kdog's blog

Question for the community here:

There is a single-family house at one end of my street that has been abandoned for several years. The property is starting to decay and neighbors have mentioned that it seems the squirrels are starting to take over the house. Word on the street is the family has long moved away and not paid taxes on the property for many years.

Beyond being an eyesore, at some point this becomes a real safety issue. We have a lot of kids on our street and I'd hate to see anyone get hurt poking around the debris.

Does anyone have any experience dealing with this kind of issue? I did send a letter to the assessor's office back in the Fall but never rec'd a response. This is a prime West-end spot that would surely fetch a nice premium for the town if they were to take the land and sell it to a developer.

Any advice welcome!

All this talking about parking issues has me thinking about widening my driveway.

Anyone know what the town stance is towards extending an existing curb cut to change a single-car width driveway into a two-car width driveway?

Thx!

Today's Globe ran a feature on Arlington, MA as a hot up and coming real estate market (where prices are rising while other neighborhoods fall) due to it's prime location, good schools, low (relatively) house prices, restaurant scene, etc. etc...
Seems to me that pretty much everything that was cited could be applied to Watertown as well. How can we get the Globe to take a similar look at us?

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/10/10/arlington_is_hottest_place_in_eastern_mass/?p1=MEWell_Pos1

From the Globe:

Arlington is hottest place in Eastern Mass.
Blend of amenities, convenience keeps town's housing market strong despite slump