From the listing description:
LARGE HOME ON A BIG LOT IN NEED OF REHAB…BRAND NEW ROOF…
And just in case you don’t believe them about the new roof, three of the thirteen photos they included show the roof actually being installed.
Of course, the listing also says:
BRAND NEW ROOF & PLUMBING, RECENTLY PAINTED INSIDE AND OUT.
But there’s no photographic evidence of the new plumbing or the new paint. How can we really believe them?
It also says “Large home on a big lot…” ANH! Wrong answer! 1300 sq ft does not a large home make, not with (purportedly) 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. And if oh, say, 5′ tops between this place and the one next door is their idea of a big lot, I wouldn’t trust a damn thing they say, no matter how many pictures they have.
Besides… “Undisclosed Address”? To protect a celebrity’s privacy, sure, but with this place I’m thinking the agent doesn’t want prospective suckers, er, buyers to run away screaming at the prospect of drug gangs as neighbors.
“Undisclosed address” would be the new “Don’t go over there,” boys and girls, given the clue of “Miami” and the pictures above. I did not actually have to map the zip code to translate that for you, but I did, just to be sure.
Yes indeed, children, you are viewing a prime piece of Liberty City. Think of it as a sort of historic district, in that if you are old enough, you saw that very unfortunate neighborhood riot and burn on national news. This did not improve it or the lot of the folks who live there.
@anodean: “Liberty” City, as in they’ll liberate you from your car, your cash, and your life just for showing up.
I remember driving north on I95 after returning from a gig in Sao Paulo and looking out over all those slightly dilapidated little concrete-block-and-steel bungalows in the area you just avert your eyes and go by fast… and feeling stricken by how much intrinsic wealth (utilities, poured curbing, extruded window frames) we take for granted. Every one of those little houses, even in that neighborhood, would have been esteemed a castle there.
…and the owner would not have rested until he had built a security wall around it as high as the eaves, with pointy things on top of it, which is how they say “Don’t come over here,” in Sao Paulo. :)
*sigh* I just got up and feel like I need a nap.
@anodean: Sorry you’ve been reminded of something so depressing, Anodean. You’re correct (aka “I was incorrect”) in noting that a “large” home all depends on context, as do materials and construction techniques. Even the entrenchment of the drug dealing culture isn’t hard to understand when one considers just how insanely difficult it is to rise from institutionalized poverty. Why work dawn to dusk for next to nothing when selling drugs will make you more in a couple hours than months, or even years, of breaking your back?
So… Sao Paulo? As in Brazil? Gig? I googled but could find no area south of Miami referred to as Sao Paulo. That leaves the other one. Did you go all the way there for a musical gig? Or some other kind? This is intriguing and infinitely more uplifting than inner-city Miami.
Sorry about the downer, though it does continue to make me thankful. :)
It was for technical work over twenty years ago, and I’d left the Miami area about ten years before that. I wish I could tell a jolly story of it, but I’d traveled further and never felt so awfully far from home. Everyone was incredibly cordial and made sure I was safe and well looked after, but what they drove me past each morning and evening just stood the neck hairs up. I’d catch myself mentally trying to figure how long it would take me to – I can’t really describe it, “swim home,” I guess – every time I came near a wall map.
Now that I think of it, I don’t think I was driving north on I-95, the flightpath out of Miami International going home banks north exactly there, giving me the view I remember from that angle – the instant that “worst place” was suddenly overlaid with “prosperous area” while looking across I-95 through the lens of an airplane window.
Though on the lighter side, that was the last time I did that, and I have long since moved the “hours of boredom, moments of sheer terror” phase of my resume to the simple heading of “misspent youth.”
And now I’ve had more sleep. :D
@anodean: No need to apologize. One of my favorite quotes fits the bill – “What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?” (author George Eliot) Sometimes talking about things helps.
Your own quote – “hours of boredom, moments of sheer terror” – sounds rather like descriptions of soldiers during war time. No wonder you were so stressed. Welcome home… :)