A house is not always a home.....

We’ve lived in several different places. We rented an apartment for two years in Monterey; a house in Pennsylvania for three years; and then moved back here in 1993 and rented a house for six years.

Although we were renters, we always took such good care of those homes. It was as if they belonged to us.

Whenever we go up to Monterey, we like to park near our old apartment and walk around the lake that we walked when we lived there. This was our first home together. We lived there two years. The apartment house looks the same. It's still well cared for.

We have been back to Pennsylvania and we have gone by our old house there. The owners moved back in after we moved out after we lived there for three years. The only difference there is that someone bought the vacant lot next door and built a house on it.

Since we don’t live far from the house we rented here, we sometimes drive by to see how the house is holding up.

We lived there from May 1993 until we bought this house in May 1999. In the six years we lived there, our rent was never raised.

We planted bushes, trees, and kept the yard watered. We had grass in the front and back yards. There were citrus trees in the backyard. We had a naval orange tree, a Valencia orange tree, which had the best oranges to squeeze for orange juice. There was a tangerine and a tangelo tree. Every other year, we had bumper crops. We had to take oranges to work to give away.











Chelsi in the yard where the orange trees were


The yard today....all stumps

















Charlie with "bumper" crop of oranges



My herb garden....see the cat in the catnip?

Before we left on our RV trip in May, Charlie and I were in that neighborhood. We went by the old house. We were extremely amazed at the condition of the property. It had been awhile since we were there, but the last time we were, someone was living there. The yard didn’t look good then, but it was nothing to what it was now.

This time, the house was empty. We stopped. Part of the fence was down. We walked back to the backyard. That was the biggest shock of all to us. The yard was basically dirt, no grass. And worse, all of the trees were gone–four citrus, plus the apple tree which had been near the fence.












I used to have weeds to trim...apple tree behind me next to fence

Today, no weeds, apple tree or fence!

The wood fence on one side was gone, leaving a chain link fence. (Now you could see into the barren backyard of “baby boy”. He is the one who told Chelsi to “Shut the hell up” one day when she was barking in HER yard, years ago when we lived here). He still lives there and I’m sure his mother, Mary, has passed away by now. We used to throw our snails into his yard telling them that if they could survive that “desert” over there, we would welcome them back. We didn’t want to be the ones who killed them.












Chelsi and I by my herb garden


What it looks like today

Anyway, the other day I went back over to our old house to take some pictures. It looks like someone has been working inside. I looked through the window at the kitchen. They are replacing the counters. I’m sure the carpet is also being replaced. It looks promising.

We rented that house because it looked so comfortable. There is a big enclosed patio in the back. We had Chelsi at the time. She was house broken, but still under a year old when we moved in. Since we were both working, we needed a place for her to be, and have access to the yard during the day. This was perfect. We left her out there when we went to work. We could lock the glass patio doors to the house, but leave the glass door to the yard open enough that Chelsi could run in and out.

There was indoor/outdoor carpet on the patio. It took lots of wear. We shampooed it several times because when Chelsi was younger, she would run in and out, even if it was raining. She tracked in muddy feet, etc.

That patio was also the perfect place for our pool table. We spent lots of nights out there playing pool. It was so much fun. We turned the music on, got our drinks and just had fun. The cats and Chelsi stayed out there for awhile, but we outlasted all of them. They finally went to bed without us.














Judi the pool shark.... Should I run the table?

We liked that house so much that we asked the owner if he would sell it to us. He was not interested. It was his childhood home, his parent’s home, which he inherited when they died. The price he said he wanted was way too much, even for a house that we liked so much. We found the house we are in now and moved. Looking back, as much as we liked the house, we like the house we’re in now much better.

That house remained a rental. I’m hoping that the owner will fix it up again and it will be home to someone who will take care of it and enjoy it like we did.












We planted this little palm tree

They let it live....it's on the right and big now!

It was our home for six years. Rowdy and Calvin were five years old when we moved there in 1993. Chelsi was only seven months old. This was Taz’s first home. He was six weeks old when we brought him home. It would be his home for six months, then we moved into our new house.

I don’t think there’s anything as lonely as an empty house. Especially if that house had one time been filled with a family who loved it and loved living in it!

...But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back;
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

Last two verses of poem, "The House with Nobody In It" by Joyce Kilmer

More later............