Three days ago, new phone books were distributed in my neighborhood. Right now, I am sitting on my patio overlooking the street, and every house across the street still has the phone book sitting on the front stoop, along with newspapers, city council campaign flyers, delivery pizza menus, and business cards from various cleaning companies.
You’d think that this neighborhood was either completely deserted or populated by shut-ins. In fact, the problem is the prevelance of garages.
Every house here has a garage, and the vast majority of people only ever exit or enter their house through it. In fact, almost everywhere I look in California, homes have attached garages — something that was far more rare back in DC.
So, no one ever uses their front doors, and the garbage piles up in front of it.
And in the garage as well — of the people who do use their front door, a sizeable majority do so because they’ve filled the garage up with junk and can no longer park their car in it. Thus, despite all the garages here, many people still park on the street. The street at night is jammed with cars, in the midst of homes which all have two-car garages.
What a bizarre relationship we have with our cars, eh?
Just for the record, my car lives happily by itself in my two-car garage, taking short spins on the road once every few days. I use my front door at least 3 times a day when I walk the dog, so you’ll never find paper accumulating there.
I’m wondering how it turned out with your downstairs neighbor, the one witht the loud garage door.
In Alaska garages are required, every decent home has one. In Hawaii only upper tier homes have garages the rest have car ports.
Except for security reasons I don’t understand why they’re needed in San Jose? If its that unsafe, people wouldn’t park on the street.
My Garage was a woodworking shop an automotive repair shop and a film lab/darkroom. I used the room all the time but I did park the car inside at night.
Regarding my neighbor: let me give you a little example. I just watched him drive up and park in front of my house (instead of his own garage). He then went over to the mailbox to get his mail, a mailbox that is located on the side of my house where the walkway to HIS house is.
He then walked past that walkway, down the sidewalk in front of my house, then turned on the far side of my house to enter his house via the garage. He walked twice as far to do this than if he’d just used his front door.
…hum, maybe he’s walking in front of you for a reason. Hint, Hint.
i yearn for a garage…
people in DC dont park in their garages much… they become crap stockpiles with big automatic doors…