Welcome to Suburbia: As the Neighbors Turn (Episode 2)

If you missed "Welcome to Suburbia: As the Neighbors Turn (Episode 1)" click here.


For the rest of you, if you recall, I left off in my story with the hand model who had just moved in behind us.

Well, I noticed whenever my hubs was outside working in the yard with the kids, the hand model would always come up to the fence for a chat or bearing an invitation to a pool party she was hosting. However, whenever I happened to be outside, she was always mysteriously absent. I wasn't worried, though. I may be five-feet tall, but I knew I could take her. (Biceps are flexing now as I write.)

Actually, things remained relatively peaceful on that front. Then in the late fall, we noticed some new activity going on in the vacant house next door. We learned a woman and her twenty-something daughter were moving in. We didn't see much of our new neighbors, as we had the other families who'd lived there before them. They were rarely outside. Winter passed, then spring. Finally, we were in the heat of the summer.

One afternoon, as my husband stood looking out our family room window at their house he said, "Have you ever noticed our new neighbors keep the windows and curtains shut all the time?"

I looked over curiously. Sure enough it was buttoned up tight. "What's so weird about that?"

"That house doesn’t have any air conditioning."

"Oh."

"Hmm..." He was frowning now. "I'm calling the police."

"What for?"

"Because something weird is going on over there."

"What, just because the windows are shut all the time?"

"Not just that. Haven't you noticed how different cars keep pulling up and parking at the side of the house? It's always men who get out and they never go to the front door. They always knock at the garage side entrance. They go in. Stay for a short time, and then they leave."

I looked at him blankly for a moment, then his point finally dawned on me. "No WAY!"

He nodded grimly, picking up the phone. He followed up that call with a call to the "real" owner, just to let him know what we suspected.

"What did he say?" I asked after he hung up.

"He told me he'd been having trouble getting the rent from them. And guess what their stated professions are on their application?"

"What?"

"Masseuses."

"Get outta here!"

"I'm serious!" he started laughing.

"This isn't funny! Are you telling me we are living next door to a BROTHEL?! For cryin' out loud we live in the suburbs!"

A hand model I can deal with, but a brothel? No way. I immediately started praying that these people would be removed, like NOW. Thank goodness, a few months later my prayers were answered and the brothel was evicted, with our two children none the wiser, fortunately. A little while after that, the hand model moved on as well.

The houses both stood vacant for a time. But a few weeks ago, I watched moving trucks arriving, bringing in two sets of new neighbors. A single dad next door and a family of six in the inground pool house. Well, that sounds pretty normal, right? Right?! (Sigh) Here's hopin'.



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