Dear Readers: As I announced last week, my final “Ask Amy” column in this space will run on June 30. (Readers will be able to find me through my newsletter and on amydickinson.com.)
Until then, I’ll occasionally open my files and rerun a previously published Q&A. Here are two:
Dear Amy: I live in an affluent neighborhood of expensive, although older homes.
The vast majority of homes are very well-maintained and manicured. Many have had major remodels to look like brand-new homes.
However, there are a couple of homes that are in serious need of a facelift!
One home in particular is a complete eyesore. Although it is worth more than a couple million dollars, the lawn is dead, there are high weeds where the lawn should be, paint doesn’t match and/or is faded in places, and wood fascia is rotting, along with other significant cosmetic problems.
There do not seem to be any code violations.
I am not aware of the owner’s financial situation, but they have been there long enough where there should be significant equity to refinance and use the money for repairs – or sell and move to a less expensive home.
Other neighbors have left notes, to no avail.
Any suggestions on how to get this family to fix up their house, or even move?
– Frustrated Neighbor
Dear Frustrated: It is so generous of you to provide such a detailed list of repairs that need to be made to this property! You’ve obviously inspected the house quite closely.
You’ve also extended your generous attitude toward these strangers by offering suggestions for how they might finance improvements to their property in order to meet your needs, including the idea of them moving.
What you haven’t done is offer to mow their lawn. Or offered to get a group of people together to help with some cosmetic repairs to the outside of their home (oh, the horror of faded paint!).
What a neighborhood! People leaving notes and developing repair punch lists and investment advice – and not one person finding out who these neighbors are and asking if they need a hand.
I suggest that you approach this by putting human values ahead of property values.
Changing your own orientation and approach should improve the neighborhood.
Dear Amy: I learned that my boyfriend might have cheated on me.
He told me that a friend of his was on a dating site and saw a female whom the friend used to date. The friend wanted to get revenge on this ex, so he used my boyfriend’s old profile from the dating site to catfish her.
However, from everything I saw, it seems like my boyfriend was not the middle man but the primary person. All the messages between the two were not only under my boyfriend’s name, but they sounded just like him – not like his friend.
My boyfriend and I got into an argument, and he left the house.
At the same time he was arguing with me, he was texting the girl, wanting to see her. He went to her house that night, and when he came home, he was acting differently.
Later I spoke with the female involved, and she told me that she and my boyfriend had in fact slept together.
He has adamantly denied this, saying that he only went to her house as a bet from his friend – the one who he said was using his profile on the dating app.
I’m trying to move forward from this situation, but I don’t know if I believe my boyfriend.
I need a second opinion. How does this situation sound to you?
Do you think he cheated? Should I put this behind me, move on, and accept his explanation?
– Wondering and Worried
Dear Wondering: Rome’s Bocca della Verità, or “Mouth of Truth,” is an ancient marble mask, which according to the popular medieval legend will bite the hand off of anybody who has told a lie.
The idea is that you place your hand inside the mouth of this large mask, and then let the magic of the Bocca della Verita be your lie detector.
(You might recognize this monument from the wonderful Audrey Hepburn/Gregory Peck movie “Roman Holiday.”)
Let me put it this way: If your guy had placed his hand inside the “Mouth of Truth” while spinning his entertaining tale (about his friend using his account to catfish a woman), he would be left holding a bloody stump.
So, yes, put this behind you. You also might want to put him behind you.
You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.
