New neighbours

The houses on either side of us have been empty since we moved in (about 3 years ago).  One side is well taken care of, but the other side was let go completely.  We were worried that somebody would torch the place, because we have an arsonist in town who likes to burn abandoned houses.  And our house is only like...eh...15, 20 feet away at most, so if that house burned ours likely would too.  Not that we own ours, it's a rental, but still, life/death, loss of possessions, etc etc.  Anyhoo.  Lots of folks from the block have been going to city council meetings complaining about how horrible the property looks, all grown over and looking like a jungle with the house practically falling down behind it.  Lovely.  So last week a bunch of guys show up and start hacking back the greenery, and I'm thinkin' they're a crew that the city sent to at least clean up if not tear the place down.  I was excited.  But no, turns out it's a guy moving in with his wife and unborn daughter, plus her other 3 kids (whom I have not seen yet, cuz the house is not really fit to live in yet even though the couple is spending nights there).  Now, I like to think I don't judge people on appearances, but in truth I guess I do.  These are heavily tattooed, smoking, saggy pants guys (the man and his friends who are helping clean up), and they all kinda look like they just got outta jail.  Which in fact they've since told me both the man & his wife have both spent time in jail.  They're very friendly, but just kinda....I dunno.  I'm not thrilled.  She's smoking while pregnant, says her husband used to have a drug problem, like, hard drugs, not just weed, she's on meds for insomnia, anxiety, anemia, 2 blood disorders and I don't even know what else.  She says her mom kicked her out @ 12 years old, & she's lived under bridges and eaten rice soaked over night in water from the creeks.  There's tons more that she's told me, cuz she's one of those ya can't get a word in edgewise, how does she not lose her voice from talking so much kinda people.  Anyway, they're borrowers and favor askers too.  Do you have this, do you have that, can we use your this, can you drive me here, can you cash a check for us if my mom writes it out to you cuz we have no checking account, can we run an extension cord under your door for an hour so we can run a vacuum cleaner over at our place since our electric isn't on yet?   Argh!  I like to think I'm very self-reliant and don't like to ask people for things unless I have zero other options available and it's an emergency kind of situation.  I know not every one is like this.  Jessy's family is not, but in a nicer way, which I may talk about in another blog later.  But anyway, it kinda bugs me when people are always wanting shit from me like this.  We're struggling as it is, and not to be mean, but why should we foot the bill for extra electricity so that they can run the sweeper?  Especially when they wanna hook a couple extension cords together, and they've got  cords that are not all the same voltage or wattage or whatever, so something might overload and fry out, possibly causing damage to our house, which could be dangerous plus we'd have to pay our landlord for any damages to his house since we're the idiots who said yeah, sure, in the name of good neighbourliness come plug your crap into our house and cause a fire hazard.  No problem.  So this has been my little rant, which I'm hoping is moot anyway, because yesterday the girl told me they put in a down-payment on a trailer home somewhere else because it's gonna cost too much to fix that house up, plus she doesn't want to live in Bellaire because the caliber of people here is just not high enough.  Really?  Ok, I know it's actually the truth, but who are you to be talking when you've lived with crackheads, smoke while pregnant, and have spent time in jail?  Just sayin.