EMPTY HOUSE MIGHT NOT BE EMPTY SOON. Across the street, people are going in and out of the house that was vacant for so long. It’s mostly renovated now, with new windows and a roof. My former next-door neighbor, after her landlord kicked her out to renovate the house she was living in, got conservatorship of the vacant house through the City of Philadelphia and is fixing it up to sell. They haven’t gotten rid of the beat-up wooden bench where homeless people used to sleep sometimes.

TRASH TRUCKS ON THE JOB. The cross streets either side of my house are narrow dead-ends, and on Fridays their trash gets picked up by tiny little half-pint trash trucks. I can hear the roar of the engines and the cries of the employees who ride them and toss the trash into the hopper. Those little trucks never pick up my trash. One of them just rushed up my street the wrong way, and now it is beeping. Further news as it develops.

HEAVY PIPE: IS IT RECYCLING OR TRASH? I am hoping that when the big trash truck comes, the real one, it will take the heavy metal pipe I put out on the sidewalk; someone else threw it out on the corner, and I took it and put it in my back yard, because otherwise the tweens who roam the neighborhood at night would pick it up and hit things (or each other) with it.

TREES COWER IN FEAR. The Asplundh truck roared past a little while ago. It wasn’t going anywhere on my block, so I guess this counts as foreign news. Somewhere, a weed tree is being trimmed so it doesn’t mess up the electrical lines.

NEIGHBORS ARE A BIT OF A MESS, SAYS HOMEOWNER. The young guy who lives in the old house next door to me (it was renovated and flipped after my old neighbor moved out) doesn’t seem to know how to put his trash out on trash day.

VACANT CORNER HOUSE: EYESORE OR THRIVING SITE. The corner house the other side of me was removated a couple years back, but they did a bad job. The owner put a high price on it, but hasn’t been able to sell because the house is ugly and off-kilter, so it does a good business as a VRBO short-term rental. The owner didn’t know how to put their trash out on trash day, either, but after I threw the cans in their back yard one day, someone has been taking care of it.

PASSERSBY BAFFLED. My street is a bit of a thoroughfare, and lots of people pass by my door. Often, they are walking their dogs. They carry little poop bags and they pick up their dogs’ poop, but then they don’t know what to do with it. Often, they throw it into my recycling bin. Poop, while eminently recyclable, can’t be recycled in little blue plastic bags, but somehow that doesn’t occur to them. I like to sit on my front step and say hello to them sometimes, so that they will carry their little poop bags elsewhere, out of embarrassment.

DINNER SPECIAL. The neighbor two doors down asked me what I was having for dinner last night. She knows the family comes over on Thursday nights. “Always pasta,” I said. “Tonight it’s. ravioli.” She announced, “I’m having steak, baked potato, and corn on the cob.” “Ooh, fancy,” I said. “Every week,” she said proudly, and headed north. Further news on this breaking story as it becomes available.