ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A French Quarter businessman has come to the conclusion this week that he’s living among people who are not interested in community.
After selling his dog walking aggregator website business, 49-year-old David Abbott purchased a renovated 4-bedroom terrace house on Rue Des Grosses Bites and placed the remaining money in blue-chip, high-dividend stocks. David and wife Royce moved their young family from Betoota Heights into the city to gain access to “better” state schools until the kids are old enough to attend a non-elite private school that allows enrollments after the child is born.
After living there since early January, David told The Advocate that it’s been nice being closer to town, but the transition has been harder than anticipated.
“When we lived in Betoota Heights, we had a great community,” he said.
“The people down here in the French Quarter are messed up, mate. They’re either rich old boomers who have downsized from Betoota Grove or they’re the children of those people. Back in Betoota Heights, my neighbors were people like us. I don’t know, I’ll try to explain it,”
“There’s a Gen X gay couple that lives in the place behind me. They’ve got a ‘Vote Yes’ placard on their front gate still, but I’ve heard them use derogatory racial language in their courtyard when they thought nobody was listening. This older couple next door seemed friendly, but when I put a DA in to put in an attic, they wrote submissions against it without talking to me about it. Another one of them asked me not to park my car outside his house. Now, they don’t even say ‘hello’ or even make eye contact with me,”
“One of them goes down to the golf course to RoundUp the greens, even though it’s mixed-use and they don’t even play golf there on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. I don’t like golf, but why? Why would you do that? Other than to be rude. He posts on the French Quarter Loop Facebook group that it should be a park, not a golf course and park,”
“The parents at the school are something else, I tell you. The P&C is so factionalized. People are trying to recruit me to overthrow the president at the upcoming meeting. I could go on all day. Tell you what, if you ever make a bit of money in your life, just buy the best house in your own neighborhood. It’s just not worth it.”
More to come.
