In which the neighbors prove to be complete losers

My Miami duplex was part of a pair - two duplexes sharing the same yard. My across the yard neighbor, Mousson, was great. We were friends. Her duplex neighbors were two Argentine guys whom we rarely saw. There are more fun things to do in Miami for a young man than hang out with his neighbors.

My duplex neighbors were jerks.

The first neighbor, who moved out after a year, had two big dogs that she let poop in the yard and on the sidewalk. This would not have been a problem except I had to go past her half, on her sidewalk, to get to my half, on my part of the sidewalk.

She did not think it was her responsibility to clean up any dog poop after her half of the yard or the sidewalk. Actually, I don't even think she cleaned the poop out of the yard.

My half of the sidewalk was always poop-laden, which is bad for its own sake but really bad considering I rarely got home before dark. Once I had navigated my way through the land mines that Neighbor's two DOBERMANS had left, I still got to smell the poop as it wafted into my bedroom window.

She finally moved out.

Then Marta and her husband moved in. At first I thought, well cool! She's from Venezuela and her husband is Brazilian, so I can practice both Spanish and Portuguese.

Then I asked Marta to watch my place while I was on vacation for two weeks. (Mousson was in Haiti for the summer.)

"Please take my newspapers," I asked her.

"I don't read the paper," she told me.

"Then please just put it in the trash," I asked her. I hadn't put the paper on vacation hold because there was a rumor that some of the customer service people at The Herald would provide that information to burglars.

"Please move my mail away from the mail slot in the door," I asked her.

"Please water my plants," I asked her. Then I gave her my house key.

Then I went happy to Ireland with my friend Lenore. Tralalalala I don't have to worry about my house in Miami, where I have to chain my washer and dryer to the outside wall next to the back door and guess what? dryers are not meant to be outside in the rain and they will rust on the inside and you cannot get rust out of your clothes for love or money, where late-night revelers from Cocowalk pee on the side of my fence and throw used diapers and condoms into the ditch, where my license plates have been stolen twice and my car has been broken into by thieves who smashed the window and stole everything - my prescription sunglasses, the spare change in the ashtray, four quarts of motor oil - except my music cassettes, which was a real slap in the face. I mean, you guys steal the old shower curtain in the trunk in case I had to change a tire in the mud yet you don't want my music?

Philistines.

I returned from Ireland with a little gift for Marta because she had done me this enormous favor.

My friend Susan, who picked me up from the airport, and I arrived at my house.

My car interior light was on.

What the?

It was on because the door was slightly ajar.

Because it had been broken into. Again.

I opened the gate (the one with the "Perro malo" sign that kept out nobody but the FedEx guy, so when I got my job offer and signing bonus from my post-yellow truck employer, it was delayed for three days as I tried to convince FedEx to deliver it) and saw two weeks' worth of newspapers in the yard.

I tried to open my front door. I had to push hard to get through the mail that had accumulated at the mail slot.

My plants were dead.

I went next door and knocked. Marta opened the door and started to speak fast in Spanish: "They tried to break into your house! They broke into your car and then we heard somebody late one night trying to break into your house so we called the police and yelled at them and they went away!"

"Thank you," I said. "Thanks for preventing them from breaking into my house. But - um - Marta? How do you think they knew I wasn't at home?"

She looked at me wide eyed. "I don't know!" she answered.

"Do you think it could have been that all the newspapers were in the yard?"

She gasped. "No! That's how they figured it out?"

"Yes," I told her. "That's why I asked you to put them in the trash."

"Who would have thought," she mused as she shook her head.

Yeah. Who would have thought.

She never did explain why she hadn't bothered to close my car door.