It's MY house!

Hissing at her neighbors...

So, about a year ago, a new couple moved onto the block, buying our friend Gale and Leslie's house.

We were sorry to see Gale and Leslie move out.  But when you win a lottery jackpot, Baltimore's siren call gets drowned out by Pasadena, California's call of luxury and even weather.  And according to Gale, "Pasadena is saying our names, loud and clear."

The new couple looked OK.  Let me take that back:  HE looked adorable.  She - a foot taller - looked odd.  Then she opened her mouth.  Oy.

We were at a neighborhood function in the fall of 2018 and Gale and Leslie invited the new neighbors along, so they could introduce them to the folks in the neighborhood.  We met them, and while he was actually adorable - like a little teddy bear - she was prickly.

Maybe prickly is too abstract.

OK, she was an unmitigated bitch.

We were talking and I mentioned that I had come across some paperwork on their house that was part of the neighborhood archives and I mentioned that the grandparents of a built the house and that "Famous Celebrity" spent part of his/her/its childhood at the house in the summers growing up.

No sooner than I got the name out of my mouth, "Edith" screwed up her face and in a voice that sounded like Mercedes McCambridge's voiceover for the Excorcist she lashed out an "I know who they are and I have their number."

Even the husband was taken back.

OK, then, let's mingle over here...

Then at a second function this past spring, the New People were at another event when "Just Call Me Norma" and I were talking when the Little Bear and his wife showed up.  Again, there were introductions. 

Norma seemed unable to place the house that they owned and I said: "You know, where Gale and Leslie used to live."

That was the wrong thing to say.

Again, "Edith" started blowing smoke out of her nostrils and then she let loose an "It' s NOT THEIR HOUSE IT'S MY HOUSE.  I LIVE THERE."

Norma, who is in her eighties looked at Edith like Edith had invited her to go out for a fun day of clubbing baby seals.  The husband and I quickly got the Hell out of Dodge and took Norma with us to a chair and table along the side of the patio.  After retreating, I looked over to find the Little Bear shaking his head and Edith completely non-plussed by the encounter.

Even the husband - who has unruffled feathers - had a run-in with Edith at Happy Hour event at a local brewpub when he picked up our beers and turned around and ran right into Edith.  She was standing on his heels and when he moved, she got a bath in beer.

"YOU OAF!  WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ABOUT?" She screamed.

Not "Oh, no," or "I'm sorry..."  She called my man an oaf for something she created.

After that, he was done, as well.   After that, when she approached us at the block party or another social event, we went in different directions.   She is radioactive, she is the plague, she is deadly as sticking a fork in a high amp transformer - Satan stay away from us.

Then, last week, I get an email from her:

"Hi Cookie, its "Edith" (Not her real name).  Cory and I are planning on moving to Raliegh in the spring so we are listing the house in February, and I want you to help me write up the history of the house for the agent."

I looked at the husband and asked: "Do I have to help?"

I mean she has been such a pill.  I think I may be one of the few people that would speak to her if I were to get close enough to her.  But seriously, she has managed to piss everyone off.

There were a couple options.  The first of which would be to answer her, in an email, and direct her to the city archives where our neighborhood papers have been donated.  The second option was to ignore her.

The third option was to help her out.  But from a distance.  I have ten fingers, and I would like to keep them.  So I sent her a letter, explained whose grandfather built their house, but also said that he/she/it isn't for everyone's taste, and pointed out that "including them in the listing may not bring you the results you want."

And yet, I also sit here and wonder what is it the Little Bear see's in this harridan he is married to.

The husband offered up a number of plausible solutions (Head injury, psychosis, maybe she was just a bitch and he needs a bitch to function, etc. and so on.) for her personality.  She's too young for menopause, which is what Norma thought. ("I was a bit like that during the change...")  So I am just going with born a B-I-T-C-H.

I did learn that they were put off by the neighborhood not embracing her as a midwife.   Any wonder?

"When she saw that I was pregnant in September and that my due date was January, she was all over me to be my midwife," said another neighbor, Carly.  "When I told her that I was having the baby at Hopkins because we have privileges*, she almost ripped my head off.  Guess the baby won't be getting her name."

Still, I hope that someone nice buys the house.  You have to live with your neighbors and it just makes it easier when people are pleasant.

But the husband made me promise that when we meet the new people I won't even mention the previous owners.

"Not even to suggest that they smudge the house for evil spirits?  What about an exorcism?" I asked hopefully.

Nope.  Nothing.  NADA.

I also hope that a certain celebrity doesn't find out.  It could get ugly.



*Doctor's privileges - her husband is on staff.

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Update, the house is sold and the new neighbors are from Wisconsin!  We hit it off, MidWesterners to MidWesterners!