My Old House in Mission Hill

My old house.
By Bostonroots1850 - 1/28/10 - 10:48 pm I used to live in a nice 3 decker house in Mission Hill. I grew a pretty garden in the front, as did all of my neighbors. I kept pretty lace curtains in the windows, and so did all of the neighbors. We had neighborhood crime watch meetings in my parlor with the police. We sat on our porches, talked with neighbors daily, had block parties, all the kids played together and all the parents were outside a lot as well, watering the gardens, sweeping sidewalks, watching out for the neighborhood, helping each other out in times of need. We were Irish-American and Cuban and African-American and Puerto-Rican and Dominican,and we were all neighborhood people, many families with 3 generations living together. We played "Mother-May I" and Hide and Seek on the summer evenings, sometimes both parents and kids played. I would buy paint and paint the front porch floor and steps just to make them look nicer. My rent was cheap, but I helped the elderly owner care for the house, checking the oil burners, shoveling snow, changing fuses. Now when I drive by there, the house looks like a mess, there's no garden, the paint is worn away, the trash is falling out of barrels, a once stained glass window has a board over it, and big groups of college students live there. It looks like a dump. I heard the rent now is about 8 times what I paid for rent 15 years ago. Unknown "slumlord" owns it now, charging huge rents only large groups of college kids can afford to pay, not a middle class working family. That's what happened to my old house. My old neighbors are still there, still sweeping the sidewalks, taking care of their homes and gardens and grandchildren, still looking after each other. They are what makes the neighborhood great. Too bad so many of the other old houses are now owned by unknown absentee landlords and filled with huge gangs of out-of town college students