Yesterday I got a call from a real estate agent who had a bank repossessed property that he needed me to winterize, board up, and change the locks. The real estate agent did not have any keys for the home so if it was locked, I would have to break in. I decided to do it today, because tomorrow morning I am leaving for another trip to Pennsylvania and won't be back until the beginning of next week.

A lot of the properties I work on for this guy are in some not so nice areas of Detroit. This one was no exception. For those members familiar with the city, it was down by Linwood and The Lodge Freeway.

I had a small job to do this morning and another that I could do at any time, so I decided to get this one done fairly early (before all the crack heads wake up). After picking up material, I get to the house just before noon.

I got out of the truck, tucked my 9mm into the small of my back, and walked up onto the porch. As I approached the door, I could have sworn I heard something moving inside. I stopped, and thought "What the hell". I knocked, and waited. I knocked again, and waited. I thought maybe it was just my imagination, you know, being a little jumpy just because of the area I was in.

I kind of chuckled to myself and felt like an idiot for knocking on the door of a vacant house. I gave the door a little shove and it swung right open. There in front of me was a little black and white TV, turned on, and a TV tray with some piping hot food sitting on it. I heard a door inside slam shut, so I put my hand on my pistol and yelled HELLO!!. Then I looked a little closer at the living room. There were 40 oz beer bottles everywhere and what could only be described as drug paraphernalia (little baggies, copper scouring pads, and disposable lighters) all over the place.

I WAS OUT OF THERE! Before I got shot at or got confronted by dealers getting belligerent and causing me to draw my weapon, I was gone!

I called the agent and ask him if he was trying to get me killed. I told him what happened, and now the police have to go over and throw the squatters out and padlock the building.

Boy, I can't wait to go back and do that job.

Does anybody want to go down there with me next week and provide cover while I do the work?  [:D]


[heavy]

Geez, I think you should request hazard pay. Good call for gettin the hell outta there.

So many members of this board are so quick to judge.

That drug paraphernalia (scouring pads, baggies, bottles and lighters) are no more than scrubbing pads and baggies of powdered soap to clean the empty beer bottles that were littering the streets.  The guest of the building is doing no more than doing their civic duty to recycle.

The reason the guest hid was because of the poor neighborhood in which the building resides.  It is the fault of capitalism and the exploitation of the workers that degraded the neighborhood and this good person is doing his/her part to clean it up.

Please refrain from such judgements.

-934

Edit:  Freakin typos.

crack in detroit, say it isn't so......  what will we find next?

man it does sound like you need a new job.  or at least some backup....

Hey, who forgot to close the door and let the communist in? [:D]

And by the way, beer bottles don't litter the streets here. There is a deposit on them so the entrepreneurial homeless people have them cleaned up as soon as they hit the ground.

Whoa!

Kinda scary.

At least no one tried chasing you away or otherwise tried doing you harm when you opened the door.

You know,if crack was legal,you wouldn't have had this problem.[;)]

I say good call my friend , keep yer' gaurd up...although I must say, get ready for more ... being in winterizing work, you never know what you will find.

Oh belive me, I know there is more. I have been shot at twice (hit once), stabbed once, cut in the face with a broken beer bottle, and zapped with a stun gun. Contracting is a rough business here.

Its a damn good thing you carry a gun thats all I got to say... Thank god I live in a rural area

Damm crackhouse.  Lucky it didn't get bulldozed.

Good lord man! All thats happened to you on the job?

Think a change of location might be in order?

The main problem is getting to the job. In some of the areas I go into, the local binniss men think that if you're white and in that area, you must be there to buy something. If you try to ignore them (they will step right out in front of your vehicle), they think you are going to one of their competitors. Once they figure you are not one of their customers, you are fair game for:

[b]Robbery attempts[/b] (Got me once, but my cash is well hidden when I go down there except for a small amount so they don't look for more. But they did get my cell phone and pager.)

[b]Tool theft[/b] (About $35,000.00 over the years.)

[b]Car jacking attempts[/b] (one got into the vehicle and it became a physical confrontation and I had to drag him out.)

[b]Busted vehicle windows[/b] (the people at the glass shop send me thank you cards for putting their kids through college.)

Edited for spelling

Ahh got ya.

Thats shitty.Why the hell don't the police clean these areas up?Or the public demand that they do it?

We had an area infested with the same activitiy your talking about in  a seedy part of town back in the 80's here.The hayday of gang banging and side walk crack markets,ect...

When we were young and dumb,my friends and I used to cruise the back allys in my buddys Blazer just to watch em come outta the wood work.Then punch the gas to watch em scurry outta the way.

It is frightening how quickly you can be surrounded by a couple a dozen zombies just a second after you 've stopped for a red light.No good in a low slung rig.

The police were eventually pressured into cleaning it all up.Ironic since the county/city courthouse and jail are in the very same "hood".[rolleyes]

But this city is much smaller and had,I'm sure,a much less deaply rooted problem than a place like Detroit.

There's no money in it. That is the simplest answer I can come up with. Drug forfeiture laws don't net much when abandoned houses are used by dealers who have no legal personal property. In the area I was in today, I saw one police car in about an hours time. If I do a job just over the city's border, where the prostitutes hang out for their suburban clientele, I will see ten or fifteen police cars in the same amount of time. The city loves the amount these guys will pay to get their cars back. In the parks frequented by the prostitutes, you will even see cops on horseback.

One of the radio stations here even has in their on air promo "Detroit, where finding crack cocaine is easier than making a left turn" and another is "Four wheel drive, Colt 45, and Kevlar, everything you need to get by in Detroit".

Most of the suburbs in the Detroit Metropolitan Area are great, but the core is rotten.

[img]http://thewolfweb.com/photos/nonlogic/fullsize/6463.jpg[/img]

What you need is Ice Cube to go with you. [:D]

OH LMAO! this old hizzouse...damn add that to things that will never happen. Damn funny..

One bad guy jumped into your vehicle? Why was the door unlocked?

Obviously, you must like the area, the money and the work you do. However, statistics say your due for something terminal, sooner or later. Before you're stabbed, shot, or beaten to death, why not move it on over to a better, safer area?

If you don't want to leave the area -- make me the benificiary of your firearms.

Bill

In Baltimore it's just about the same. At night, you don't want to stop, not even at a red light, in many areas. I was told that by a city cop. Most of the utility crews (electricity, water, cable, fiber optic, etc.) have a saying: "If you look like food, you will be eaten".  Most of them try extra hard to look scruffy and many carry weapons despite the risks of being caught and arrested for packing heat. The company I work for experimented for a while with using vehicles with no logos (they were constantly being broken into and relieved of their laptops, test gear, and anything else of value). This was happening in broad daylight, with the workers standing right there watching. Well, the "undercover vehicles" were often stolen outright, or carjacked, vandalized, etc. The drivers began to get approached for drug sales at corners, and were occasionally attacked when they refused. So we went back to the logo'd vehicles and the other set of problems.
The cops stay out of many areas for safety reasons (not a very flattering statement about Baltimore cops), and I'm sure many of them have been corrupted.
The funny thing is, Baltimore is BETTER now than, say, 15 years ago.

I call bullshit on this one, after all, guns are illegal in Detroit, how could any of this be happening?

Obviously a fabrication.

And don't start trying to tell us it was DC, we know nothing like this happens there either!

Perhaps you should look into one of these.  

[url]www.trasco-cars.com/products/Products.html[/url]

The utility companies should REFUSE to service these areas.

If the city wants water, sewer, power, etc.... in these crime ridden areas, they should be providing armed escorts and armored vehicles.

Utility workers don't get paid enough for that shit.

Let the scumbags go without.

As far as the decent folks living in these areas, pass out guns and tell them to clean up their own areas if they want services restored.

[img]http://thewolfweb.com/photos/rcperry/fullsize/5338.jpg[/img]

Sure, I will pull bodyguard duty! My fee is $15.00/hr, 4 hr min. I have a current CCW, so everything is good to go [:D]

"Does anybody want to go down there with me next week and provide cover while I do the work? "

Hey, I'll help you out. I am familiar with the area. The city of Detroit is like a third world city. The suburbs are nice places the city itself is a pit.

Only problem for me is, I have fiber cable that goes under those streets, and every once in a while a crew will be trying to repair a broken water main or other utility, and end up trashing our cable in the process. Thankfully, I don't have to go out on those calls anymore since I took over the inside plant stuff exclusively. I've had my guys tell me they were packing before, and I just acted like I didn't hear them. At night, it's third world dangerous out there.


Edited to add: Most times there is a utility emergency in the really bad areas, the Police do provide coverage. It's the period of time before the problem is actually located, or on the way to or from the problem that the real danger exists. Many times I've been one of the first to arrive, and just drove on by since there was no support.

Next time, toss in one of these before you leave:

[img]http://www.shomertec.com/products/punch_grenades.jpg[/img]

What the hell is that?

OC grenade.  

Should provide great cover while exfil. the house.  

Might even clear the scumbags out altogether--or at least ruin their day.  

Who told you guns are illegal in Detroit? [whacko]

Michigan is a shall-issue state for CCW. If you live in Wayne County, which is the county Detroit is in, they make you jump through some hoops and wait about half a year for the permit, but they still have to issue it.

Before you call bullshit heilo, come on by and let me give you a little tour of our lovely city. There are parts of it that make Beirut look like a vacation spot.  [:)]