Can't be bothered..........................

Much of the past month has been consumed with house hunting. The girlfriend has decided to take the plunge, given the bargain basement home prices throughout the metro. It's been interesting to say the least. Better than 3/4ths of the homes have been vacated, evictions are the theme of the day. One persons misfortune is anther's windfall. All of these empty houses, we must have looked at 50 or 60 this month, they all have started to bleed in to one another, a string of endless rooms in varied states of disrepair. As we have walked through one house after another, one thing has stood out, not what is there, but what isn't. For the most part you never get a sense of the people who lived there. A few busted lawnmowers or rusted barbecue grills aside, not much has been left behind. trash, dust, holes in walls, cobwebs, and detritus.

There have been a few exceptions. There was a cluster of 4 houses sitting back off the road in a cul de sac. They were all supposed to be empty but footprints in the snow traced a path between the two. Basement doors were unlocked, someone had been squatting in one or both of the houses, they were both trashed. Trashed houses were not an exception to the rule, they were the rule. It was as though whoever had lived there never intended to stay, never made the house a home, just staying long enough to tear it up, then move on.

One of the last houses we looked at was also an exception. The house was in an older working class neighborhood that was going to seed. The smallish blue bungalow was different, it wasn't abandoned by choice, but by time and age. It was your grandparents home, or the former home of some other aging relative. It was being sold with all of the contents, the furniture, pots and pans, everything that was in the house went with the house, unless the buyer didn't want it, then the sellers would have it emptied out, removing the evidence of the former occupants existence.

The clothes had been removed from the closets, the food discarded from the refrigerator and cupboards, other than that, all of the former occupants possessions remained in the house.

There was a buffet in the dining room, the drawers still held an old woman's glasses, decks of cards, worn and well played. The old woman also stored coasters she had knit, lace doilies made by hand. There was a Kleenex holder made to look like a cat, I remember my own grandmothers having much the same type of things in their homes. I walked down in the basement, it was full of the old couples possessions. There was a handmade locomotive and coal car collecting dust, discarded and left behind. The old man obviously made it for a son or grandson, it wore the signs of having been played with. A work bench, tools still lining the wall, covered in dust, sat silent in one corner, probably the very spot where the toy train came to life.

I asked the realtor again if she was certain everything was being left behind, she answered it was there for the taking if the buyer wanted it. Two old bikes, Western Flyer's sat on flats, suitcases and boxes lay open, the contents rifled through and carelessly crammed back inside when the contents failed to prove of value to the searcher. The family of the former occupants, the children of the old couple who had lived in the house, just wanted it all gone, the house sold, the check deposited and proceeds divided. It struck us as sad, heart breaking really. There was no real monetary value to the coasters, the doilies, the old crude toy train. That's why it was being left behind. The furniture was well cared for, the house was spotless, it was a time capsule. The small items and bric a brac, proof that lives had been lived here. We wondered how they could leave those items for some strangers. We left the house with the feeling that the children of the former occupants didn't want to be bothered with it all.

On the other side of town another old person waits for time to collect its due. She sits surrounded by her possessions, a block or two from Union Hill martini bars. She doesn't have a tissue holder made to look like a cat, she isn't knitting coasters for an unappreciative son or daughter. Her possessions are the treasure of the unstable, rags, clothes, God only knows what, surround her like a big nest, spilling out on to the sidewalk from the doorway of the empty building she calls home. She shares a common thread with the old people who once called the blue bungalow home and apathy is it's name. The elderly seem to be a burden we no longer care to be bothered with. From tidy blue bungalows to midtown sidewalks. We can't be bothered.