Many Men, Many Windows

A story for your week

Photo by Shobhit Sharma on Unsplash

16 years ago this week we moved into the place we still call home. It’s an old, brick, three-story, post-victorian foursquare built in 1905, with an addition on the back and a cozy, covered front porch—perfect for hosting drinks with neighbors and friends, enjoying your morning coffee and for a big, brown, lazy dog to keep watch on the passerby’s.

All it took was a single, and quick walk-through for us to fall deeply and madly in love with it. It’s character and charm—the woodwork!

It’s potential, overwhelming our young, dreamy, risk-tolerant minds.

The street and surrounding neighborhood are lined with hundreds of equally-as-charming post-Victorian and Victorian homes and businesses. All historical and each telling their own unique, and interesting story of the past.

Within walking distance of the biggest city in our State—it was the stuff our dreams were made of.

Standing next door to our home is a building that had been converted in the 70s from two foursquare homes, like our own, into one big building with a brick veneer sealing them together.

Part of it’s history, we were told, was that it operated as a retirement home for many years—the woman who owned it lived in our home and actually housed some of the overflow from the retirement home—explaining the curious locks on every bedroom door on the top floor (and maybe a few friendly ghosts).

At the time we purchased our home, the big, 70s-looking brick building next door, was operating as a hostel. Sometime in the 80s, an international businessman purchased it from the retirement home owner and sparingly transformed it into a hostel for the many travelers who come through our area on their way to the big, surrounding National Parks.

We were beguiled by the idea of it—world travelers on our doorstep! And, although the hostel seemed to be a bit battle-scarred and worn—we were spellbound, as young idealistic people often are, imagining all of the fascinating travelers we would be sure to meet.

We convinced ourselves it was better than if it were an apartment complex. This way we would never be stuck with annoying tenants doing things like playing loud music at all hours of the night or hosting loud parties at inopportune times.

Only travelers, staying for a short while before moving on. Perfect.

A local artist’s drawings of some of the historical homes in our area. (Our lovely neighbors gifted us a framed copy for Christmas).

Our first weekend spent in our new home was Easter weekend. We busied ourselves with the compulsory cleaning, unpacking of the boxes, and placing the furniture one must do—and noticing some of the creaks and cracks that had eluded us from our brief walk-through a month prior that would need attending to sooner than later.

On Easter Sunday, in need of a respite from the cleaning and unpacking—we made our way through the new and unfamiliar maze of our house, and into the unexplored terrain of the backyard. I remember, clearly, what a bright, and sunny spring day it was. It had been raining the entire week prior, and if you’ve ever moved in pouring rain, you remember these things.

We bent to pull a few stray weeds from our newly-owned cracks in the concrete and took inventory of what would now be a space we hoped to spend a lot of time in with summer on the horizon.

To our pleasant surprise, we noticed that the weathered pergola in the corner of the yard was covered with grapevines in full bloom. Something that had snuck past us before we purchased our home.

Looming, also, on the corner of our lot was the hostel. Its presence quiet, sleepy even— yet at the same time, heavy, intense and loaded with anticipation.

Along with its white, chipped and peeling painted bricks, we noted the windows that faced our driveway, and one window that actually sat inside the boundary of our yard, facing our back door.

Not quite as pleasant a discovery, as the grapevines.

Hmmm, we thought. This could be very interesting, given the wrong circumstances.

But, filled with cheer and excitement, we quickly brushed aside any sinister thoughts related to our neighbors to the south—the hostel.

Just as we were clearing some rubble from the driveway, a man steered his head outside of an open upstairs window and startled us a bit in his attempt to strike up a friendly chat. This, unbeknownst to us, was the first of many men who would poke their head out of the windows of the hostel.

The chat was interesting, and not in a world traveler sort of way.

It was, indeed, this chat that sent a small shiver of warning up our spines, and prompted us to have bars installed on the basement windows of our new home the following week.

Interesting became a word we used a lot in those coming weeks, months and then years to describe just exactly what we began to realize about our hostel neighbors.

Today’s story involves one of those many men who poked their heads out of the hostel’s windows over the last 16 years.

Some of these men have been wayward, but harmless—like the one who watched my son and husband play catch from his perch in the upstairs corner window of the hostel that overlooks the whole of our backyard—beer in hand, (positively under some kind of influence) cigarette flopping around in his mouth as he cheered on their game of catch.

Not exactly ideal, but believe it or not—this type of encounter would become a welcome exchange, over some of the other men known to poke their heads out of the windows.

This particular story takes place at roughly 10 p.m. on a crispy spring evening. It was a weeknight. My son and husband were making their way back from a basketball game. My tiny, young daughter was tucked, sleeping in her bed. Our dog splayed out at the foot of my bed, where I lie reading a book and waiting up for the boys to get home.

Over the years, in addition to the bars on the basement windows, we have also added a security system that could compete with Fort Knox. Cameras installed on every door, angle, nook and cranny, and an alarm arming every door and window.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

As I lie reading, my phone lit up— alerting me that the camera in our driveway had been breached. Outside of a nearby window I heard the camera diligently announce,“You are currently being recorded,” as we have kindly asked it to do.

Giving it’s fair warning to whomever or whatever decided to trespass.

This particular camera happens to face the hostel—capturing all of those windows that men like to poke their heads out of into our driveway and backyard.

Thus, I am sure you are coming to understand why I never miss an opportunity to view what sort of interesting things it might be recording.

Sure enough, there he was—one of those men. His entire upper body, leaning out of the open, ground-level window. Hands perched on the window sill, taking in his surroundings. Summoning Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie, The Shining.

He stood there, looking one way down our driveway and then the other, and then taking an extra close look at our house. Catching him a bit by surprise, I watched as he also heard our camera announce, “you are currently being recorded.”

Something about the way he gave a little wave at the camera upon hearing this recorded warning, ran my blood just a little colder than usual.

Over the years I have become, for better or worse, an expert profiler of sorts. I know distinctly when we have a harmless case on our hands vs. a case that demands our diligent, watchful, careful, and constant attention.

This case was one of the latter.

This is the type of “hostel case” where my mind typically resorts to replaying every horror I’ve ever heard on each and every true crime podcast, show, or book I have ever listened to, watched, or read.

I gave my husband a quick ring to report my grim findings and asked how soon he would be arriving home.

As I hung up the phone, it lit up with yet another alert from that camera. Here we go, I thought. I pulled the camera view up on my phone and, sure enough, there he was.

Waving again.

The white curtains hanging out of the window, billowing just a bit in the wind.

Completely naked.

Many years earlier, this interesting incident may have gotten just the attention this man had hoped for from me. But this version of me was like a seasoned, tough, wise, old detective when it came to the hostel and it’s men and it’s windows.

I was, in fact, un-flapped.

Annoyed.

Tired.

Ready to go to bed for the night.

Instead, I knew for the safety of our family and especially my children, that another call would need to be placed to the local police notifying them of yet another man involving yet another window at the hostel.

And that is how we found ourselves, shivering in the cool night air, on our front porch giving our statement to the police at midnight.

He was arrested for indecent exposure and public nudity and taken away in a police car. We found out later, that after revealing himself to our camera, he had decided to parade around the inside of the hostel in his birthday suit as well.

Another man, another story to tell.

The story of the Naked Man.

One of many stories collected from our adventures living next door to a hostel—that, as I am sure you have gathered by now, isn’t quite a hostel in it’s traditional sense, but more like a halfway house—only less the trained professional counsel and management.

In truth, no management to speak of.

These days, the hostel, I am happy to report, is no longer in operation. It sits, mostly vacant—other than it’s two caretakers who live quietly, rarely making an appearance.

It’s current vacancy status is a story of success for another day.

For now, we are enjoying this quiet and peaceful time.

So far, we have camped in a tent overnight, multiple times, in our backyard. We allow our kids and dog to roam freely now without our constant supervision . We invite friends over for dinners and BBQ’s more often. We dine al fresco as a family as frequently as the weather allows.

This summer we plan to watch movies on a projector.

In other words, nowadays, we look for any excuse to be in our backyard. There was a time, we avoided it at all costs.

While most good folks have a life bucket list, we have a backyard bucket list. A compilation of all the things we were never able to fully enjoy when the hostel was open for business.

Alas, men don’t poke their heads out of the windows anymore—the windows stay dark and silent.

We almost don’t know what to do with this peace and this quiet, except we do.

We are living in our home the way we imagined it, those 16 years ago—the visions and dreams that filled our young and innocent heads came true after all, it just took a few doors to open, and few windows to close.

On the left, a photo of our home, taken long before we owned it, for the local State Historical Society’s records. On the right, our house today.

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