In the dead of a quiet night, you can hear the hiss of the MetroRail train on the tracks. In the day, if it is still, you can hear the sound the train makes as it climbs the hill against the air. Seldom audible now are the long-long-short-long whistles of the freight trains warning of their passage across an intersection. The nightsong of the birds fills the jasmine scented night air.

However, there are four empty houses in my immediate vicinity. Gangs live in one of the occupied houses across the street. Murder was committed in front of their house on 10 March 2009. The .40 calibre rounds fired were palpable as well as audible in this narrow street with its densely packed houses. There is about 5' between mine and my neighbors' homes to the east. The renters to the west have a bit less distance between theirs and their western neighbor's home.

As you continue along the block, more empty homes are evident. Family of long-term residents who have died have lost the family home or sold it to the first real estate "investor" who offered them a few bucks, enough to buy drugs and/or alcohol for a short while. Gradually, the stability of the area has been eroded through political neglect, drugs, gangs, poor education, no jobs, and violence.

Into this context, enter the "boom car". Boom cars are boom boxes on wheels. The cars are equipped with amplifiers, sub-woofers that put out high intensity, low frequency noise. Music may be audible from within the vehicle, but outsiders only hear and feel the boom, boom, boom of the amplified bass. According to the World Health Organization, this noise can cause cardiovascular changes, disrupt sleep, and several other unpleasant side effects in human beings. Exposure to this type of impulse noise has been linked to aggressive behavior. This noise is currently being used by gang members to terrorize this neighborhood, informing everyone of who is really in control here.

Police like to refer to this noise as "loud music" and they treat the numerous complaints they receive about it as if they were complaints about someone giving a party and turning their stereo's volume up too high. Actually, this is all they can do. The problem is really a public health issue, but public health authorities seem reluctant or unwilling to investigate the matter. Repeated pleas for assistance from Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas have resulted in advice to call the Sheriff, provide them with license plate numbers and addresses of those violating the noise ordinance that Sheriffs police. However, when the impulse noise occurs at least 40 times a day, this advice is impractical and an ineffective method of dealing with the problem.

Thus, the health of residents and quality of life in the neighborhood continues its steep decline, and the gang members maintain their hold on the area.

The following required resolution through restraining order, action by the Housing Authority, and a successful small claims case against the landlord/property owner.

Elijah Anderson wrote about the clash between "street-oriented" and "decent" families in what he considers demoralized and alienated working-class communities that are ghettoized. He described a street-oriented household as one where "the house is the scene of an ongoing party. The noise constantly disturbs the neighbors, sometimes prompting them to call the police." He continues, "People come and go at all hours of the day and night...At times the children are made to stand outside on the porch while business is presumably being transacted inside. These children are learning by example the values of toughness and self-absorption: to be loud, boisterous, proudly crude, and uncouth--in short, street" (Anderson 1999:47; emphasis mine).

This description is a fairly accurate depiction of the scene at 2061, except that some of the people who come and go also often stay over for days and weeks at a time. These people, primarily women with their children, appear to rent rooms or barter for their space in the household by performing babysitting and housecleaning chores. A vacuum cleaner is often heard several times a day and large amounts of garbage have been observed at the curb on garbage collection day. Besides the five girls who are supposed to live at 2061, the presence of at least 10-15 other children has been observed. Five adult females or females with children, excluding the leaseholder, have been observed living at the address.

In addition to the women and children living in the house, there is a rather constant flow of young males in attendance. Some have just been released from jail or prison and they seem to be using the house as a transition point, renting a place to sleep, bathe, and eat for approximately $100-150 for a three-night stay. They appear to be steered to 2061 by a male companion (one of the children's fathers) who is incarcerated. When these males are in the house, the females supply them with food, alcohol, drugs, and sex.

Throughout the day, the air is filled with curses and rap music, uttered and played at top volume. The loudness of the music requires the inhabitants to yell at each other to be heard. Sometimes, I think the music is played so loudly to cover the sound of the children requesting food or money to go to the store or candy house to buy their breakfasts and other meals of popsicles or chile fritos. The music sometimes begins at 6:00 am, if it ever stopped the night beofre, and continues throughout the day and on into the night. The house is virtually bare within and the music vibrates and echoes through the empty rooms, shaking my floors, rattling my windows, and causing my ears to ring. It must be having a similar effect on the children's hearing as they are made to stay indoors most of the time when the music is playing.

The children are sworn at and often addressed by names other than the ones they were given at birth. For example, on 6.5.02, I heard the following remark through my open kitchen window: "I will jack-slap your fucking ass. You're giving me a headache. Don't you understand stop?" The women also curse one another, addressing each other as "bitch," "ho," and "motherfucker."

The women are often irritable and short with the children because they are suffering from hangovers or the aftereffects of ingesting other drugs. One woman, aka Lisa, was overheard declaring on 7.14.02, "I like to get wet." This refers to here enjoyment of ingesting phencyclidine, or PCP, also known as sherm, liquid, water, or wet. Lisa has a child named Some Money whom she used to leave at 2061 for childcare. She never leaves sufficient diapers for the child. When the child soiled herself and there were no diapers available for the change, the caregivers left he in the dirty diaper without cleaning her up. This infant is alleged to have had something crawl into her diaper and bite her. She developed a boil that required medical attention. Her mother was two weeks in seeking medical attention for her daughter. After taking her to emergency, she was visited at 2061 by a nurse who came to change her dressing and perhaps to check on her overall well being.

On one occasion, I have heard the children wake up to cartoons and soothing tones. This occurred when a woman with two daughters, who appeared to be working, began staying at 2061. She left every morning at about 6:00 am, taking her daughters to daycare or school. She did not leave them with the other women and children sheltering there. She would return each evening at approximately 5:00-5:30 pm with her daughters and peace would reign because she didn't appear to take the same level of interest in being boisterous as the other women, and she seemed to be concerned about providing a "decent" living arrangement for her children. Prior to leaving for vacation, she was overheard saying that she wanted to leave because she was tired of having to share her child's clothes with the leaseholder's youngest child, who has few clothes, and fewer still when laundry is not done regularly.

There is a small front yard and a bigger back yard, but there is no grass planted there and no trees to provide protection from the sun. The leaseholder was going to erect a patio cover in the front yard, but it was for a party, not for her daughters' use. When she could not get the cover to stand, the project was abandoned. The children always play in the front yard when they are allowed to play out, but usually they are confined to the interior of the house in "the room" designated for all children present. There has to be serious overcrowding in "the room."

Seldom were the sounds and smells of cooking noticed coming from 2061. From September to November of 2001, I never heard cooking. The school-aged children were sent to school to partake of the breakfast there. In November, the baby was overheard repeatedly asking for food. Her mother cursed her out and sent her to the room. I made a call to the Department of Children and Family Services when I heard this.

In summary this household appears to be plagued by the complex problems that characterize public housing residents or those moved from public housing to "mainstream" neighborhoods in an effort to deconcentrate poverty. The inhabitants appear to have low levels of education few skills, weal or nonexistent employment histories, unstable family structures, lack of knowledge of parenting and child development, as well as drug and alcohol dependencies.

Anderson, Elijah. 1999. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Street.