Neighborhood Shitshow Continues...

So, a while back we had some issues with the house directly behind us, which we were beginning to suspect was actually being used as a chop shop.

We eventually decided that that wasn't what was going on. Unfortunately, we're still not quite clear on what actually is going on. Whoever is living there is clearly a hot mess (and not in any sort of good or exciting way), and at one point a whole bunch of people - probably extended family - showed up and hauled a whole lot of trash out of the house. (And basically piled it by the alley in a way that essentially guaranteed that the city wouldn't pick it up.) Since then, various of the extended family have been there at various time, including a few more cars that seemed to be on their last legs. (Yes, I wound up helping a teenager/early twenties guy push the car with no transmission around to the front of his house, and yes of course it was that same house.)

So on Sunday morning Beautiful Wife and I took a walk, and went by the front of the house. There are two cars (both in pretty bad shape) parked out front. (This is pretty typical.)

In more or less a straight line from the cars to the front door, we found:
-An unopened bottle of Michelob
-A cell phone

How drunk do you have to be to manage that? (Don't answer that. It's rhetorical.)

I took the items up to the door and knocked, but nobody answered and I couldn't hear anybody moving around. Oh, and also? The front of the house has acquired two new broken windows, which have been covered over with cardboard from the inside. Plus, there's one of those realtor's boxes, the kind that holds a housekey and requires a combination to open it, clipped around the door knob. These people are a grade-A mess.

So I tucked both items between the wooden main door and glass door, and we went on with our walk.

Which really should have been the end of it: just another entry in the growing catalogue of oddities and mild unpleasantness associated with that house and its current occupants, whoever they actually are.

But... no.

At dinner time we were interrupted by the sound of screaming. Long, loud, repeated screaming. It sounded, I swear to god, like someone was in the process of being beaten to death. So I went outside to see what was going on, and of course it's coming from that house. Only I can see along the side of the house to where an ambulance is parked in front of it. The flashing lights are hard to miss.

So I give up and walk around the corner.

The screaming is coming from a young woman who's with a handful of other people on the front lawn. An ambulance and a fire truck are blocking the street in front of the house, and after a minute I spot a police car as well, kind of wedged in between two other cars.

I shake my head, go back inside, and eat. But of course, things are still going on out there, so after a few minutes Beautiful Wife and I go back out there. There are now more people on the lawn and sidewalk, and from the way they keep moving around each other I'm not sure whether this is about to be a family reunion or a minor riot. Nobody starts anything, though, and every so often one of the family demands to know if somebody is going to be okay. The firefighters say reassuring-but-non-committal things; the EMTs are still busy inside. I must not have been the only one concerned about a fight, because two more police cars show up and all four new officers head inside for a look, then come back to stand with the crowd on the lawn.

Eventually they wheel in a stretcher, and a bit after that they wheel somebody back out on the stretcher and put them in the ambulance. One or two of the family members hop into the ambulance, and off they go. More family members arrive. The EMTs start bringing their equipment back out to the fire truck. Another family member arrives, and there are shouted accusations, recriminations, objections.

Finally it starts raining, and the whole crew files into the house while the last of the emergency personnel leave.

I'm going to have to get in touch with the local emergency services and get somebody to provide a copy of the actual report on this, because I am baffled by the whole situation. Best guess? The old guy who I'm pretty sure is living there gave himself a near-fatal case of alcohol poisoning, was found by family members, and is now in the hospital. But that's only a guess. All I'm certain of is that whatever is/was going on over there is messy and horrible.