She sounds like a nightmare of a neighbor

Unfortunately, she’s also these folks’  US representative and they’re finding they are powerless to get her to do something. We may be entering a very frightening era of our country’s history when government officials feel they are unaccountable to anyone, even their neighbors:

John Bailey thought it was great when his neighbor was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007.

“Not everyone lives next door to a congresswoman,” he said.

But two years later, he doesn’t feel so lucky. The congresswoman’s house is abandoned and in disrepair, “a blight on the neighborhood,” Bailey said.

He said he thinks the way Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., has treated her home tells far more about her than her voting record.

“I wouldn’t want anyone that irresponsible to represent me,” said Bailey, like Richardson a liberal Democrat. “What I don’t get is how she has the time to visit with Fidel Castro but doesn’t have time for her own house. If you can’t manage your own household, you probably shouldn’t get involved in international affairs.”

He’s not alone. Neighbors have complained to the city, written letters and e-mails to Richardson and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but the three-bedroom house remains an eyesore. Neighbors just wish she would sell it or let it go into foreclosure, anything to get it into the hands of someone who would care.

“She shows total disregard for everyone in the neighborhood,” said Sean Padovan, a retired police sergeant. “She ought to be embarrassed and ashamed.”

You will be shocked to read the condition of the house. It’s disgusting:

It wasn’t long before Padovan, 62, angry that the lawn wasn’t being mowed, knocked on Richardson’s door, told her he was a neighbor and asked if she minded if he cut the grass. He hauled out his hand mower, and when Richardson still seemed to have no interest in taking care of her yard, he stuck a gardener’s card in her door with a note saying that she should call him if she had questions…

With no one living in it, the house continued to deteriorate.

Carrie Thomsen would walk across the street with her hose and water the yard. Janet Carlson sent her gardener to Richardson’s house once a month for six months to mow the lawn. She paid kids $20 during the fall to rake the leaves. They once peeked inside and saw a dead bird in the living room. Her husband turned on the sprinklers the last two summers, worried that dry weeds would turn into a fire hazard.

Things got so bad that in the fall of 2008 rats began breeding in Richardson’s backyard and soon moved into a house next door.

The congresswoman has gained a degree of infamy in the Sacramento neighborhood. The two-story house, gray with red trim, is badly in need of paint. The front lawn is a patchwork of grass and weeds with brown splotches of dirt. Much of the once lush ivy covering the chain-link fence has died.

The red wooden gate sprawls on the lawn, unless someone props it up. A toilet sits on the back patio.

The backyard weeds, which neighbors said had grown three or four feet high, were cut a day after the Los Angeles Times wrote about them a few months ago. Dead leaves have gathered behind the hot tub. Rosebushes are struggling from lack of water, since the sprinklers are never turned on.

Brown paper covers many windows. There is no furniture inside. Two beer cans are in the kitchen sink surrounded by dirt. The countertop and cabinets have been pulled out.

The city declared the house a public nuisance in August. In late May, after a neighbor complained that the front lawn was out of control, the city filed a violation notice. The lawn was mowed a few days later.

Most recently, another neighbor filed another complaint, saying that Richardson’s house was “a vacant structure with a blighted appearance.” Now residents are discussing whether to hire a lawyer to try to force her to fix it.

This woman has a horrible history regarding houses. She bought the house in early 2007 for $535,000. At the time she already owned two other houses “that she had defaulted on six times.” How in God’s green earth would such a person get a loan after defaulting on two other homes six times?

This is the era of Obama, it seems, when politicians, Democrats really, are not accountable to anyone. They can do as they please without fear of consequences.  That she refuses to listen to her neighbors tells us that she is failing to do her job for which she was elected, which is to represent her constituents.

Rep. Richardson should be ashamed but it’s becoming obvious she has no shame or decency for that matter. She behaves as if she will be in Congress forever, but her district is none too pleased with her right now and might vote to turn her out if someone challenged her in the Democratic primary.  What will she do then if she has to return to the neighborhood she stomped all over with such impunity?

Hat tip: Instapundit