We have new neighbors
The folks in the rent house to the north of us have moved out. We never really met them. Rob talked to the girl by phone when he found her cat in our yard and thought it was a lost cat because he had never seen it before and he encountered her a second time when she complained because he had the music from our little portable CD player on the back deck a bit too loud for her liking. They ignored all of our attempts to wave hello or say hi so other than those two incidents, we had no contact with them. Much like the neighbors before them who pretended not to understand English when I tried to introduce myself.

Our new neighbors moved in last night. A U-haul truck pulled up and a horde of people descended upon the house, obviously friends or family helping with the move-in. We stood out in the front yard and stared for a few minutes, but didn't say hello. Had I been feeling better, I probably would have walked over and introduced myself, but I didn't feel up to it and now that the opportunity has passed, I wonder when, if ever, I'll do that. They do speak English (one girl yelled, "That goes in the office."), they have two dogs and some of the folks helping them move had tattoos. I'll take those as good signs, but it's weird having neighbors that change every year. I lived in a rent house before I met Rob, but no one there rented for just a year except for one family that couldn't accept the high level of minority population. They introduced themselves to me right after they moved in and told me how glad they were that a white person was living next door to them. Then in the middle of the conversation the wife started breast-feeding her three year old child. Eeeew. I avoided them like the plague after that and they left as soon as their lease was up, probably for some Neo-Nazi commune. For the most part my neighbors were either poor Hispanic families or schizophrenic. An odd combination, but almost all the housing was Section-Eight (public assisted housing) and once a person managed to get into public housing, they did everything they could to stay there forever. I didn't live in a Section-Eight house, but I had a good landlord, reasonable rent for a three bedroom house with a floor plan that I loved and I stayed there for eight years total. During that time, I had neighbors that I didn't particularly care for, but at least it wasn't a revolving door. I knew that my neighbor to the south of me would put rocks in my trash can if I left it at the curb and the guy across the street would mow his entire lawn with his weed-eater every Saturday afternoon. Annoying behavior, but I've since learned that there's some comfort to be had in consistency. I knew which houses were the targets of the drive-by shootings so there was no need to get out of bed at night or worry much for your own safety when you heard shots fired. Sirens to the north probably meant another domestic dispute in the front yard five houses up. Sirens to the south usually meant the crazy lady down the street was out in her front yard acting, well, crazy. The funny thing is that I felt safe when I lived there even though it was not a safe neighborhood by most people's definition and I had several windows that didn't lock. But here and now, in a MUCH safer neighborhood, I'm freaking out because our contractor hasn't put the burgler bars back on the windows yet. So I have to wonder, is it because I don't know the neighbors and the neighborhood nearly as well as my old one even though I've lived here longer or is it just because am I older and more paranoid?