83/365 Ida's House

Ida was moving. A little house in Holly Hills, moving in with her sister. Getting out of the 3-story monstrosity she'd benevolently neglected the last 20 years. She needed to sell.

Enter, stage left: Kristina and Mark Walsh, her former next door neighbors. Mark was on his second marriage to much younger Kristina, with a daughter from a previous marriage and a new wife who wasn't going to dilly dally around with any kids. They had both already decided their first attempts at making money in St. Louis weren't going to work, and so they took on the real estate business. Bought a house three blocks south and began to rehab it, all the while neglecting the shell of a house they were currently occupying. Helen's old place that she shed for a condo in the county. They got it for a song and constantly talked about how much they loved the neighborhood, loved our block, loved the kids, loved the trees. The moment the house three blocks south was completed, they dumped this one on the Friedmans for far more than what it was worth and high-tailed it to the good life on a cul-de-sac. They'd run into us and tell us how much they hated what the Friedmans were doing to "their" house, how much they missed the atmosphere and camaraderie of our block. We would do a lot of smiling and nodding.

You see where this is going.

They listed Ida's house. It sold in 3 days. It sold to a friend of Kristina's. Friend of Kristina's sold it for 3 times the sale price to a developer. I don't know if Ida knew about that second sale. But from then on, Kristina was greeted with thin lipped smiles and conversations cut short. I didn't know Ida well, but you shit where you sleep and you have to find a new bed. I don't know, maybe she thought we wouldn't learn about it. That we wouldn't care. That we'd see it was just business. But that's not how I saw it.

The developer did quick work--we have a term here, a Bosnian rehab, based on the often shoddy and bizarre house rehab work done by Bosnian construction companies on the south side. The developer was Bosnian, but in the end, it was the exception. Not perfection, not pinnacle of historic accuracy meets modern convenience, but it was ok. Bobbie and Kyle moved in with their son Nate and they're good neighbors. All is well. But before the job was all the way finished and sold, Bruce Friedman came over to my house with a spade.

"You know how to dig up rose bushes?" he asked.

I demurred. But he explained: Ida had called him. She'd moved at the wrong time of year to take her roses with her, but thought maybe he could get them for her, since the house was being rehabbed, maybe nobody would care? Bruce talked to the developer, who in fact did not care. The rose bushes went home with Ida. She was frail and elderly and had her rose bushes at her sister's house in a sleepier neighborhood. I hope she's still well.

Kristina and Mark still own the house three blocks away, but it has a rotating for sale sign now--up for a few months, down for a few months. At this point in the market, I'm sure they're underwater and quite unhappy. But that's business.