During the 2009 housing market crash I was told about a great looking house on the market for a steal but it was cash only. Upon seeing it I was very impressed, I drove by the house a dozen time’s at different hours and the neighborhood seemed quite so I bought it. After I closed on the house a few weeks later I drove by to look at my first home and there where a dozen people loitering on the yard. I said to myself what happened how did I miss this.
After I moved in it became virtually unbearable, the people across the street had two family members who where drug dealers and they just got out of jail. During the day there where always half a dozen people standing in the yard and in the evening there where always at least 10 and sometimes there where to many to count. They started parking on the road in front of my curb space and projecting their voices towards my house whenever I was home. I spent all of my savings on purchasing this house because it was the cost of 2 years rent and I was on limited income so I couldn’t just leave.
So I decided I had to make it bearable as I had to live there until I could fix up the house and afford to put a down payment on another home. I started by installing an automatic garage door opener so I could like right by them and into my garage without giving them the attention they craved. Than I got frustrated because I always heard them over the TV or stereo in my living room but my backyard was quit because they where projecting their voices towards the house. So I cleared all of the overgrown brush out of my backyard but it wasn’t nice enough to forget where I lived for a couple of hours at the end of a tough workday.
Since the economy was still hurting I did some searching and found an aluminum pagoda kit for $160, metal bench assemblies for $20, and close to a full pallet of flagstone for $280. With the help of 2 friends I set up the pagoda in under 2 hours and laid the flagstone with mortar in under 6. The next day I was able to move the pagoda onto the flagstone by myself than I bought some outdoor string lights for 20% of the normal list price and ran them from the 2nd story deck down to the pagoda and wrapped them around the pagoda. In the evening when it was just getting dark it looked nice, I would go play with my dog in the backyard than the sun would go down, and the lights would turn on. I would forget where I lived and go to work the next day refreshed because I wasn’t thinking about my problems all night.
Fitness Suburban 