How NOT To Spend A Labor Day...

Witness to a criminal trespass, talking to officers, seeing people get arrested, and even using a rake and a shop-vac to clean a former neighbor's house all seemed to figure into MY labor day "festivities". Funny...I didn't PLAN it that way.

But I was too busy ripping pages from my Crimestoppers Texbook!

Seems a former neighbor was selling their house (NOT the one pictured here, btw) ON CONTRACT to a single mom, who missed a few payments, did controlled substances, lost her job, committed fraud at that job, and was otherwise going downhill a lot faster than a runaway train on Pike's Peak (and I don't think they HAVE trains there). The person was told to vacate in 30 days (reasonable), but she never bothered to get her "stuff" until 2 days AFTER the original 30. She then enlisted the aide of our very own village idiot, who does curbside auto repair, is a 4 time DUI felon (ugly mug shots as mug shots go...all of them), and is the self-appointed neighborhood busybody.
Strange thing is, "things" happen in the neighborhood whenever he is involved. Like the 2 times I called the fire department when his "buddys" were having huge bonfires NEXT to a garage (a code violation). Within several days, a BRICK came through OUR window (imagine that). I called NCE for a broken garage door at another one of cronies hangouts, and OUR house gets "egged" (imagine that). Still, another time, I called on broken down cars on a property and OUR garage gets several BBs through the windows shortly after that (imagine that). So, although I did not actually SEE the people doing this to our house, I DO have my "suspicions".
It's just all too coincidental, don'cha think?

But I digress....

These 2 perps kicked in a basement window and she had to have let HIM in, as he was coming OUT the back door when I spotted him. Now, if ANY defense attorney wants to belabor this point, the kitchen, as well as the back door IS (firmly) attached to the house, and he had to be INSIDE in order to get OUTSIDE (I love logic most times, especially in THIS case), right? So the FWPD is called, they come, I explain things (and have 2 new keys left to me BY the owner after the locks were changed), the owners show up, we all have a nice labor day "Pow-Wow". After all is said and done (the officers went to talk with the perps), the two trespassers were ARRESTED BY THE HOME OWNERS. That's right...a bonifide Citizen's Arrest was invoked.
I love it when a law WORKS.
My subpoena will be arriving and I'll be asked to "come on down" and testify as to what I SAW. No problem there, I have no problem with telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing BUT the truth...so help me God.
Hey, all I'm doing is looking out for the decent people and their properties...the best way I am allowed (they won't let me just SHOOT the darn perps....a shame). I will admit to "almost" going down to the house, gun in hand, and capturing the perps myself, but after a lightspeed analysis, I reasoned I don't have a CCW permit, could NOT take any of MY guns off of MY property (unless locked in a case) and that I would probably be taken in on those charges ...and I didn't want to ruin a spotless record, even in doing the right thing.
Hey... it's what *I* do.
I later joined in as we went through what USED to be a damn nice house....animal feces, trash...you name it. What a wonderful SMELL I discovered, as Han Solo would have quipped. With rakes, brooms and a shop-vac, we gathered and took out FIVE trash cans FULL of junk, and we've yet to tackle the basement (that's this week).
Again...it's what *I* do.

Suffice it to say, I wasn't much in the mood yesterday to do anything but get CLEAN and have a cold one. We did salvage a small cookout (Salmon, ribs and burgers, although MY appetite was less than usual...imagine that) for the homeowners, as they were ORIGINALLY on their way down here to visit us (what a coincidence).

So I hope NEXT labor Day is less fraught with angst...we can but hope.