Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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The new neighbors seem ok – So far

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I’m not sure what to make of our new neighbors yet. They moved in last Wednesday (the moving went on until 2:30 am! not a good first impression!) so they’ve been here for a week.

So far they seem ok. We haven’t really talked to them this week because we haven’t really seen them – they seem to stay indoors most of the time. That’s fine by me … the last renters that were in the house next door (The Rednecks as I called them) were always outside and yelling and banging things around in the driveway. The quiet is a nice change! Especially since I’m still not feeling all that well.

The guy is apparently a car freak – just like the last neighbor! When they were moving in he had boxes of car gear! At least we didn’t see tons of tires like the last guy! I do like his car though – he’s got these really cool halo headlights. I’ve never seen headlights like them. Pretty neat.

Our only problem with the new neighbors so far is that my husband doesn’t want to have anything to do with them. Not that we’ve had a chance to mingle or interact with them so far … but still … my husband is the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. He pretty much likes everyone and is friendly to all he meets … but after our experience with the last renters next door he just doesn’t want to bother to get to know these people.

I think it’s because these new neighbors were recommended by the old ones so they have a connection, AND the night that the new family was moving in we talked to them and he told us about this real druggie guy who lives down the street and what did he see later in the evening … the new neighbor going to the druggie guys house! Chris has said he’s seen him visit the house a few times since they moved in too … so I guess that’s tainted his view of the new neighbors.

My view is that as long as they are quite and there aren’t any unsavory people hanging around their house (or in front of ours!) what they do is their own business. I do kind of hope that Chris is wrong about our neighbors visit down the street though.





Well my Redneck neighbors are finally gone!

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The nightmare is over …

Ahh … a sigh of relief! My redneck nuisance neighbors are finally completely gone – only three days after their rental lease ended!

These are the neighbors that moved into the house next door in January. I call them rednecks because they were loud, didn’t take care of the house or property (you should see the weeds in the backyard, some are five feet tall!) and well … they seemed to collect tires and cars!

As they slowly moved out of the house next door (moving began the second weekend of August) I counted a total of 16 tires being moved from their backyard and maybe the basement! Who the heck needs 16 tires?

They were the worst movers too. They borrowed a truck from a friend (looked like a UPS truck but it was painted silver) for a few of their moves but they didn’t know how to pack the truck. It seemed like they were just carrying things out one at a time and hadn’t packed anything at all!

I thought that they were finally out of the house on Saturday, but on Monday the guy showed up with his son and they started hauling stuff out of the basement! However, they didn’t take much of it away. Instead they put a big HD flat screen TV on the front porch as well as two single mattresses and some other stuff and left it there until today! They’re lucky that nobody stole it off the porch!

I think that someone was casing the house last night though … there was a guy standing outside my house last night for about 15 minutes and he kept looking at my neighbors porch. He was also trying to call someone … I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to contact someone with a truck so that they could steal that TV!

Oh and on Monday when the guy and his son were hauling stuff out of the basement window they piled most of it in the driveway. It was garbage bags full of clothes, a tacky set of cupboards, a very used dresser and a bunch of other stuff. Our driveway looked worse than it did during the 6 week long garbage strike (at least it smelled a bit better!).

If I needed any proof that they were ignorant low class people I got it on Tuesday when the home owners son and wife came to take a look at the house and clean it up! They let me come in and they showed me how their renters had painted the walls (tacky colors and stripes on the doors???) and how the paint was peeling and bubbling everywhere because they must have used latex paint over oil paint!

The carpets were ruined as well! They got a puppy in January shortly after they moved in and from the looks of it the dog did his business on the carpet – several times. There were stains all over the carpet in the living room, dining room and hall way.

I know they kept the dog in the kitchen most of the time, but the dog ruined that room too. The home owners had put in nice laminated wood flooring in the kitchen before they rented the house and now the floors are scratched and bubbling up in places. Not something that usually happens to laminate so that dog must have been peeing all over the place and they must not have even tried to clean it up! Can you imagine cooking meals in a kitchen that had uncleaned dog pee in it? Yuck!

The rednecks also broke two chandeliers and a window. The chandeliers were ones that my old neighbor (Stalker – Sofie) who’s about 88 years old now, made when she was much younger and worked in a lighting factory. So they’re old chandeliers and had sentimental value as the woman had made them herself! They also managed to crack the porcelain tile in the bathroom. How, I don’t know!

All in all I think that it cost the homeowners more to rent to these low class people than it should have! They tore out the carpeting today and are having it replaced. I think they’ll also have to replace the kitchen floor, fix that cracked porcelain, repair at least one window pane and repaint most of the house! Oh yeah, and clear out all the weeds in the backyard!

There were some new people looking at the house the other day and they might move in as early as September 15th. They haven’t signed the lease yet though, so I don’t know if they’ll be my new neighbors or not. In a way I’m half hoping that they don’t move in because they were recommended my the former renters! Ah! They’re friends! If they do move in I hope that they don’t turn out to be anything like the people that just moved out as that was a nightmare for Chris and I (yes we fought over the things that our neighbors were doing because they frustrated us so much!) and an even worse nightmare for the home owners!

I’ve I’ve learned anything from this it’s that renting out a house is kind of scary! You never know what tenants you’ll get! (or in our case neighbors!)

Have you ever had nightmare neighbors or rented a house or room to someone that just destroyed the property?

Car crashed right in front of my house!

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Wow! Someone just had a car accident right outside my house! That’s never happened before!

I was sitting in my living room doing some work on one of my sites and BANG! Crash! and then the dog started barking. LOL Of course, our front doors open so she could see everything as it happened … hmmm I guess she’s a witness.

I think the accident happened because one of our neighbors has a lot of relatives over today and naturally the relatives parked their cars on both sides of our busy street (in No Parking areas!) so it made the street narrower … and cars around here tend to speed by … I’ve even seen some try to pass one another. So I suspect someone was doing some daredevil driving and didn’t judge how narrow the street had become because of all the parked cars!

I pity the poor guy the next time he needs to get an auto insurance quote! He crashed right into a parked car. How exactly I don’t know, but it did a lot of damage.

It’s been interesting around here this week between my Redneck neighbors moving out, the big (tornado) storm and now an accident feet from my house!

Post Storm Sky and Clouds – Amazing

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Yesterday we had some unusual weather for this part of the country – Tornado warnings, 4 confirmed Tornados in the Greater Toronto area and heavy rains.

We were relieved once the storms started to die down!

Once the rain stopped I noticed some of my neighbors outside looking at the sky to the east. When I went out to look there was a huge rainbow at the end of the street, but it was fading fast and you can barely see it in the one picture I took of it before it faded away to nothing.

To the west however, the sky was putting on an amazing show!

The clouds were beautifully light by the low light of the soon to be setting sun.

Take a look at a few of the shots I took.

Sky after the storm 2

I love this shot. You can see the clouds and sky reflected in my neighbors window if you look closely. You can also see one of my other neighbors standing on the corner taking pictures as well.

Sky after the storm 9

The clouds were moving fast. I think this was one of the first pictures I took from this directions. The pictures below have more clouds and the setting sun gives the clouds a warm golden red glow.

Sky after the storm 6

Sky after the storm 5

Sky after the storm 4

The sky was so beautiful after the storm. It was like a gift after the stress we’d been through the hour before!

Tornados in and around Toronto!

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I can certainly say I’ve experienced something this evening that I’ve never experienced before in my life – Tornado warnings.

Just a short while after 6:30 p.m. the skies darkened and the winds started to pick up here in Toronto. My husband and I were watching TV at the time so we turned to TheWeatherNetwork.com and discovered that there were Tornado warnings for a large area of Southern Ontario … oddest of all there were Tornado warnings for Toronto itself!

While Tornados aren’t uncommon for the southern Ontario area, they are extremely rare in the city of Toronto itself! The last one that hit the city was in 2005 and I believe that was on the outskirts of the city.

It was eerie to hear the news people on TV and later on the radio telling us to take cover in our basements or an inner room in our house. I don’t recall ever hearing warnings like that before.

When the storm hit our area it began with rolling thunder that shook the house. Then came sheet lightening and finally it began to rain so hard that we couldn’t see across the street. It was like a blizzard!

During the storm we could see branches and leaves coming down from neighboring trees.

Later, when the storm finally began to pass the sky turned a strange greenish yellow. The radio station we were listening to kept saying that the green sky could indicate more funnel clouds.

Speaking of funnel clouds and actual Tornados … a large black funnel cloud was spotted during the storm passing through the center of downtown Toronto (not all that far from us!). It doesn’t sound like that one touched down anywhere, thank God.

However, there were several sightings of funnel clouds throughout the Greater Toronto area and at least two Tornados touched down. One in Durham (north west of the city near Barrie) and the other in Vaughan (20 KM northwest of Toronto). I’m sure before the night is over there will be more news of funnel clouds and possibly other Tornado touchdowns!

Still, it was so weird to have actual Tornado warnings right here in the city of Toronto. I hope I never hear warnings like that again!

The area where the storm and Tornado warnings were being given for stretched from Windsor Ontario in the South to the Bancroft Ontario area in the North East of the province. Bancroft is actually pretty close to where my old cottage area is and man did we ever have some major thunder and lightening storms there!

I think my husband was really freaked out. Just before the storm started hitting he went upstairs and got two of his guitars and put them in the basement (why he didn’t get all of them I don’t know, but I guess he got his two favorites). He also started gathering up his wallet, our cellphone and my purse and put them where we could grab them if anything happened (like maybe the big tree next door crashing on our house?). Then .. he started babbling about moving our “important papers” and things like our photo albums to a safe place. All good ideas, but since the storm was starting to hit I had to remind him that what was important to save was the two of us, our dog and maybe our two box turtles.

Now I know that some of my readers live in areas where there are regular Tornado warnings and or Hurricane warnings, but for me, living in a large city where warnings and Tornado touch downs are virtually unheard of it was all just a bit surreal!

What strange weather we’ve had this summer – from too cool to too hot and humid to Tornados!

BTW I took some pictures after the storm, I’ll put them up shortly. The sky was cool looking. Update – I posted one spectacular photo on my photoblog – take a peak. It’s called “After the Storm“.

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