Home/Not home

I've now been in this new place for a year, decorated it with my own things and painted the kitchen and bathroom colors that I like. But it still doesn't feel like "home" yet. I've had to deal with far too much drama here, it's got a host of issues that need to be addressed, repaired, replaced, etc., I have an absentee out of state landlord who is a very nice and kind person, but does not seem willing to put any money into the house until he has two reliable, rent paying tenants, and thus far, that does not seem to have been the case with him. My downstairs neighbor is moving out and it makes me terribly sad, because the neighbor who was here when I moved in decided to leave a few weeks after I was settled in, and I was able to find an old college friend to take the place, hoping that it would work out for a long term tenancy, which it has not. Now I must find a new tenant for the place and I want it to be someone I know and with whom I am friends and can trust, but thus far, no bites. I don't want some college kid who's going to beat the place up, I don't want a smoker because I can smell whatever is going on downstairs, from cooking to incense, I don't want someone with pets because I don't want a dog barking or a cat that, on account of the traffic here being too heavy to let it outside, would have to stay inside and use a litter box, which could stink up the place. My place reeks of cat pee on occasion from a former tenant and I do not want a cat using that as a signal to pee all over downstairs, either. The thermostat for the entire house is in the downstairs unit and I must have access to it if I am uncomfortable, so it's got to be someone who does not mind my either asking to adjust the heat temperature or going downstairs and adjusting it when they are not home. So there must be absolute trust between me and whoever lives downstairs. Otherwise, it could make living here rather miserable.

We also have an issue of some questionable neighbors here. Hardly a week goes by that the police or fire department isn't called about something going on there, whether it's a fight or a bonfire set right next to their century plus old home (I did the research on it and it was built in the 1860s). This is clearly illegal and my biggest concern is for very young children living there. They seem oblivious to the risk that they are taking by having a fire right next to their home. Given the advanced age of the house, that thing would go up like a tinderbox if it caught fire and would threaten residences around it as well. It makes me so nervous every time they do this and I've more than once called the fire department to come address the situation, but they keep on doing it as if it doesn't matter how many times the fire department must be called. One night they had one as a bad storm approached and high winds were blowing sparks all over the place. I figured that the heavy rains would eventually douse the fire and I was right, rain fell so hard that it flooded nearby towns. But they've still been known to light that bonfire under windy conditions and it's foolhardy and dangerous of them to do that. They also fight a great deal and the police are constantly having to come out and quell their verbal altercations. I don't know what's going on in that house, but I feel sorry for the young children caught in the crossfire of all that chaos. It's very stressful living next door to them and if I could pack up and move somewhere else tomorrow, I most certainly would. As much as I like this house, living in the same neighborhood as them is becoming just too stressful anymore. Between the downstairs unit becoming something of an annual revolving door, the neighbors being an issue and a host of other things here, I'm wondering just how long I can stand to live here. I can't afford to pay the high utility prices anymore, so that's becoming a real issue. If I can't find someone with whom to share this house and soon, it may just become too unaffordable for me to stay here much longer. My retirement pension is very small and it's not stretching very far these days. I have no savings and a huge medical bill from recent shoulder rehab to pay down. No idea how I am going to manage that and I see no end in sight for patients picking up their own medical bill tabs, even if we do transition to a single payer system. Well, we'll see how things pan out here for the foreseeable future. I'll stick it out as long as I can, but I may just have to move again if things don't quite work out here the way I had hoped.