5 Bent Street, Brunswick West, VIC, Australia

Click for a larger version that shows the flakiness and tardiness in detail.

Charlotte's been terribly slack and lazy (by which I mean not lazy at all, and certainly busier than me), so the job falls again to me to provide today's dose of man-made failure.  I'm going to stick very close to yesterday's entry and this empty lot and stay on Bent Street in Brunswick West.  Now, poor Bent Street, I don't mean to knock it or make it sound like some miserable slummy road.  In fact, three of my favourite properties in Brunswick West can be found along its length, one of which is home to a couple of adorable cats.  However, in its three short blocks, Bent Street also has five properties worthy of this blog; the previous two, this one, a fourth I'll cover in due course, and this Murray St shitbox is on the intersection with it.

Now, you may think 5 Bent Street is adjacent to yesterday's subject at number 7.  That's too logical.  In between them is Cumming Street (yes, we laugh at that all the time) and two properties that are numbered in Cumming's sequence.  Not long after moving to the area, this property made me just as curious as 7.  While 7 was evidently abandoned, this one signs of being lived in, of which one was big and obvious - a clean, fairly modern car normally parked in the driveway (see picture above).  And that just caused me even more confusion.  The car was clearly in decent mechanical and aesthetic condition, yet this place is falling apart.  Now, I'm sure we've all met guys who'll let their house fall apart while they masturbate with their car for hours, but as you can see in the picture at right, this is hardly a car-lover's car!  If you're taking reasonable care of your vehicle, wouldn't you also keep your property at least vaguely presentable?

This house isn't ever going to be the most exceptional piece of real estate, but you could tidy it up and make it look neat and presentable.  As it is?  The paint appears to have gone untouched since it was first applied so many years ago, alongside the footpath is a sad excuse for a fence, the lawn is ratty and has been threatening to lose all control for as long as I've known the property, and the roof actually looks like it has grown a layer of mould or even guano to keep it company.  Actually, maybe this isn't some Mafia den or meth lab after all, but somebody cannily starting their own guano mine.  They're patient!

Rating: Damnable.