Crap and crime in the gayborhood

Here’s what I’m talking about this morning.

1. The shit field: The small dog park in my apartment building has become a chaotic biohazard. It’s generally too filthy to use, and we can hear dogs barking long into the night.

The number of dogs some tenants have contributes to the problem. You have to be paying really close attention when you have four dogs running around.

2. Bank of America: The bank by my apartment keeps getting robbed. It happened earlier this year, and apparently again yesterday. I wonder what the security situation over there is.

3. ilume: Speaking of robberies, one of my neighbors caught a burglar in his apartment over the weekend. Police are refusing to press charges because my neighbor successfully made the burglar return his belongings.

The burglar has been seen on the property afterward, which will create a huge liability problem for the apartment building if they fail to trespass the man.

My neighbor and one of his friends confronted the burglar, which is probably why the man was compliant in returning the stolen goods.

But what happens when the burglar walks in on a single woman or elderly person? What happens when a tenant escalates the situation by whipping out a knife or gun?

4. The homeless people at the pool: The situation at ilume reminds me of a similar incident last month in which a pair of young homeless people started camping out in our pool area. There’s a shower, fridge, a TV, and wifi, so they were pretty much set.

My building’s new management company failed to trespass the homeless teens, and the cops refused to remove the teens because they have friends in our building.

Things quickly got out of control.

One of my neighbors called the police and confronted the teens. Their friends in the building then filed a false police tip on my neighbor which resulted in a SWAT team raiding her apartment. (She was horrified by this.)

Around that time, another pair of my neighbors confronted one of the homeless teens by the apartment’s grilling area. The young man said that he didn’t live in the building, refused to say which apartment he was visiting, and then threatened to kill my neighbor and her husband when they asked him to leave.

The pair chased the teen off with the help of a third neighbor.

Like the ilume burglar, this creates a huge liability problem for the building. The next run-in that my neighbors have with the homeless teens is likely to be violent, and the building is not doing enough to trespass these individuals from the property.

The lack of communication is also problematic. Most of us aren’t going to constantly check the common areas to see whether the creepy homeless people or burglars are still there. We are just going to avoid those common areas (and get really good about locking our doors.)

If the building has resolved the issue, then they should say so. It’s unreasonable to expect tenants to individually come down to the office to check whether dangerous people have been banned yet.

Tonight

Here’s what’s going on in the gayborhood:

• 7 p.m. – Geeks Who Drink Triva at Cedar Springs Taphouse
• Showtunes at Dallas Woody’s Sports Bar
• 9 p.m. – Live music at Alexandre’s
• 11 p.m.  – Drag Show at JR’s Bar & Grill
• 11 p.m. – close – It’ll be busy at BJ’s NXS tonight