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Editor’s note: Regular commenter Meat addresses the sensitive subject of intended teardowns that have became rental properties as a result of the softening housing market. I’ll be following up with more on Section 8s and other development issues that impact neighborhoods in an upcoming post.

I liked Emma.

Actually, I never really met Emma but I knew she was living in there somewhere inside that battleship grey bungalow with the cracking stucco just down the street.

Her flower boxes were weathered and peeling but the flowers themselves always meticulously arranged and cared for. Her lawn never looked great but it was neatly trimmed.

She always kept the shades pulled down tight across the old window panes regardless of the time of day; not a single shaft of sun would invade her living room that she didn’t personally welcome. She was in there all right and, like so many older folks who live alone, she seemed to prefer to keep to herself.

The first winter I spent as a proud homeowner here in town I was looking forward to that first big snowstorm so Icould fire up the new snowblower (a gift from my Dad) and slay the drifts in the driveway (pathetic, I know).

When that first storm came I knocked on Emma’s door and offered to clear her driveway and sidewalks. She shuffled cautiously into the screened in porch and, backlit by the cold fluorescent light in the entryway, and eyed me suspiciously.

She then waved me off with a ‘no, leave it alone’, and back inside she went. I understood; she didn’t know me. I cleared her sidewalks anyway but left the driveway alone.

The last few years weren’t kind to the little grey stucco. The dandelions were the first thing I noticed, followed by the
shades pulled wide open day and night and the porch light that was always on. Seems Emma had moved away.

The rumors around the neighborhood were many, but the balance was that she couldn’t keep up with the demands of an old house and an older body, and had moved in with her kids. That snowy evening on her porch was the first and last time we ever spoke.

Predictably, the house was snatched up by a local developer with plans to build two grand houses where Emma’s once
stood. The grey stucco sat on a double lot and had “teardown special” written all over it’s sagging porch. I didn’t
mourn it’s fate.

Only a month earlier I walked through an even older home two doors down during it’s pre-knockdown estate sale, where even the baseboards and window hardware were available for a price. I bought an old lawn edger (the kind you push) and walked around the deserted bedrooms and creepy basement.

Like Emma’s home, this place only meant something to the people who were raised here. Now, stripped of the laughter and the memories it was exposed for all it really was — a crumbling old home whose value was a fraction of the land it sat on. The demolition took place a few days later and now, a month later, the old grey stucco had its own date with the bulldozer.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the quick flip. The housing market tanked, and with it went the buyers forthose new Craftsman style two-stories that seemed to be popping up everywhere. The grey stucco sat, undefended and unaltered, for almost a year.

A caravan of four cars pulled up late one night last fall, and an uneasy feeling pulled in with them. I couldn’t imagine that any sane person would have bought Emma’s old home to actually live in it; it needed more work than the Blodgett House.

The following morning I watched from my porch, hoping Armando Montelongo from Flip This House would
be leading a camera crew around the exterior pointing out where the hot tub was going to go and how best to fit in an addition and retain the home‘s original charm.

I didn’t see Armando. I saw a brindle pitbull take a crap on the parkway and a burly looking young man with a neck
tattoo lead it back up the sagging porch, back into Emma’s house. The porch light had burned out.

Instead of taking his lumps and selling the property at a loss, the developer decided to rent it, and the saga of “Section 8 house” began. For those who are not familiar, this from the U.S. Department of Housing website:

The Section 8 Rental Voucher Program increases affordable housing choices for very low-income households by allowing families to choose privately owned rental housing. The public housing authority (PHA) generally pays the landlord the difference between 30 percent of household income and the PHA-determined payment standard-about 80 to 100 percent of the fair market rent (FMR).

Key statistic: The public housing authority generally pays a percentage to the landlord, AKA, the developer. The same developer who was poised to build a home you couldn’t afford right next door to yours has now put out the welcome mat for creepy Neck Tattoo Guy, his pit bull mix and a scary mix of his friends and family and the government is going to pay him to do it. Right next door.

If you brought over a bundt cake, the frosting would curdle when you crossed the threshold. Enough has been written on this blog regarding the opposing concepts of affordable housing and the insane teardown phenomenon, but there is a gray (stucco) area that no one ever wants to discuss.

What happens when the developers move on and leave behind dilapidated homes occupied by an ever-revolving cast of interesting tenants who have no roots here, no interest in establishing any and couldn’t care less what condition they leave the property in?

For those of you who lie awake at night fearful of the developer’s hammer swinging into your neighbor’s old house, imagine how much sleep you’ll lose when your daughter wakes up scared and crying because the man across the street is screaming bad words and his kids are standing around the front lawn at 3:28 in the morning.

Imagine how you‘d feel when you call the police for the third time this year and the flashing lights send rude orange beams onto your son’s bedroom wall. When the cars begin lining up at 10 at night on a Tuesday and you know this night is going to end with a screaming match, a fistfight and an indifferent police dispatcher. Again.

Could be worse. It could be a McMansion.

Here’s an interesting “post-renters” neighborhood dilemma. When Neck Tattoo’s kid (at least I think it’s his kid; there seems to be a dozen that rotate in and out) spends the afternoon hurling chunks of concrete against the stop sign on the corner and the cracking sound bounces around the street like a machine press in a glass shop, do you risk his wrath by gently reprimanding the boy or do you pretend not to hear it? Not to notice?

Do you cross your fingers and hope he has good aim because a misguided toss could easily reach your living room window? Do you really need any of this?

Emma’s house was never the centerpiece of the neighborhood, but at least she didn’t stumble onto the front lawn screaming obscenities and slamming car doors in the wee hours. She didn’t have a pit bull, but if she did I’d venture to guess she would have picked up the doo-doo on the parkway once in awhile.

I don’t know how well the Section 8 program has worked across the country, but I’m certain it’s helped some good people establish a foothold in pride and self esteem.

My experience, and that of my neighbors, has been considerably different. Emma’s home is one of three in the immediate area that is currently being rented and the drama narrative is similar in each case.

I never saw a squad car in the neighborhood when Emma lived here, and I don’t imagine I’ll see one when the new families move into the custom homes I pray are on the horizon when the leases run out.

Where we are now is in-between — a trough between collapse and recovery — and I can tell you from personal experience that in-between totally sucks.

In the meantime, I keep the police on speed dial and an ever vigilant eye on the neighborhood kids when they play in the front yard, fearful that one of our new four-legged neighbors may want to establish its dominance. It’s exhausting, but since Downers apparently has no ‘vicious dog’ ordinance, it’s reality.

Perhaps our village officials would enjoy living next to a snarling personification of a plunging housing market? Perhaps not — maybe they’re all cat people.

It’s unlikely that Emma is coming back any time soon, so I‘m keeping my fingers crossed for a market rebound. When I see that glorious bulldozer crest the hill and bear down on Emma’s house I’ll know the turnaround is approaching.

I plan to take the day off and set up shop on the front lawn with a comfy lawn chair and a cooler of Schlitz, and enjoy the show. It will be the first ‘show’ across the street that I’ve ever watched in the daylight.

Meat is a resident in Downers Grove. Having lost his position at the rubber tubing company during a recent downsizing, he is hoping to catch on as a stockboy at the White Hen downtown.

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