Life in 21st Century Middle Village

These horror stories were forwarded to yours truly:

"My mother, who is 96 yrs old, has lived in Middle Village for the last 69 yrs. About 8 yrs ago a single man moved next door. She had to endure his used car sideline and the multiple cars parked in the driveway and on the street. I think complaints from neighbors pretty much resolved that problem. Then he moved a man into his basement. When I referred to the man as his tenant he corrected me and said it was a relative. Well after a few years the "relative" moved out. Now it seems he is running his own SRO. He has two men living downstairs and occasional overnight guests. He lets them park in his driveway while he parks in the street across his driveway entrance. Of course the only way for them to get onto or off his driveway when he is home is to use my mother's driveway. They do this without permission. Finally she put up a barrier with planters and flower pots. Guess what? He is angry with her. He doesn't think she is a good neighbor. I would like to resolve the whole thing because it upsets her so much. She is too old to handle the stress."
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"There are two homes on my block in Middle Village that I am aware of that have multiple people living in each apartment.

At one of the addresses, 60-16 83rd Place there are 20 people living in the walk-in and 20 people living in the middle floor with beds all over the apartments and sheets between each bed. This was told to my neighbor who speaks Spanish by one of the men who lives there. The owner lives in the basement. The garage in front of the dwelling is horrendous and there are multiple bikes and strollers on the balcony visible from the street. There is a current epidemic of "bugs" and "rodents" right now. This is the second outbreak, and only weeks ago all the mattresses were put outside the home and all clothes bagged and left outside also. A friend who lives in the attached home next to them said she had roaches and never had them in the 20 plus years she has been there and that every day she finds toys, pencils and junk from these families in front of her basement door. The garbage situation is really bad and everyone who lives near this home is truly disgusted.

The same condition is happening at a house at 60-26 83rd Place down the street. There are so many people living there that I cannot tell you how many actually do live there. The neighbor said that he can see mattresses all over the floor from his apartment. There are many women with babies living in the walk-in and the basement as one big living shared space. I understand the owner, who used to live there, had torn down and rebuilt the home using illegals and was unable to sell it. His rent for the walk-in alone was $2,025 - and that was a few years ago when he was renting to a family with two boys and they informed me.

I am sure that the landlords are really raking in the bucks here at our expense. This block is very overdeveloped and there is hardly any parking. My son has to actually park on Eliot Avenue as there are really only driveways near our house due to the three new groups of attached three-story homes that have been built here over the last few years. This is also a real fire hazard and takes away from the quality of life we had known on this block that used to be just small one family homes."

Thank you, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for allowing a great area of Queens to be turned into a Sanctuary Cesspool. You make a great cover boy for this neighborhood magazine.