Strange goings-on
Jul. 22nd, 2012 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutOur end of the block has had some shady goings-on lately. It's starting to concern me, just a little. Not that I have any idea what to do, or if there's anything I can do.*
People parking their cars and then just sitting in them for a long time has been an infrequent but not unheard-of occurrence for a while, but yesterday there was some dude sitting in his for hours. But with no indication that, say, he was homeless and living out of his car, you know? Just waiting and avoiding eye contact.
Similarly, a week or two ago there was a guy standing in the shadows down by the school, where there aren't any street lights and, of course, no interior lighting to break the gloom. Just standing there, waiting for someone or something...in the dark. In front of a closed school.
And then there was the taxi that was set on fire a couple months ago in the middle of the night.
This is not to mention the weird traffic and parking patterns, the occasional parties across the street, the occasional daylight-hour screaming fights across the street likewise.
The screaming fights have abated somewhat. The late-night hanging-around? Huge uptick recently.
I'm pretty tolerant of neighborhood peculiarities. I'm not going to pretend to be all hard and urban and shit, but I used to live up the block from a relatively infamous drug mart and I'm used to that kind of transaction and traffic (and bullet casings along the sidewalk and such, but no syringes thank goodness). Heck, I used to live next door to a guy who was dealing pot out of his apartment and everybody knew it including the building manager. This stuff is not what I am familiar with, and I can't figure out what exactly is going on, and it's starting to worry me. Just a little.
I wonder if I could talk the school** into some motion lights.
* Before you suggest calling the cops, let me remind you that I live in Oakland. That means that a) likely they won't show up, and b) if they do, I am not confident they would be the kind of help I would want. She said with both euphemism and understatement.
** Not our school, alas, which makes it harder.
People parking their cars and then just sitting in them for a long time has been an infrequent but not unheard-of occurrence for a while, but yesterday there was some dude sitting in his for hours. But with no indication that, say, he was homeless and living out of his car, you know? Just waiting and avoiding eye contact.
Similarly, a week or two ago there was a guy standing in the shadows down by the school, where there aren't any street lights and, of course, no interior lighting to break the gloom. Just standing there, waiting for someone or something...in the dark. In front of a closed school.
And then there was the taxi that was set on fire a couple months ago in the middle of the night.
This is not to mention the weird traffic and parking patterns, the occasional parties across the street, the occasional daylight-hour screaming fights across the street likewise.
The screaming fights have abated somewhat. The late-night hanging-around? Huge uptick recently.
I'm pretty tolerant of neighborhood peculiarities. I'm not going to pretend to be all hard and urban and shit, but I used to live up the block from a relatively infamous drug mart and I'm used to that kind of transaction and traffic (and bullet casings along the sidewalk and such, but no syringes thank goodness). Heck, I used to live next door to a guy who was dealing pot out of his apartment and everybody knew it including the building manager. This stuff is not what I am familiar with, and I can't figure out what exactly is going on, and it's starting to worry me. Just a little.
I wonder if I could talk the school** into some motion lights.
* Before you suggest calling the cops, let me remind you that I live in Oakland. That means that a) likely they won't show up, and b) if they do, I am not confident they would be the kind of help I would want. She said with both euphemism and understatement.
** Not our school, alas, which makes it harder.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-22 11:11 pm (UTC)This is the Montessori school at the dogleg? Yeesh.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-23 12:08 am (UTC)