My nearest neighbor here in Colorado lives around the bend and we've talked on the phone a couple of times.

Today I called her with the excuse that I was asking about whether raccoons had shown up at her house, and I was going to work around to asking about those people from Mississippi who bought the cabin next to her last August for $139,000. I don't know her well enough to call up and blurt out: "What's going on with your neighbors?" much as I would like to.

When I got here at the end of February, I saw that these new neighbors had left a small chest freezer standing open in the driveway, and a brand-new purple and white bicycle standing in the middle of the yard, visible from the road. And nothing has changed in the whole time I've been here.

I didn’t have to work around to it, because if there are raccoons, according to Ruth, it’s all those peoples’ fault, and she needed no prompting to launch into the heart of the matter. Here's the poop:

There were six people – grandmother, parents, two more adults, and a 10 year old kid living in that 432 square foot house. The house has a front room, and then the back part has the kitchen, bathroom, and a loft, so it was hardly big enough for all those people, especially during the cold winter months. The water for the bathroom and kitchen (but it's not potable water) is pumped under the highway from the Big Thompson River (illegally, as far as I can tell) and they brought in drinking water.

She thought they were from West Virginia (even though they had Mississippi license plates and the county assessor shows the tax notices going to Mississippi).

They all left suddenly in January, backed a long trailer like landscapers use into the driveway, and loaded it up. They probably didn't drain the water system so now the pipes will have frozen.

According to Ruth, the people from Longmont who sold them that cabin ‘co-signed’ on the loan but it was probably more a case of owner will carry - they have recorded a deed of trust. These people have been to court (or to a lawyer) and were told they can’t touch the house for 90 days after the tenants left, so that’d be the end of March. In other words, a foreclosure. The house was probably 'bought' furnished and anything that was any good has been cleaned out.

They left garbage bags full of trash in the yard, plus the straw bales and rotting pumpkins from last Halloween, and Ruth thinks that is attracting the raccoons and other pests. She wanted to go over and bag up some of the garbage and move the bicycle to the side of the house out of the elements, but the owners told her not to go over there at all until the time is up. But upon that instant, Ruth is going to be pestering the former owners to get it cleaned up, and if they don’t, she’s calling the county health department, which will clean it up and put a lien against the property for what it costs.

Anyhow, I am furious that raccoons are coming down here because the foxes avoid them, so won't be coming around until they leave. Possibly some of the times my motion sensor lights went on over the past few nights, it was the raccoons. No more food going out for awhile, I hope that discourages them.

It doesn't look like any of us are going to see much snow any time soon, so here's what it looks like.