Conshy.org

This is Part 2 of 2.  Part 1 is located here.
This story is in response to this article on house parties in Conshohocken.

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The music had started several hours ago.  The crowd had started to get large.  We are talking 100 people, easy.  My house is not huge, 2600 square feet according to Montgomery County.  I’ve had about 30 people over at one time, it’s tight.  Two yellow school buses full of people is too much for these homes.

I decided I would give them the benefit of the doubt.  I would not complain until it got too loud.  I went to college.  I hosted my share of barn burners.  I would be patient.  At least, that is what I thought in my head.

By 10:00 PM, the party was in full swing.  The music was blaring, the back deck was packed and the noise was pounding through the shared wall.  The pictures on the wall were rattling.  It was difficult to hear.  I’d had enough.  I was about to go to bed.  Both Kimberly and I were tired.  I walked out to the back of my house and onto the deck.  There were at least 40 people on the neighbor’s deck.  I asked the first person I saw to turn the music down, it was too loud.  They immediately turned it down.  It was once again quiet.  Peace was a hand, at least for now.

Around midnight, Kimberly and I went to bed.  The music had crept back up to a gentle roar.  I wasn’t happy about it, but it was acceptable.  Upstairs, it was much quieter.  Our bedroom is in the rear of the house.  With all of the people on the rear deck, leaving the windows open was impossible.  We shut the windows, turned the ceiling fan on and went to sleep.

It was about 3:00 AM that were were awoken to screaming.  Not fearsome, horrible screaming.  Celebratory screaming.  They were happy.  Something fun was taking place and they were expressing their joy.  I jumped out of bed and looked out the rear window to see an empty keg flying from my neighbors deck and into the back yard.  For the second time in one night, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I had flashbacks of Animal House and Old School.  I shook my head in disbelief.  Was this really happening?

That’s when I saw it.  There were people walking off the deck into the back yard.  It was dark, I couldn’t make out what they were doing, but something was going on in the back yard.  Then the rear light turned on.  I saw at least 5 men urinating.  Not in the backyard.  Not in the grass.  They were peeing on my fence.  They were peeing on my other neighbor’s fence.  They were peeing everywhere but a toilet.

That was it.  I was fed up.  I had never called the police before in my life.  I have never had the need to call the police.  But, this was it.  I called information, asked for the Conshohocken Police non-emergency number and was connected.  I told the operator the problem, the address, my name and phone number.

Within 3 minutes, there were four Conshohocken Police outside.  This was going to get interested.  Kim and I watched out the rear window to see what would happen.  What we saw cannot be described in human terms.  It can only be thought of in relation to insects.  When lights or movement are activated with insects, they tend to scatter.  Think cockroaches.  Lots and lots of cockroaches.  That’s what we saw, cockroaches scattering.

The number of people that ran through the rear door and into the night was to numerous to count.  It was chaos.  At least 75 people scattering into the night and into the west side of Conshohocken.  They must have been all underage.  It was crazy.  They hopped fences and hid behind bushes.  My neighbors flowers and shrubs were trampled.  I have never seen anything like it.

End result?  The party was over and I ended it.  The music was turned off.  The police issued citations to the tenets.  And, at least for the time being, Kimberly and I were able to sleep.

Why tell this story?  Two reasons.  Conshohocken is in a precarious position.  The real estate market in town has remained strong because there are so many renters.  I don’t know the exact percentage but it’s high.  We rely on these renters to keep taxes low.  They are a light burden on the school district and therefore encouraged.  As homeowners, we have a vested interest in our property, our homes and our community.  We must make sure the renters are not making our community into Manayunk.

I went to school at the University of Pittsburgh.  The area surrounding Pitt is called Oakland.  (This picture is of Oakland, remind you of somewhere?)

It’s almost all students and due to the transient nature of the students, Oakland is not a nice place to live.  There are a few holdouts of full-time residents but they are in the minority.  In Oakland, the grass is rarely mowed, the snow is not shoveled and there are beer bottles and urine stains on the sidewalks.  One thing we don’t want Conshohocken to become, is Oakland.  Trust me.

I’ll probably have one more post as an epilogue to this story, there are more tid bits that will be entertaining.