I’ve written before about my perpetually drunk neighbor, and his string of sometimes equally-dysfunctional roommates. The last few months I had been referring to him and his latest roommate as “Drunk and Drunker.”

When news got about that their new landlord was declining to renew their lease, I had predicted that they wouldn’t successfully vacate by the end of August. The many loud arguments heard from over there and the ever-growing pile of junk accumulating in their off-street parking lot seemed to cement that notion.

I was having flashbacks to a completely different neighbor who, some years ago when she was supposed to move out by the end of September, was so delayed that I came home on the evening of Halloween to find an enormous U-Haul truck backed just far enough into the driveway to not block the street (Yes, a month late, she spent that month sharing the place with the guy who had taken over her lease; not only that, when I talked to him the next afternoon, as he was carrying stuff into the truck, he asked me not to let the landlady know they they were still trying to get her stuff out that day). That was the Halloween where we got one, and only one, trick-or-treater. And since it was my godson, I’m not sure that counts. I totally blame the giant truck.

So I was a bit surprised when I heard people trying to maneuver a small rented truck into the harrow driveway between our two buildings this last weekend.

One of the people outside trying to call directions to the driver was another neighbor, a woman who lived above Drunk & Drunker. The other person was the sister of the perpetually drunk neighbor.

I had seen, earlier in the month, the same upstairs neighbor trying to cajole the perpetually drunk guy into calling about some apartments whose ads he had looked at. I had heard from our landlady that the upstairs neighbor had decided to spend a half hour every day trying to get the drunk guy to look at ads and call places. I knew that drunk guy’s sister and mother had both been coming over and trying to help with packing.

Not long after the truck pulled out Saturday afternoon, there was a knock at our door. The upstairs neighbor (a sweet woman who I think deserves a medal, and possibly sainthood) wanted to let us know that the rental truck had run over one of our solar decorative lights in the side flower bed. She had already swept up the glass and had the broken light in a bag that she was taking to the garbage. “I just thought someone should tell you, and I know you both come out here barefoot a lot, so you should be careful.”

I thanked her for both cleaning up and letting us know.

She repeated that she was sorry. So I pointed out that it wasn’t her fault, or her responsibility.

“I just… really like the pretty lights, too.”

There’s still a lot of junk in the parking space, but the line of lawn chairs, benches, occasional tables, and the ornamental birdbath have all been removed for the walkway in front of the apartment. The unplugged Christmas lights, the weird fake flower hanging baskets, and the ugly fake parrot have vanished from the eave. All of the familiar knick-knacks and gew-gaws are gone from their windows.

Which isn’t to say that they are bare. A new gew-gaw, which appears to be a ceramic Mr Toad of Toad Hall driving a wooden jalopy, has appeared on the sill of the living room window.

The other roommate is still there, with less than a week left to move out. And there’s still all that junk piled up in the parking space. Some of it I recognize as property of perpetually drunk guy.

So there is still plenty of evidence that my original prediction is going to be correct.