“Dear PoPville,
I saw this on the metro on my commute home last night. Come on, man!! I’d be interested to hear WMATA’s response and to learn when and how this was cleaned up. Not a pretty site to see at rush hour on the red line!”
Ed. Note: For all of metro’s faults – I don’t think it’s fair to blame them for this. I’m sure they were just as pissed off as you were. Some people can be truly inconsiderate and that’s who deserves the blame here – the entitled jerk who did this.
Photo by PoPville flickr user Michael Horsley
“Dear PoPville,
I’m wondering if anyone has advice on a homeless woman who has been parked outside of my apartment building on and off for the past couple of months. I’ve contacted the landlord, we’ve tried to get her into a homeless shelter and we’ve been successful a few times but she always comes back to our building within a few days. Multiple people from my building and the building next door have called the police but they said the only thing they can do is ask her to move off of the property. So then she just moves to the sidewalk in front of the building. She seemed harmless at first but recently the trash has been piling up and she’s been relieving herself in the tree boxes.
Tonight, I was out walking my dog and she started threatening me saying things like “I’m going to beat your ass” and “what the f*ck you looking at? I’ll kill you, bitch.” It was to the point where my dog was cowering behind me (granted, she’s a wimp) and a random passerby had to offer to help me get into my building. I got into my building, the stranger left and closed the door behind him and the homeless woman was banging on the apartment building door trying to get in and yelling obscenities.
I called the police and they said they would come talk to her but that there’s not really much they can do since they can’t arrest her and she can just walk out of a homeless shelter even if they find one that can take her in. I feel for her and realize that it’s just as much a mental health issue as it is a homelessness issue, and we have tried to help her, but tonight has brought it to the point where I no longer feel safe or comfortable walking into my building when she is around. Any advice on what to do?”
Ed. Note: I think we spoke about a similar situation not too long ago – but I can’t seem to find – if a better searcher than I can find the link and post it here I’d appreciate it. Also as in other similar situations perhaps the DC Mental Health Mobile Response Team could intervene:
Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES): 202-673-9319 (24hrs, 7 days per week)
Mobile Crisis Services (MCS): 202-673-9300 (9am -1am, 7 days per week)
Homeless Outreach Program (HOP): 202-673-9124 (9am -8pm , M-F)
“Dear PoPville,
Yesterday when I was at the intersection of North Capitol and New York Ave NW I saw 2 ATV’s driving down the sidewalk. Are these legal in DC??”
I don’t believe they are legal (unless registered with a motorcycle license maybe?) but def. not uncommon either – we last heard about them on H Street, NE in February. Though normally they’re on the streets and not the sidewalks.
From an email:
“DC Locations[4-8pm] :
Chinatown location @ 703 7th Street, NW (next to Verizon Center)
Georgetown location @ 3120 M Street, NW
Union Station location @ 50 Massachusetts Avenue, NE (Lower Level Food Court)
MD Location:
Bethesda location @ 7237 Woodmont Avenue (next to Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema)
VA Location:
Pentagon City Mall @ 1100 South Hayes Street (Lower Level Food Court)”
Photo by PoPville flickr user angela n.
@zoeica tweets us the photo above this morning:
“Lots of graffti showing up in Capitol Hill this morning.This is on N. Carolina SE”
I’ve also been noticing lots of graffiti all over town. Have others noticed an increase?
From U Street:
“Dear, PoPville
What would you do?
I’d like to start this out by saying I have lived relatively peacefully in DC for the last 14 years and when I purchased my LeDroit Park home in June I received an enthusiastic and warm welcome from all my neighbors- some long time DC families and some new. I purchased a former college party house and have over the past year spent most of my time and money restoring it to the beauty it once was. Anyway, neighbors have recently witnessed kids (12ish years old) stealing Amazon packages off my front porch and some plants and landscaping have occasionally, and seemingly intentionally, gotten trampled. Yesterday, I was leaving the house with my boyfriend and three young boys (maybe in the 12 year old range) called us f@ggots as they passed. I thought to myself, “No, I must have misheard them” until one of the boys said, “He just called you a f@ggot, especially the one on the bike (me).”
Now I honestly didn’t know how to react because it’s pretty obvious I spend a lot of time at the gym and any 20-40 year old would never think to say that to me knowing I’d beat the living #$&! out of them. But what are you supposed to do with kids?! If it was me growing up, someone would have dragged me to my mother’s house by my ear and she would have publically beaten the fear of a thousand deaths into me… but right or wrong, times have changed.
Well, we let it go and kept walking till a minute or two later we realized we forgot something at home. We returned to the house to find the small fence in my tree box kicked over, bent, and trampled, along with some of the plants. Now we technically didn’t see the kids do it and I guess any random adult could have passed by and vandalized my property in those 120 seconds but let’s be real
Now, honestly I could care less what these kids are doing with their time and frankly I’ve got more important things to be doing with mine- but I’m not going anywhere and I don’t want to start a long annoying tradition of annoying neighborhood kids messing with my stuff.
So aside from maybe taking a photo of them, starting a police report, and/or trying to find the kids’ parents, what would you do? Try and talk some sense into them then come home to a brick thrown into my front window? Ignore them and hope they’ll stop stealing my stuff?”
“Dear PoPville,
Took a walk along the Anacostia to check out some of the flooding. What a sad sight. The amount of plastic bottles floating down river, and collected along the river bank is mind boggling. It makes me very sad.”
So maybe that bag fee isn’t such a bad thing after all…
Photo by PoPville flickr user Cheikh.Ra
Thanks to @hashtagmsw for tweeting us the great photo above:
“You can’t get this kind of musical programming in any old town.”
Photo by PoPville flickr user ep_jhu
“Dear PoPville (via twitter to @PoPville),
Any idea why I was kept up past 3am last night bc of house-shaking construction on Florida Ave [at 5th St, NW]? Or why it’s allowed at night?”
Anyone else awoken last night? Anyone know what time the cutoff is for construction?