Weather, Windows, Junk and Strangers

 The first day of fall has come and gone but it still feels like summer here. I don't even think it's fair to call this time of year fall in the Central Valley. It's already going to be October and the weather is still in the 90's.

I love the prolonged summers here. I am not a cold weather kind of girl.  But I do love cool nights and mornings and it has been much cooler at that time in last couple of days. It's also nice to open all our windows and let the fresh air in and turn off the money sucking A/C. The house has over 30 windows and the breeze flows through nicely when most or all are open.

The only windows I usually never open are the ones in the front room of the house. I'll admit I'm scared that someone will break in and I won't know. We are primarily in our basement since we use it as the family room. 

We tend to get our share of occasional cars pulling onto the property. Most times they sit there and honk expecting someone to come out. I think they do it because they see we have a rottweiler and even when he's behind the fence he freaks people out. Sometimes people actually get out and come to the door. No matter what, I never open my door. Thank God for security screens.

Yesterday, I heard our outside dog start barking and it prompted the inside dogs to start up as well. I went up to see if someone was here, or walking by, and sure enough a random car was in the driveway and two men got out. They looked sketchy and quite frankly not the type I want lurking around my house. I didn't want to deal with them, but I also didn't want them to think no one is home.

I waited to see what they were going to do. They came up the front porch so I went to see what they wanted through the security screen.  Sure enough they wanted to know if they could go through a large dumpster we have off to the side of the property near our empty field.

I told them no and the one really creepy guy who looked like he was on drugs started to give me a reason why he should be able to. I told him no again and he was on private property and didn't have my permission. He then had the balls to ask me if he could "speak to the man of the house." Are you kidding me? Why was the conversation even prolonged past "no"?

That pissed me off and I told him I didn't need the man of the house to decide if I was going to give him permission to look through a dumpster on my property. I am the property owner. End of story. This guy was going to try to give me another reason as to why I should let him look through the bin again after that! Nope. Cut him off. Good bye. Get of my property thank you very much.

We've had this problem in the past but no one has tried to argue with me when I told them no. The empty field where the dumpster has been sitting for several weeks now used to have a bunch of  junk scattered about in random piles.  We have been cleaning it up because we are going to plant more oranges in the spring.

Most of the junk that was out there was from an old open shed we tore down about five years ago to build an enclosed metal shop in it's place. So all the stuff that was junk from the old shed was relocated to the side of the empty field.

The junk was a magnet for scavengers. Especially scavengers looking for scrap metal. I can't even tell you how many toothless meth heads have come to our door wanting to look through the junk. So when I saw those two guys yesterday I knew exactly what they were going to ask.

Sorry, any and all scrap metal has been removed. Now please go away.

Of course after I shut the door I immediately called my husband and told him the dumpster had to go. I'm so tired of having undesirable people scoping out our property. Sure, I feel bad for them in a way, but not that bad. Even though most have asked to look in the junk I'm sure there were plenty who were brazen enough to just help themselves. I'm so glad that once we get rid of the bin full of the last of the junk it will put an end, hopefully, to random people coming to our door asking to look through the junk.

It's not really that I care if someone wants to sift through junk, it's that I don't like strangers on my property. It's like if someone walked into your backyard and just started going through things on your patio they might be able to use even if it was of no use to you. Would you like that?  Probably not. It violates your privacy and they are trespassing.

So this is why I rarely leave the windows open in the front of the house unless my husband is home. You never know when someone is going to come to our front door that isn't welcome. Even without the junk people just randomly show up out here. We have had people trying to sell frozen meat, religious inquiries, and even a girl trying to sell vacuums come to the door. The girl and the vacuum was weird. She really wanted to get into my house to demonstrate the vacuum. She was maybe 18 years old and looked like she should still be in high school. It was really weird.

I'm telling you. Living in the country keeps you on your toes. Maybe we are too close to town and not far enough out. I don't know. All I know is just when I think it's been pretty quiet around here something comes up to remind me not to get used to the quiet.  And to keep my front windows closed.