• Monday, October 13th, 2008
A good article about buying foreclosures by David Benda appeared in the RS on Sunday. It was thoughtful and accurate. Read it HERE.
Mother doesn’t go out anymore
Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes
But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside
Sunday papers don’t ask no questions
Sunday papers don’t tell no lies
Sunday papers don’t raise objections
Sunday papers ain’t got no eyes
Joe Jackson – Sunday Papers A cool song indeed.
Fall fishing inside Redding city limits
• Thursday, July 24th, 2008
Apparently, I spent much of my adult life sheltered from what must be a daily reality for some folks. I showed an inexpensive bank-owned house yesterday evening to a curious buyer. Among other issues, it was infested with fleas. Up until the most recent housing cycle, I had never seen fleas swarm one’s ankles when walking into a home with wall to wall carpet. I am sadly familiar with that now. It is still disturbing to think that humans live this way, and maybe even unimaginable for most people until you see it with your own eyes. Imagine Redding summer heat and no electricity for so much as a vacuum cleaner.
Yesterday started me thinking about the health implications, so I browsed over to the CDC website.
Ever heard of Typhus? (2 kinds) Tapeworms? Flea-borne Rickettsiae? I was wondering about plague (Yersinia pestis, known in history as black death) but that’s not prominently mentioned. From the site, “flea-borne diseases could reemerge in epidemic form because of changes in vector-host ecology due to environmental and human behavior modification” and “economic factors, as well as changes in human behavior, have resulted in the emergence of new and the reemergence of existing but forgotten infectious diseases during the past 20 years.” Hmm. Anyway, here’s the website if you’re interested:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol3no3/azad.htm -and thanks to the CDC for the image seen above.
It’s quite sight to behold, fleas leaping from carpet to your feet and legs with such swarming gusto. Not all bank owned properties have fleas, but some do. Its not that bad in the winter, but on a hot day, they have remarkable mobility. It doesn’t even startle me anymore. Maybe it should.
The one that still haunts me is the house in south Redding/north Anderson last year, where it was apparent that the evicted had been doing child day-care. I saw the home pre-eviction, when there were kids there, and then a few days after they had left. Along with fleas were the largest rats I’d ever seen. That one was brutal. It ended my sheltered life forever.
• Monday, July 21st, 2008
• Thursday, January 03rd, 2008
This is one of the first signs seen by visitors as they roll into Shasta Lake City. I’m all for attracting buyers to your business, but what’s the real message here? Not a welcome sign.
