What to Do When the Cops Come to Serve a Warrant...

or, tales from living in a transitional neighborhood. I've always loved that phrase, "transitional neighborhood" - it covers such a myriad of situations, from houses that are all in some state of being restored, to houses that run the gamut from decent places to live all the way to outright crack house. I'll let you guess which sort of transitional neighborhood I live in. If you guessed crack houses, you're right. Ok, at present it really seems to be just the one crack house. And it's right across the street from my kitchen window. And you might think it's bold (or rude) that I refer to them as the crack neighbors, but really, when you've dropped your crack pipe on the sidewalk about 10 feet from your house, I'm kind of thinking you deserve the title.

So anyway, yesterday I'm standing in the driveway washing out the litterbox (euuuchh), and two cop cars pull up a house away from the cracks. I watch while trying to pretend like I'm not watching, and the two cops go up to the front door of the crack house where all has become suspiciously quiet. And I wonder about that, because they were definitely chatting away on the front porch about 1 minute ago (because this crack house has no power, or water except when they use their illegally-gained key to turn the water on at the street, so the porch is a popular gathering spot), but now the house is silent. Good instincts on their part. Because the cops knock on the door, peer in the window, walk around to the back, stand around chatting for a while and then... just drive off. They can't just bust in to a house looking to serve a warrant - so it turns out, when the cops are coming to serve you - just hide. And if you're really good at it - they'll just leave. Score.

Now at this point you're probably wondering - Holy SH!t, what kind of neighborhood do they live in?! And it's a legitimate question - but the thing is - it's not a bad neighborhood. We have a ton of good friends here, great neighbors, we love our proximity to downtown and easy running and easy biking, and good restaurants, the walking distance to Sam's very good elementary school. We just also have this one, small, not so great issue - the cracks.