Chinese buyer next door (1 of 2): Changes.

The other week I woke up 3 days in a row to 8am chainsaws:

The foreclosed house next door had gotten sold to a management company that tried to get way too high rent for it, and then it got sold again when they couldn't rent it, and workers were now cutting down both big trees in the front yard...

One was a tall spindly pine, but the other was a leafy, nice, solid tree, and now there's no shade in the yard at all - or in the windows for all 3 apartments in my building!

When I was going out on the 3rd day I was talking with one of the (Mexican-American) workers, and he said a (Chinese) woman who owns 3 restaurants bought the house to flip it and make a profit, and she wanted:

- Interior renovations.
- Trees cut down.
- A garage built up streetside the entire width of the lot and taking up like 35-40% of the yard (!).

"WTF," I was like, "A lot of people moving in to the neighborhood like yards and don't have cars, and there's good parking on street anyways.  And now the yard's not really functional now for most of the day since you don't have shade."

"I know," he was like, "But we just do what she says."

He then added that he didn't know what the f*ck she was doing.

I wondered out loud whether she'd negatively affect the value of the house, and he thought she would, but would still come out ahead, she got it at such a steal.

"They're buying up everything, man," he was like.