Rentals
Across the street from us is a rental house. The consensus among the neighborhood is that the owner doesn't much care about vetting the people that he rents the house to.This of course has some fairly predictable consequences.Today, after eating some breakfast and finishing up a show we started watching (Top Gear in case you were wondering), we were interrupted by some screaming. (!) We were in the back of the house with the doors and windows closed and it was still quite loud. Ennie looked out the back door and I went to the front.Across the street and up the hill there was a fight going on between a man and a woman across the street. She was still screaming, but now there was yelling going on back and forth as well. All of this was now going on the house where we knew the occupants, and the man and woman didn't live there. Our neighbor next to us was already on the phone with 911.At this point I wanted to take a few blurrycam, er... cellphone from across the street, pictures of the participants so I would be able to give a good description if needed. We were also looking to make sure he didn't just go away without anyone noticing so we could direct police to him.While waiting for the cops to arrive I saw the man walk back down the hill to the rental across from us.Then it clicked. Of course.The primary renter came out of the house a few minutes later followed by the man in question. Just in time for the police to show up.Seems the fighting pair was girlfriend-boyfriend and staying there. We hadn't seen them before, but this wasn't a surprise since this house seemed like a revolving door for random folks slumming it.In the end nine or ten people responded to the call including three police vehicles, a fire truck and EMS. The man was taken away in custody. We later found some leftover dreadlocks on the ground where they were no longer attached to him. (!)The primary renter said some of his buddies had backed out of the deal which explained the random stuff happening and that he's moving out in a week or so. We're just hoping that whoever moves in is better than what we had.There's nothing explicitly wrong with rentals as long as you have an owner that cares. The problem arises if the owner doesn't care about who they're renting to. That in turn tends to lead to people who don't care moving in -- which means that everyone who does care has to work that much harder.