Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Hillcrest Is Burning



This is a house over by me that got torched around the Labor Day weekend. It was vacant, as were the 5 other houses that were burned that week. This wasn't exactly a crack house. It was situated over by the new high dollar shopping center in the neighbor. It was in the process of being renovated.
My excellent friend PJ says that she heard that another vacant house got ignited with a Molotov cocktail last night. No kidding. The Arkansas Times blog got an e-mail to this effect as well. No confirmation as of this writing.
A friend of mine says he has heard rumors that commercial developers have hired guys to burn these places before they are renovated to become single family housing units. That's an attractive theory and one that easily comports with the general paranoia of the Hillcrest Property Owners Association. But there's no evidence of that. For all we know the perp is some neighborhood kid who just likes to watch things go "boom." For all we know my friend is making it up.
Thank God we have had a soaking rain for the last 3 days. The temperature has finally started to drop. That will lessen the chances of a smaller scale reenactment of the Chicago fire. Still, the cops need to apprehend this fool before somebody gets hurt.
The long, hot summer may be over but my wonderful little neighborhood is burning. It didn't used to be this way around here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

5 houses burned? That's just damned sad.

lucy