Soulless and absolutely heartless... trailers, deed restrictions and inappropriate pretentiousness... OH MY!

Just a word of warning.  This may devolve at times into language stronger than PG-13.  

A bit of back story for this entry.  Back a few years ago the house next door to my hoarding mother's home burnt flat on Christmas Eve.  The blog can be accessed here:  my-worst-fear-was-almost-reality  The lot sat empty since, and it took the family a year or more to decide to sell it.  After many, many months of being on the market and little activity, a few months ago it sold, and apparently from the deed information it sold to a younger female buyer.  The speculation and the inappropriate assumptions were unending.  A few weeks ago an older single wide trailer was pulled in, and my hoarding mother promptly hit the stratosphere.  Griping about the property value hit her property would take, complaining about the position of the trailer, speculating on why things were not happening quickly, etc.

Today I called her on my way home from a late evening networking event.  Today has honestly been an absolutely WRETCHED day at work, and I should have just drove home without this bit of sadomasochism.  The upshot of our rather brief conversation is as follows:

1. My hoarding mother observed gravel being hauled in and dumped, the trailer leveled, the gas line and water hook up being connected, and an electrical pole with a box being set today.
2. My frail, 77 or 78 year old hoarding mother took herself, her 20 year old Honda, her cane and her multiple health conditions and pains to the county courthouse and looked at the deed and the restrictions.
3. She made copies of said deed and documents.
4. She determined that there is a restriction on that property that prohibits temporary dwellings of any sort, and that includes mobile homes, not matter how they are 'seated' on the property.
5. She saw a few neighbors out, and passed on the news that there was a deed restriction, and provided copies.
6. She encouraged one person to seek legal intervention and possibly to request an injunction to stop this process, and indicated she would go in on this to help since her property value was being adversely impacted.
7. She gave her little elitist speech/opinion that 'no one should have to look at/live in a trailer park'...
8. The one neighbor called and has started the ball rolling.

Now, some of you may be thinking there is nothing wrong with this.  There are several factors to consider:

• This street is a dirt road in rural Appalachia.  DIRT.  Mud holes with broken up cinder blocks dumped in them so someone can drive on the street.
• My mother's house is one, but the not only, of the most uncared for, dilapidated houses on the street which includes:
• A chain link fence installed in 1974 that is rusted and has almost all fence posts broken off at the ground, and she has wired T bars to them and driven them into the ground to hold the fence up.  One of the gates has the bottom frame rotted through and is in pieces.
• She has yet to trim or mow her yard, or hire it done.  (It is the end of May)
• Her screened in porch has big rips in the screens and they hang in tatters
• The porch is full of hoardy crap
• She feeds all kinds of animals and vermin on the front porch, and it is overgrown and has hoardy crap on it as well
• She has done little to nothing as far as upkeep to the exterior of the house
• The storage shed has wet rot halfway up the sides of the building
• There are at least three trailers on properties adjoining hers or across the street, and the next street over has a large trailer park
• The neighborhood is a mix of old ranch style homes built in the early 60's and some in the 70's, with a few houses built in the late 90's.  None are large or considered luxury, and the neighborhood is steadily declining and many houses are turning into rentals
• Until very recently, the home behind her had goats- and the damage caused by their insatiable appetites is readily apparent when you look at the garage and siding on her neighbor's property.  And they have several discarded cars in the yard...
• This same neighbor has a house on her property that has been abandoned since the early 70's and has trees growing through the roof, and you can smell the mold from 20 feet away

You get the picture.  Her house is not Buckingham Palace, although she is doing a damn good impression of the 'lady of the manor' routine.  

She thrives on other's hardships and misery.  Today she saw the young woman with her significant other and their dog for the first time as she spied out her closed window blinds.  They got out of the car, and seemed so happy.  They were holding hands as they looked around at the work that had been done thus far, and he kissed her and spun her around... and mother was absolutely disgusted.  Instead of going out and introducing herself, welcoming them to the neighborhood, and otherwise just being a decent human $*&^ing being, she watched them and mocked them through the window.  Who is the ridiculous one, the ones happily enjoying their property or the bitter old woman miserably watching from her darkened kitchen?

When she told her neighbors of the restriction, she threw her support behind blocking this young couple from using their property as they envisioned.  I suspect this could, and will be, financially devastating for these folks.  And my hoarding mother does not care.  All she can do is lament how she should have bought that property when it was for sale and how inconvenienced she is.  It is always about her, all the time.  She will keep agitating and keep the neighbors stirred up.  She forgets that she had her own mother in a travel trailer on the property in the mid 80's, and looked into a single wide trailer for her mother at that time.  She has also expressed wanting to live in a trailer.

What does this mean?  Nothing, other than it is a stellar example of her lack of compassion, her desire to stir the shit, and her utter unwillingness to drop her willful ignorance.  This is narcissism and sheer mendacity perpetuated as only she can.

Perhaps legally she can do this.  I have little doubt she can.  However, just because you *can* do something does not mean that you *should*.  And that is not a lesson she will or cares to learn.  I think it is so sad for this young folks.  There is what is ethical.  And she does not care.

I keep telling myself that 'hurt people, hurt people'.  But... she makes keeping her in a space of my empathy very, very difficult.  Her behavior is absolutely hypocritical, and makes me sick.  

She is a severely mentally ill woman who has survived much, but is unable/unwilling to see or do anything outside her initial perception.  She has very little insight, but enough to know to keep some of this secret, which tells me she knows how things will be perceived and that she is doing something cruel.

I posted a meme today at the end of my previous post, never dreaming what she would do today.  It is to the effect of 'It is okay to be angry, but it is never okay to be cruel'.  This is a lesson she has not learned.

Hoarding, no one wins.  No one.  And she just created collateral damage today.  I wish the young couple success in fighting the crazy.  I am so saddened and sickened by this.  As I keep saying, this is not going to end well.

Thank you for reading.  I am going to bed and try to sleep this day into a new, better one tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed for this young couple.