When I purchased my beach lot home (meaning small) nine years back, the property’s value was above average. Location, location, location.   The harvest gold appliances, dark paneled walls and shag carpeting begged for remodel. But the location crowned its value—a hilltop ocean view.  The neighborhood’s quiet and refined air piled on the value.

We treated this home to a complete remodel and upped its value, regardless of a slimy real estate market.

Today, if I listed this house, well, I’m not so sure what would happen.  Last week’s murderous drama did not up my home’s value.

It’s not so much about my real estate and my pocketbook that angers me as much as the insolvent actions of the party that owns the rental behind me, and the fact that the renters appear so blatantly dysfunctional and unconscious of the world outside of their stink.

Why did the property’s owner or the rental agent allow these renters to stay when their behavior was a continuous menace to the neighborhood and a regular stopping point for the county sheriff’s department?  “… dispatch records confirmed four contacts with the house since January, but details about the calls weren’t immediately available,” reports a local newspaper.

Did the property’s overlords not consider the piles of trash, the junk cars, and the constant traffic of rather unsavory types parading in and out of the rental?  Was the person blind to the otherwise tidiness and quiet of nearly every home in the area?  Did that property owner have a deal so sweet that it mattered not that he/she rented the low-end home  to people with a history of forced removal from other rentals throughout the community, as alleged by an official in a private conversation?

Thanks to that portion of this scenario, my home and every home near this nightmare real estate where the murder occurred, lost market value.

We have the right to stink.  But when my stink offends another, it is my responsibility to sweeten my stinky self. It’s called respect for those forced to brush against me for one reason or the other.

I grew up in dysfunction.  I smell dysfunction’s stink in an instant.  As an adult, some of the dysfunction from my childhood stuck.  Several tragedies later, I recognized my behavior and how my behavior hurt others. My stinky self begged for a remodel.   (It remains a work in progress.)

Mindfulness is my savior.  But it is also my challenge because it requires a non-judgmental attitude.  But when a violent intrusion from drug-addled brains creeps like poison ivy into unaligned persons, I’m unsure how not to pass judgment.

I asked this question during my earlier studies as a student of meditation and spiritual growth.  The answer was to bless those who might be “younger souls” or those who still have much to learn.

So, do I passively find my quiet corner, light incense, pray for these “younger souls,” and share their visible filth, psychic intrusions, and disruptive-to-peace presence?

Community chatter has it that the older brother committed the grizzly crime against his now dead younger half-brother.  There are a thousand questions about the family and what and when they knew about this bloody end to one of their own.  The thorough crime scene investigation should pry some truth from the murder scene.

The family has returned to the nightmare dive.  The murder victim’s autopsy is complete.  His body has a date with cremation.  The older brother remains in custody for an unrelated violation.  How does a mother live with this?

Their sad saga will continue.  I, however, will separate from it in every possible way I know how.  My choice is to seek clean and uncluttered views from my window.  My choice is the sound of crashing ocean waves, not violent voices.  My choice is to return peace and beauty to that part of the world in which I dwell.