derelicte
oh, today i viewed the most amazing house. i've seen it online for a couple of months and drove by it on sunday. though the absurdly high price paired with the extreme state of dereliction instantly ruled it out as a prospect, i forwarded the link to my realtor anyway. it is in a very picturesque state of decay and i wanted to see the inside. but WHY did i forget to take pictures? i hate the disapproving, exasperated presence of the realtor. it distracts me.
firstly, it hasn't seen grass in decades. no doubt about that. the paint, once garish, has faded to a sun-beaten salmon color. it is ENTIRELY salmon, everything is the same color. the brick, the porch, the doors, the windows, the carport. when we entered, i saw that the drapes were curiously still intact. heavy, fancy sitting room drapes, not a day under forty years old, looking like they'd crumble a little between the fingertips if one was un-fastidious enough to touch them. the drapes, walls, floors and ceiling were all coated in thick cobwebs. i've never seen them so...hangy, so thick. i walked around to the kitchen and was almost afraid to walk in. the cobwebs were much worse in here. what used to be a vent above the stove in the ceiling was now just a roughened, black hole. the wallpaper was 1950s, floral, teals and greens, distended and puffy. the requisite precious blue and yellow tiled counters. intimidated by the narrow hallway from the kitchen, i want back through the living room to the bedrooms. i felt like anything could jump out at or fall on me.
the first one indicated some severe settling of the house, or genuine movement of the earth underneath. you could almost see daylight through the cracks torn in the bricks. the old paint was peeling and falling down in big sheaths. the next bedroom featured a 6" hole in the pink ceiling, the edges corroded and softened by rushing water. i'm sure plenty of friday's rain freshened that room. the bathroom was cramped, with gaudy 1950s sconces placed on each side of the large mirror. more of the tile countertops i miss. pretty, narrow old doors with dented, dusky bronze knobs.
the realtor, of course, had been in fits since we walked in. i don't think he's shown very many houses in the hood, doing most of his work in the antiseptic outlying cities, where an old house = 1980s build. i'm going to have to tell my dad about this. i'm hoping he'll want to visit it and maybe break in the back door so i can take some photos*. so many of these older homes in poor areas are outfitted with nothing more than what looks to me like a bedroom door handle with a simple twist lock. no deadbolt, no chain. what is this, mayberry? a 10 year old could force those open with a single uninspired shove of the shoulder. especially odd to me as i see so many of these locks in particularly bad neighborhoods.
* he tried to share with me some disparaging anecdote about his life partner, la llorona, and what he laughingly describes as her west phoenix ways. he relays a story about how they were driving around, checking out some listed homes. they viewed one foreclosure which still contained some small bits of furniture. evidently she took a shine to an end table and stole it without hesitation. loads it into the car. he is guffawing about her trashy magpie ways when i say, well what the fuck did the realtor say? oh uh, it was just us, he says. well how did you get in the house?? his reply, "oh, well...i can get in any house." they broke in. and she stole something. ahhh.