More mob house pictures

Yes I drug Matthew (and my mother) back there this morning.

Here is the BMW in the driveway.



Best I could tell, the sticker on the license plate is from 1998. So I guess the people haven't been gone that long. But it is so strange to move away and leave your car in the driveway and all your stuff in the house. Something must have happened.

I did get some more information from my mother about all this. She told me that my grandmother was actually friends with the woman who was held hostage in the house. We're still not sure which house it was, but we think it might be this one. I'm going to have to read the book and try to find out more information about this.

I still can't believe the house has been right here all this time. Just sitting there waiting to be explored. And now I'm afraid it will be torn down soon.

Look at this. Can you imagine how beautiful it must have been back in the day?



The ivy is about to totally consume the house.



I took this next picture through the busted out glass in the door.



I stuck my hand through and tried to open the door, but I think you need a key to open the door from the inside. It would be easy to break that door down, but I am not into destroying property. I just want to look around. Matthew didn't want to go in because he was afraid of falling through the floor or something.

He did explore the garage though and said there was an old riding lawnmower in there. And an old composter.

Since there is not a For Sale sign in front of this house, maybe it is not part of the others. Maybe it will not be torn down. It would take a hell of a lot of work to restore it. But it could probably be done. I would live there. :)

My Mob name is "The Butcher"

I like that. When I used my maiden name, it was The Abalone. That’s just dumb. Do I look like a fucking mollusk? Although, abalone are known for their very strong outer shells. Hard to break. Hmmmm.

Anyway.

What? I have no idea what you are talking about.

Oh, Louisville. I went to Louisville last night. Oh wow….the gas was only $2.66 down there. That’s at least 10 cents less than up here. Pretty cool.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

My body doesn’t understand the concept of sleeping in. I got in about 3:30 am (note to self: do not lay down on the back seat of the car and try to sleep during the last 20 minutes of the trip if you do not want to vomit) and my dumbass wakes up at 8am this morning. It’s like my body absolutely cannot sleep late. No matter what. I forced myself to sleep for a couple more hours and then went to work at noon.

When I got to work, people kept asking me about Louisville. What? What IS it?

Leave me alone.

But then…then…they started talking about going to a haunted house. Eh? Ok…now you’ve got my attention. Well, no solid confirmation that it’s haunted, but it’s been abandoned for years. That’s right up my alley. Urban Explorer here – ready to go. It’s not something I get to do much anymore but I sure did it when I was younger. (for more info go HERE now.)

I kept asking when they were going to this house and it’s like it’s this big secret. Well now Zinnia here don’t think too kindly of people keeping secrets from her – especially about something like this. I HAVE to know you know. Melissa didn’t seem to know too much as this was all Betty’s idea. Apparently Betty was exploring the house a couple weeks ago. I must speak with Betty forthwith.

As I am about to call her to come up to the desk she is rushing toward us saying “Are you ready Melissa? Let’s go!” NOW? They are going right now? Not without me! So even though it seemed to be this big secret I forced my way into it. (of course) I grabbed my phone (pictures! Crappy..but still pictures) and the next thing I know I am in the car getting a crash course on the history of the house and this area.

Now I have always known a little bit about the history of the mob in this area. My grandmother was really into it and knew a lot about it. She probably knew some of the people involved. She was a real estate agent and most likely sold houses to some of them. Most of the gambling and illegal drinking around here was controlled by the Cleveland Syndicate. Newport was a haven for such things but the gangsters tended to live in what is now known as Crestview Hills.

Here is the weird part; this house is right off of Dixie Highway about a quarter mile from where I work! Surrounded by very expensive homes. There are 2 houses actually, both were mob owned, but they have been sitting here empty for what appears to be decades. A developer recently bought them and is planning to build on the lots. She mumbled something about $18,000 and I thought “Holy crap! For a prime lot right off of Dixie Highway” No no. He bought them for $18,000 and is going to sell the lots only for $250,000 and the houses will start at about $700,000.

Anyway, the house she went in 2 weeks ago was very bizarre. She said she tried to research the house and the family that lived there but could not find anything. The house was still full of all their possessions. There was furniture, clothes, kitchen items, kids toys etc…all over the house. There was even a decorated Christmas tree. It was like the family just got up and vanished one day. I am just amazed that the house stayed like that for so many years. I guess other than the people that live right around it, not many people knew it was even there. You can’t see the house from the highway because of the trees. Anyway, she said either the family was murdered or they just left. Betty said it was creepy and she never got past the first floor. She was afraid of going up to the second floor.

We pull up the gravel driveway – right off of Dixie Highway (Can you believe this?) and discover the house has been torn down! It has been 2 weeks since she was there and I guess the builder is anxious to build his million dollar homes. Well there is another house across the drive. There is a BMW sitting in the driveway so at first I think someone lives there or is there working. But we take a closer look and the car is covered in dirt and looks like it has been sitting there for YEARS. A friggin BMW. We walk down the overgrown dirt driveway toward the house.

The house is covered in ivy and the vegetation is slowly taking over.



Betty and Melissa hang back, but I of course make my way right toward the kitchen door and press my face to the window to look in. There are ladders, wheelbarrows and many tools laying around. There is also a lot of canned food on the counters. Someone has been doing some work in here lately I guess. Where though? Well…there is a tarp over the side porch.

I plow through the weeds and up to the side porch door. Someone has broken out one of the panes on the bottom of the door.



Betty actually peeked through the door first and then quickly turned away and walked back down the sidewalk. “Let’s go girls. Let’s get out of here”. Of course now I am more intrigued by what she might have seen. I look in and it looks like someone lives there. There is furniture, pictures, knickknacks on the table. I asked her what she is afraid of and she says “The hats on the couch.” Huh? So I look back in and there are 2 hats sitting on the couch. Weird….but so? She says “There is probably a homeless person living in there. We need to get out of here.” Oh please. There are no homeless people in Crestview Hills. (unless that guy from in front of Golden Corral made it up here)

I told them I wanted to go inside. Betty (who professes to love “ghosts” and investigating things) freaks out and says “No please we need to leave.” I turn back and take a picture of the inside of the house through the busted window pane in the door. But of course my crappy phone will not send that picture to me from inside my own damn house, so I will have to wait to post that one.

I am going to take Matthew back over there tomorrow. I have to see more of that before they tear it down. If anyone should stop me, hey I am a real estate agent and I have clients who might be interested in purchasing these lots. Besides, there are no “No Trespassing” signs.

I am just so amazed that these houses have sat, untouched, for so long. The car in the driveway! The Christmas tree!

Another interesting fact: There is a book called “Syndicate Wife” written about Ann Drahmann Coppola and according to Betty, she lived in one of those houses. I can’t remember now which one. Fascinating.

When we got back to work, Melissa looked like she got some poison ivy and Betty was complaining of chiggers. I have nothing. 

Speaking of bugs, there were many flies buzzing around the windows. Strange. Have you seen The Amityville Horror? That’s never a good sign.

BTW…on the way back to work, Betty asked me “Why did you waste your time going down to Waverly?”

All I have to say is “Night and Day”.

New York State of Mind

So let’s see. I was supposed to go to New York for the day on Thursday. Didn’t happen. My friend called me at 5:30 in the morning (when I was about 15 minutes from walking out the door) and said she didn’t want to go because she was afraid someone might blow up the plane. That was information I could have used the night before, but whatever. I went back to bed and slept until about 10am. No big deal I guess. I mean, I wanted to go, but it’s not the end of the world. I have been there many times and I always enjoy it more around Christmas anyway. Summertime visits tend to get uncomfortable and hot. I did want me some New York pizza though. So Matthew and I did the next best thing and went to the Snappy Tomato pizza buffet. Hehe.

Across the street from the pizza place and next to Golden Corral was a guy holding a sign that said “Will Work for Food.” That is not a very common sight here in Northern Kentucky and in fact I haven’t seen anything like that in a LONG LONG time. My first instinct was “awwww poor guy I should go into Golden Corral and buy him a gift certificate so he can eat”. But then my logic takes over and I realize that he probably makes more money than I do. A local news station did a story on those guys once and found that they can make $150-200 a day. I need a new profession. I bet if I took Bijoux with me, I could make even more. People would feel especially sorry for my $500 dog.

After the pizza, we went to see “The Descent”. I had to drag Matthew kicking and screaming, but he enjoyed it. I just had a feeling about that movie when I saw an ad for it online. I was not disappointed. I read some reviews from people who didn’t like it who said “Do you really care if any of these people die?” Well no not really. I will admit there was not much character development, but any more than what was given would have been unnecessary. They told you all you need to know. And I love love love tough chick flicks. I also love extreme sports – even though it’s something I could never do. Spelunking, rock climbing, stuff like that. I love to wish I could do it, but I am mildly claustrophobic and have no upper body strength, so those things will not be happening in this lifetime. But anyway, the movie was creepy enough, gory enough and just the right length to qualify as a GOOD scary movie. And that’s hard to come by these days. Go see it. You will like it.

At this moment I am lying in bed with my computer while Matthew is next to me watching golf on TV. (could anything be more boring?) We are waiting to leave to go to Waverly. My mother is going with us. God help us. I hope she is up for this. I have told her many many times about all the walking involved. She says she can handle it. We will be taking the oxygen just in case. We are going to leave here in about 45 minutes and head down to Louisville.

I’m really not in the mood to write right now, so I am going to stop before this all gets too terribly boring.

Whack for my Daddy-O

Wow. Long time no post. As usual.

I feel like I have been sooooo busy, but in reality I probably haven’t really done anything.

Working my ass off. Which I am getting right sick of. Understand the term “Part-time”? Apparently the person who makes my schedule doesn’t.

The first weekend in August was the “Worlds Longest Yard Sale” that runs from Covington (though I heard it was starting up near Dayton this year) to way down Alabama way. We figured that would be a good time to get some decent traffic at a yard sale at my grandma’s, since she lives right on 127 – the main drag of the sale. And we did! We made about $300 that weekend. Not too bad and we really made a dent in the basement of the house. I still don’t think it is ever going to get cleaned out. But Matthew is confident.

We had another sale this past Saturday and made another $80. I plan to do it again on August 26.

What are we going to do with the money you ask? Why blow it of course! No, actually we will probably use it for our dive trip in September. We rarely have actual cash on hand, and that is what we will need in Mexico. The trip is official I guess. I just sent a $555 deposit for the dive packages. I am so worried about Greg though. He doesn’t seem to take this very seriously. I know Matthew and I are super-geeks, but still. I wish he would at least skim through his dive manual to refresh his memory a bit. He claims he remembers everything, but it’s been 5 years and your life and safety is at stake here. He won’t join DAN cuz he says he won’t need it. How do you know! You can do every single thing right and still get bent. And being in that chamber ain’t cheap. Costs 1000s of dollars without DAN insurance. Whatever. I am still excited about the trip. We went to the dive shop the other day to look for lights and sausages (that sounds bizarre) – and just being around all that STUFF made me excited. So let’s see…..30 days and counting! Cozumel here we come!

On a more immediate travel note – I am going to New York on Thursday. Just for the day. Gonna meet my friend for lunch and some shopping. She wants to visit Ground Zero. I am ashamed to say I don’t even know what’s there now. Just empty space? I have no idea. We were there in December 2001 and everything was still very fresh. I’m sure it’s quite different now. We will see.

On Friday we are off to Louisville for our 2nd (and probably last) visit to Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Hopefully it will be good. It’s a shame that it so crowded down there right now. I guess publicity is a good thing if you want to make money. But there is something to be said about intimacy.

What else? OH! I had my first MRI yesterday. That was fun. Now I can see why claustrophobic people have problems with that. That tube is small! I just kept my eyes closed, cuz when I opened them it felt like I was in a coffin. My right arm has been aching a lot lately. Right where the bruise was from the car accident last July. The doctor said it could be some kind of blood clot or unhealed hematoma. The other option is that it was a muscle strain that never regained strength, in which case I would have to go to physical therapy and build the muscle up again. Somehow I doubt it is the 2nd option. Why would it hurt so bad if that was all it was? It doesn’t hurt when I use it. It hurts just sitting here.

October…I am about to buy our tickets for Sweet Sixteen at Halloween Horror Nights! We missed it last year and I hate missing things I enjoy. Why should I? I work all these hours to have money to travel and do things so dammit I’m gonna do them!

That’s about it for now. Oh one more thing…



Why is it that nobody I know wants to see this movie? Do they not know it is going to suck and be totally campy? But that’s the point! Matthew doesn’t want to waste $20 on something that sucks. I can understand that. But it’s fun. And Samuel L. Jackson! Who doesn’t LOVE him? As for a good movie – you know what looks good? The Descent. I think that might actually be worth it.

This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around.

This is a picture of one of the pits of hell….



Oh no…wait. That’s just our campground this past week. Sorry. Easy mistake.

I probably should not bash the campground. It’s not really their fault. It’s mine, I should have known better. In my opinion, camping is being “one with nature”. Finding a secluded spot and pitching your tent and your only neighbours are the deer, bunnies and birds. (and bugs) That is normally the way it is at our usual campground at Lake Cumberland. It is VERY small and usually there are few other campers. This was not the case at Fishing Creek, aka Happy Redneck VacationLand (HRV).

I know now that any place that allows Campers (meaning the things you tow behind your car) is NOT the place that I can expect to find a serene camping experience. Is this really their idea of a vacation?

In addition to the CamperPeople, it was not the best weekend for camping. It was 96 degrees in the shade with 200% humidity. Also, we had no direct lake access. We like to pull our boat up on the shore and be able to easily get in and out without hiking too far. Again, this is the way it is at our usual campground. At HRV, we had to either walk waaaaay down to the public beach or cut through one of the CamperPeople’s spots and climb down the rocky path to the beach. It was not an easy or fun climb. Especially for Bijoux. She was most definitely not enjoying HRV.

When we arrived Thursday, we got both tents (the sleeping one and the eating one) (matters not that we did not cook one meal at the campground) set up in the late afternoon heat. After that, it was way too hot to cook anything. Fortunately HRV is only about 8 minutes from Somerset, which is a pretty big town as far as Southern Kentucky towns go. So we had a choice of many fast food restaurants, settling on Pizza Hut. We left Bijoux in the car with the A/C on and she was fine with that.

Friday morning we found a BEAUTIFUL cove with a waterfall to bathe in. (no, I do not take showers in the public bathhouse with the CamperPeople) This cove was absolutely gorgeous. This is the peace I was looking for. I could have stayed there all day.



But after Matthew opened his eyes, he was anxious to meet up with his brother on the houseboat. We spent the afternoon with our nephews and their girlfriends riding around the lake and wakeboarding. Matthew did fairly well.



One problem with being on a houseboat with a dog is there is no convenient potty place for her. It looked like it was about to rain so we had to figure something out quickly. Matthew got an idea to get on one of the jetskis and drop her on the shore. Well one of the jetskis has battery issues. Matthew pushed away from the houseboat and tried to start it….nothing. Of course he had picked the wrong jetski. So his nephew has to come on the other jetski and rescue him. But first he drops Bijoux on the shore. In the pouring rain. If you look closely at this picture you see poor Bijoux standing there wondering why she was dumped and abandoned.



Finally Matthew gets on the working jetski and goes back to get her. It has stopped raining at this point, but both of them are soaked.



We ate dinner on the houseboat, in the A/C, which was wonderful. Then we went back to HRV and spent another miserable night. This night, it rained. Rained hard. All night. As if things weren’t wet enough before.

Saturday morning we headed back to the houseboat as quickly as possible. Since I didn’t enjoy cutting through CamperPeople’s camps and falling down the hill, I had Matthew pick me up at the wee dock next to HRV’s launch ramp.



See the rain clouds? It stayed like that until about 1 in the afternoon. But Saturday afternoon was gorgeous. We spent this day riding around with Matthew’s brother and his wife. Saturdays are crowded on the lake and of course our waterfall cove was occupied. They had found a different waterfall cove, so we went there. But the rain had caused all sorts of debris in the water and I don’t swim in debris. Nasty.

On the way back to the houseboat, we had to find a place for the Wee to wee. There was a small cove in the houseboat dock area (I forgot to mention that Saturday morning they took the houseboat back to the dock to leave on Sunday) so we pulled in and threw Bijoux in the water to swim to shore and do her business. She takes her sweet time about it and it was pretty hot that day. The water looked clear (no debris) so I got in the water to cool off. Tony and MarMae did not get in. Strange. After we got back to the houseboat they told me the reason they did not get in the water there was because all of the houseboats dump their waste in the water at the dock and the filtration system isn’t that great. Perfect! I refused to swim in leaf debris, but now you’ve let me swim in feces. It didn’t look or smell funny, so I don’t really know how true all that is. But it is something I would like to have known about BEFORE I jumped in.

Needless to say, Matthew and I took a shower (our first in 2 days) immediately upon returning to the houseboat.

4 people left the houseboat Saturday morning. So that means there was an empty bed. We went back to HRV and took our tents down and packed up. So hot. So much work. This is not relaxing. But the reward was spending the night on the houseboat with A/C. We came back and ate a nice steak dinner, watched TV and slept in air conditioned comfort. Now that’s a vacation!

We were supposed to leave Monday morning, but since we vacated HRV and they were all leaving Sunday we had no place to stay so we left too. Now I’m glad we did. We had so much to unpack and clean up Sunday night and we spent all day yesterday cleaning the boat. AND I had to work at 4 yesterday. No way could we have come home yesterday. So at least that worked out.

So…what did I learn this weekend? I learned that camping is not for me. I never went camping when I was a kid, so the first few times Matthew and I went it was a novelty. It was fun. Last year we had a bad experience with rain when we were packing up and I said “Never again”. Well now I am saying “Never again” and I mean it this time. There are plenty of hotels around that lake. Sure it’s a bit more expensive, but it’s worth it.

That’s it for now. The rest of this week will be spent preparing for the World’s Longest Yard Sale this weekend. It goes right past my grandmother’s house, so I am hoping to get a lot of traffic and get rid of some junk.