted to build a new house.  We were sad for the old house, but oh, well.  It was his house.  We took this picture so we'd remember it.

The builder took his time building a new house.  He didn't do anything with the old house.  I called the realtor like a nosy neighbor and asked, impatiently, if he'd please keep up with the lawn.  He sort of did so.  Every once in a while someone would come by and take things out of the house--the appliances, doorknobs, plumbing fixtures.

The house sat for three and a half years.  It didn't look lived-in anymore.

You could see it was still a nice house, though, and we hoped maybe someone would save it.  That yellow paint still looked as sunshiny as ever.  A guy came to live in it who worked for the builder.  He cooked on a fire-pit in the back yard because there was no stove, anymore.  He put window-unit air-conditioners in because the central air unit had gone long ago.  He had a mean dog.  

After a few months, he moved out.  He took the window units with him.  The windows were left open to the air and the rain and the creatures of Houston. (I snuck over and tried to shut them.  They were totally stuck.)  We heard from a neighbor that the house had sold, again, to another builder.

We knew it was coming, but there's nothing like the sound of a Bobcat in the morning.

This is what's left.

The new builder seems to be actually interested in building a house here.  I'm sure it will be a pretty-enough house.  I'm excited we'll have neighbors again, after four years (come be my neighbor! I'm only a little nosy, I swear).  I'm really excited there's not a place for snakes and possums and I-don't-want-to- think-about what else to live in a vacant house just a few feet from my front door.  You certainly can't be mad about the neighborhood property values going up.

But I'm sad for that cute little yellow house.  The property records show it was about the same age as my house--built by a guy named Cecil from the Virgin Islands.  It was the last house on the block until the 1940s; to its North, there was nothing but farmland for miles until you got to Spring.  Cecil was a kind of suburbanite frontiersman with a British accent living with his children and grandchildren in his pretty little house.  Someone refurbished it at some point, and before it was left to rot, it had good bones and nice finishes.  I bet it was a good home.  I hope the new home has a place in some family's story like I imagine the old one did.