Having lived at 516 Upland for nearly four years we’ve had our share of neighbors. We’ve had friendly, [intlink id=”90″ type=”post”]nosey[/intlink], uninteresting and [intlink id=”26″ type=”post”]invisible[/intlink] to name a few. The latest and we feel most bizarre and disgusting are were the “TooManyBods”.

Over a year ago our neighbor Steve decided that he was putting his townhouse up for sale and moving to Collegeville, PA. Originally Steve had his house up for sale, but was not getting any takers, thus he decided to rent out the place. We were a bit concerned about what sort of neighbors we would wind up with, but kept positive and hoped for the best.

A year ago, the renters moved in and we were shocked to find out they had 5 children and two big dogs ((German Shepard & Saint Bernard, who pooped all over our yard)), plus 2 rabbits!! We could not figure out how they were going to manage. While we are very happy in our house, these townhouses aren’t gigantic ((although they are 2200 sq ft, which is bigger than most houses these days – we just have very limited closet space!!!)) and there isn’t any way they can sleep that many people comfortably. In no time we met the neighbors, appearing to be friendly we thought that this new arrangement may not be so bad after all.

Over the course of the year certain occurrences caused uneasy feelings to become rather common whenever in the presence of these neighbors. One of the most memorable – Terry, the mother, seemed to have an overly friendly thingtowards Josh. Whenever Josh was outside by himself, or going to the mailbox, she’d appear and would have talked with him for hours if she was able to do so. At first this was funny and we found it to be comical ((referring to Terry as Josh’s girlfriend)) but after some time it was borderline stalkish. We think that Terry was just very lonely and Josh being the friendly soul he is, talked with her not thinking anything of it.

Strange occurances continued to take place, but the doozie of them all, which was the final straw regarding any sort of neighborly gestures was the “Rewards for Mowing Darrens Lawn”.

Being that we are living in a set of 4 townhouses where we have been the only family who has been a steady dweller over the course of our 4 year occupancy Josh typically mowed all four lawns. The other end unit has a gentleman who is not home often and a few summers ago asked Josh to mow his lawn for him while he was away. Josh didn’t mind and actually started to mow all 4 yards. Upon occasion Steve would mow as well, but the majority of the time Josh took care of mowing everyone’s yards. One thing that needs to be understood is that Josh HATES mowing. It is a thorn in his side and he will put off mowing as long as he possibly can, but would still make sure and take care of getting Darren’s lawn mowed as well as the two houses sandwiched in the middle ((remember the Invisibods own the one house)).

Once Steve rented out his house to Steve & Terry ((yes the renters name is Steve too)) Josh continued to mow their lawn, until Renter Steve said he’d mow the lawns because he used to be in the landscaping business and has a big mower that he could get all the lawns done in a matter of 10 minutes where it would take Josh a good hour at times! This was great we thought, until Terry started bragging at how Darren would purchase beer for Steve. Every time Steve would mow, Darren would show up with beer! We took this as a hint that since Steve mowed our lawn, we should cough up a case of beer. So we did just that and Terry showed up in our driveway later in the evening ((Halloween to be exact)) to tell us that Darren brought Steve another case of beer, to which Josh replied “no we got Steve the beer” – she had the audacity to argue with us that it was Darren who gave Steve the beer.

This past spring, Josh started mowing our lawn again. We decided that we weren’t going to play the game that they think is so fun to play. Around mid-May Steve saw Josh struggling to get our small mower through all the thick grass and he told Josh he’d take care of mowing all the lawns. The following weeks to come Josh was out there again mowing all the lawns even after Steve said he’d mow them. The first time this happened Terry told us how Darren showed up with a case of beer for Steve. Josh just replied that is nice, but didn’t let it get to him ((to much)). A week or so later, Terry again let’s it be known that Darren purchased another case of beer for Steve.  Now how stupid is this lady to a) tell us that Darren purchased beer for her husband once, but then b) to tell us a second time after she already told us about the first case he gave Steve a week or so prior!!! ((DUMB, maybe the fleas are eating her brains!))

Well, needless to say, Steve never did mow our yards again. In addition, Darren decided to hire a landscaping company to take care of his lawn. In a way it was bittersweet – while Josh no longer needs to mow Darren’s lawn, it’s aggravating that Darren thought Steve was the person mowing when he wasn’t.

That’s just the type of people Steve and Terry are, selfish. Here are some of the things that standout in our memories of the TooManyBods:

Their oldest Daughter, Erin, standing out back and singing at the top of her lungs while taking the dogs for a walk. Not only did she not pay attention to the dogs ((Jake – Jake – JAKE!!!)), but she was also very tone-deaf.

Erin supposedly attending culinary school and us giving her kitchenware. In return we received homemade cookies which we never ate because we were too scared to know how they were made.

Receiving a bottle of Smoking Loon, a red wine, as a wedding present. While it was a nice gesture, it was a horrible wine.

Their youngest child had some mysterious skin disease that prohibited him from doing almost anything. Supposedly he had super thin skin; when he would itch he would bleed. Must have been great being stuck indoors all the time – it was probably like a constant trip to the circus.

While Megan was cleaning the windows of the Murano, Terry stood behind the car and stared. Didn’t talk, didn’t say “hi”, just stared.

Halloween 2008 – the truck. See Steve had this old truck that we guess he wanted to restore. When Halloween came around ((supposedly Steve’s favorite holiday according to Terry)), Steve removed the plywood from the truck’s windshield and turned it into a spooky murder scene – complete with body outline, spooky lights, yellow crime scene tape and mysterious fog. Woo Ha Ha Ha!

Oh great, another dog. Right, now there’s three…

Speaking of their dogs, let’s talk about the dog poop. They had big dogs, so obviously their poop was big and luckily they let their dogs poop in our backyard. There was one night when Megan happened to kneel directly in their dog poop while we were mulching our newly designed backyard. Boy was she pissed ((yes, pissed is an understatement)).

Steve and Terry inheritanother child that was supposedly a friend of Erin’s whose foster parents abandoned her. While at first this seems like a very nice gesture now question the truth of this story.

Our memories end with Steve, Terry and Family getting evicted. During the few conversations that we had with Steve and Terry over the year, they actually shared with us that they were evicted from their last “home” as well. We guess old habits die hard.

After they left Josh had the opportunity to tour the devastated townhouse in which the TooManyBods once occupied. Having never looked like they were vacuumed, the carpets were destroyed. There were water stain marks on the ceilings due to leaking pipes and holes and/or writing on the drywall. Oh, not to mention, FLEAS! According to the contractor who was making the repairs, he needed to bomb the house six times – SIX TIMES – in order to kill all the fleas.

Good Bye TooManyBods!

Here are some of the pictures of all of the crap removed from the townhouse after the TooManyBods left: