Columbia, Maryland, was built in the late 60’s by a “visionary” developer who bought up acres of viable farmland between Washington DC and Baltimore and put in row after row of Stepford housing on quaint little streets with names like “Cameldriver Court” and “Old Man Way.” (No kidding .) Jen and I looked at a pair of houses in our price range out there last night, and oh, my god are they shite. The first one was set back into the bank of a hill under some nasty fern-looking trees, and had all the charm of a beaten dog. Each house in the development featured a shared carport which was some kind of modernist sculpture; the roof was cantilevered high off the back and sloped down to the front like a torpedoed ship. The windows all measured about three inches by six, and the urine-colored vinyl siding was covered in a film of green mold. Inside the cave, er, house, the ceilings were all a cozy seven feet tall, and the kitchen cabinets looked as if they were formed out of some prehistoric cardboard. No kidding, folks, I have been inside trailers that were less claustrophobic than that house.

The second house, from the outside, looked as if it had run into the flat blade of a bulldozer. One whole half of the house was solid, with no windows, as if a garage had been covered over. The windows, while large, looked like they dated back to Nixon—thin metal edging with no sills or shutters. The entire house was sheathed in T-11, that cheap-ass “siding material” they sell at the Home Depot for $10 a sheet. (picture a rough sheet of plywood with 11 lines gouged out of it.) And painted a dull slate blue. The owners had done some decent renovation inside; the kitchen was large and spacious, even if the cabinets were crap (I’m sensing a pattern here, along with windowless bathrooms), and the rooms upstairs featured floor-to-ceiling windows, which were a nice touch. Still, it’s hard to see any potential in a house when you know you’re going to have to lobby a community association for each individual improvement to the outside, especially when your vision involves a total gutting and remodeling. (“Yes, we’d like to Sawzall the entire front of the house off. Would you mind?”)

And on that subject, the neighborhood levies a yearly “fee” for things like community upkeep and improvement. In the areas we looked at, I didn’t see any upkeep or improvement—it looked like a trailer park to me. I don’t think so.

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So $200 later, I have a new A/C compressor in the backyard. Halleleujah, amen.