The Bus on My Street

Since everyone and their mother blogs these days, I have decided to put together a blog about a subject near, yet not so dear, to my heart: things on my street that drive me nutz. My first post is about the big, beaten-up looking school bus that has been parked on my street for somewhere between 6 and 18 months at this point.

I live on a busy, heavily traveled, apartment-intensive residential street in West Los Angeles. At some point I noticed that a school bus was being parked on the street on a regular basis. It was sitting there day after day, before and after work, looking shabby and taking up tons of parking spaces--Partridge-family-goes-white-trash style.

One night, after returning home late from a work event, I noticed light filtering out from behind the sheets tacked over the bus windows. Someone was living on the bus!

After asking around about the situation with the bus, I was informed that it belonged to one of my less-than-stable neighbors who actually did rent an apartment on the street, and he did not live in the bus after all (at least not full-time).

Now, given that parking spaces around here are rarer than traveling 55 mph at 6 p.m., the constant presence of the high-profile bus has garnered quite a bit of attention from myself and other neighbors. Not to mention the visibility of the junk piled up inside.

This all would be bad enough, but the bus is not the only thing he parks on the street. I have since discovered that the beat up military-style jeep filled up with trash and the flat-bed trailer hauling an array of junk are all his too.

Whether parked in succession or spread around the street, the objects take up a sum total of 4-5 parking spaces, not to mention the fact that they are an eyesore. I realize there is a saying about one person's junk being another person's treasure, but I think most people will agree the overall asthetic is more "sanitation engineer" than "modern artist".

Several calls to our local police station has provided me with the information that the vehicles are all properly registered, after a tip by some anonymous idiot to the owner reveiled that he could be cited for that and he changed the registration from commercial to personal. And as long as the vehicles are not in the same space for more than 72 hours, the hands of the LAPD are tied. Just maddening!

The good news is that I am far from thwarted! I will have those vehicles excised from my street if it is the last thing I do! Mark my words!