The last time we were there, Sheila was stung several times by red wasps who had made a nest inside the wall by the back door. They were extremely aggressive and actually chased her out into the yard as she was stepping out the door. I am allergic to wasp stings. So, when I saw that she was safe in the car with the windows rolled up, the blasted things still buzzing around trying to get to her, I closed that door from the inside and left by the other door. But, in that process I could not lock all of the deadbolts as I normally do. The burglar apparently gained entry by slipping the doorknob lock on the front door since there were no visible signs of forced entry.
This visit started with me advancing on the door with a can of wasp spray. I quickly filled the hole where the wasps had taken over the wall but then noticed that there was another nest at the top of the door between the storm door and the inner door. It was nearly a third as the wide as the door, I dispatched them as well.
When we finally got into the house, we noticed a dining chair sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. We never leave furniture sitting out of place since we never know when we may have to come in in the dark. Rural electric service is not as reliable as we would like for it to be. Then I noticed that the globe of the ceiling fan light was sitting on the kitchen table and that half of the paddles from the fan were missing.
Insult turned to injury when Sheila discovered that one whole electrical circuit in the house had apparently burned out. We still had power to the receptacles but all of the overhead lighting and fans were dead. The "person" who had apparently been staying there had obviously damaged the ceiling fan and then left it running unbalanced until it shook itself to pieces and burned out the wiring in the ceiling in the process. Lord knows what it will cost to have it repaired and it's a miracle the place didn't burn down.
After sorting that out for a moment, we began the regular routine of sweeping and dusting. It's amazing how much dust an empty, sealed up house can accumulate. But, it's always been like that when you live on a dirt road. It gets into everything even through closed windows and doors. We always clean house as soon as we get there. But this time, we also found that our rodent friends had been back and apparently had a party. There was a huge pile of dried rat dung in the corner near one of the easy chairs. By that time, I was so angry that I just locked the place up and we came back to Tulsa.
As I was leaving, the challenges of keep the old house semi open came back to me in spades. A few summers back, Rural Electric cut our power off over a fifteen buck billing dispute without telling us, ruining hundreds of dollars worth of frozen food. We arrived ready to spend the 4th of July in the country only to find that not only did we have no power and it would cost a lot of money to get it turned back on but we also had a refrigerator and freezer full of rotten meat that had to be cleaned up.
Then I remembered that the water district recently doubled our rates so that they could fund service to new homes in a nearby township.
It then came to mind that a little over a year ago, the house was burgled and several irreplaceable firearms that had belonged to my parents were stolen.
And now this.
Sheila and I decided against retiring to Sequoyah County for several reasons. I intend to keep on working part time in retirement but the only time people down there call their lawyers is to get a divorce or when they get arrested, two areas of the law I avoid like the plague. The health care, even in nearby Ft. Smith, is a generation behind Tulsa and Oklahoma City and is no better than many third world countries in the small towns. One of my cousins died of heart attack in the waiting room of one of their major hospitals while they argued about his insurance coverage. Another family member was mis-prescribed a drug which destroyed his immune system nearly killing him immediately and almost certainly contributing to his premature death.
Local government down there can be simply astonishing at times. For a while, the village justice of the peace was working through his own DUI charges. A nearby township made national news when it was learned that most of the city's income came from traffic tickets and that they were stopping passerby's on the portion of I-40 that passed through their city limits. And, can you imagine a public utility in an urban area getting away with doubling their rates on their existing users to fund new construction for new homes in new neighborhoods that weren't even built at the time of the tax increase? In the real world, real estate developers have to pony up for the infrastructure costs for their developments not the rate payers.
And the crime. This is not Tulsa style crime. Too often, it is petty, bone assed poor, not a pot to pee in, meth everywhere, stealing from your neighbors or destroying things just for the hell of it crime.
My uncle gave up preserving his old house down the road a generation ago because of this petty BS. I guess nothing much has changed since.
