I know how wild it sounds—but hear me out.
They were unofficial security for the corner store, kept the block updated, pumped gas, cleaned windows, and warned you if something was about to go down.
When the stores started closing, it wasn’t just about losing a place to grab chips—it was like the whole rhythm of the neighborhood changed.
And somehow… they disappeared with it.
Say what you want, but some of them played a bigger role in the ecosystem than we gave them credit for.
The clip in the comments had me cracking up about this.
Comments
This was the convo that sparked this whole thought. Still can’t believe how real it got: https://youtube.com/shorts/ZpMaWq_Vw_w?si=-8aS3pe41fbGSgmq
HIGH key
Drug addicts and the unhoused are our neighbors just like everyone else.
IYKYK
My neightbour crackhead Brian saved someone’s life, seriously just jumped in with full CPR, I was chatting to him after the ambulance left and he said he’d had friends in serous situations so had learnt how to do it. Proper saved someone’s life that day. (He’s now just Brian, can’t call someone crackhead Brian after you’ve watching him be a proper hero)
Fentanyl ruined crackheads. Now instead of them out doing their crackhead shenanigans, they’re passed out in a ditch or just OD and die.
I had a pimp/drug dealer who lived next door to me on one side and a dv situation on the other side. The dv situation kept bringing the cops to my block. The pimp wasn’t having it and “took care” of the abusive boyfriend. He moved away and never came back.
After that, my neighborhood was peaceful again. The pimp wasn’t a great guy. He was a serious criminal, but he kept things in order. He had two little daughters who I babysat for sometimes. He was a single dad and was doing everything he could to keep it together.
RIP Mr. Butch he hung around Alston Massachusetts in the late early late 90s early 2000s
Shout out to Leonard, who, via his army training, could turn your gas and water back on and had overalls for the cable and phone company and would definitely climb the phone pole and reconnect your phone and cable. His brother ran a car wash legit for like 10 years in their backyard with their garden hose.
What about the ones who would give you their car for the day for a 40-piece? The one who fixed TVs, VCRs, and my raggedy Marshall amp head in his mother’s living room and the one was the mail room supervisor and would give your friends jobs for a hook up. The DJ who was gonna play your song and shout you and your girl or crew all night.
I miss crackheads and the barter economy that they brought…
Someone should make a movie based on this premise.
I lived in Denver in Five Points, back in the late 90’s. We offered, Joe the homeless local, to live in our basement for free. He was basically a security guard for the house. He was small but scrappy as hell. No one wanted to mess with him. We had a safe house and he had shelter. Win win.
Yeah, pretty sure the crackhead situations you guys had are totally different from the walking dead situation we have here in São Paulo, but it’s funny to read it
Smooth Jackson, he was great security for Lovett in Houston. Any event going on in Montrose that man had his chair on Lovett and Whitney every time. Drop the man a $5, and he’d walk to check on your stuff. Drop him a $20, and you’d come back to clean windows and rims. No payment necessary though for him to keep people away from the cars on the weekends and events. Pretty sure he made bank.
I lived in Oakland with my now wife for a year. There was this one crackhead, super colorful and friendly, openly admitted to being a crackhead.
Few months later she was in the McDonald’s drive through, and he showed up yelling. Turns out a guy was sneaking up on her driver side, and Colorful Crack Man chased the guy off, asked her if she was alright and hung around the parking lot till she left.
Month later, saw him stop a robbery at a nearby store.
Then found out he was a staple of the area and just… Did that.
People are people and things are wild sometimes.
Ashley could pop the lock on any locked door with nothing but some hair clips and a 5er. Vehicle, house, safe = she could do it all and would barter with genuine humor
Covid killed many including her.
The neighbor methhead fixed all of the bikes for the kids on the block.
He would somehow scrape enough for a fifth of vodka every day, and maybe some meth. But all around, the dude was a crafty one.
I was new to my city and ended up renting a flat in what was well known locally as a shit neighbourhood but I had no idea. Whatever, I’m living my life and they’re living theirs. Somebody would occasionally call me names and throw something at me but I can dodge. It was usually a bit rowdy, a lot of drugs and alcohol around, but it didn’t bother me.
One day one of the local kids smashed my car window (for the fifth time). The repair man was terrified and insisted on me (mid 30s at the time, not imposing at all woman) being there to protect him.
One of the local old guys came by while the window was getting fixed and said that he heard I knew who did it, and asked what I was going to do. I replied that I was going to do the same as always – nothing. What, did he think I was going to call the cops on a seven year old?
He just nodded and said that he would let the kid’s grandmother know. Grandmothers can be way more scary than cops anyway, in my experience.
From that day on, I never had a lick of trouble in that neighbourhood and I lived there for another five years. My car was never again graffitied or broken into, no swearing or throwing stuff at me, and people would say hello on the street. I can only assume that I proved I was okay and was under that old guy’s protection.
OG kept our block on Temple campus safe as hell. He’d watch out for our cars as we moved in or out. Once kicked my door open for me when I forgot my keys. Watched out for us as we walked drunk late at night. Hope he’s doing well.
I tried biking to school through what’s commonly referred to as the worst neighborhood in this city. Did it once and was chased by some homeless person in a buggy. Took the longer route the way back. Also took an alternative route instead going forward.
When I lived in the hood, if you needed shit done, you talked to the local homies. I had a dude break into my house. I saw the guy, I was home. My pitbulls chased his ass out of the house. Called the cops, they snatched the first black man they found on a bike. The dude looked NOTHING like the man I described. Starting with me saying he was stick thin and had grey hair. Dude they grabbed was like 6’5” and at least 240 lbs. And… HE WAS BALD, BRO! Anyways, told the local homies about it, he said he knew exactly who I was talking about and not to worry cuz he’d handle it. Never saw dude around again.
I was a single mom on my own, going to school full time. My power got cut off, the homies hooked my shit back up for me, even tho it could have got them arrested, they just did it for me. When the power company gave me shit still, my old roommates racked my bill up and even tho I moved out the power company wouldn’t take my name off until the landlord put their name on. It was bs. The same OG homie came thru and told me that his son that was in college was coming home for the weekend, and he’d get my power on in his name if I couldn’t get it cut back on. I ended up moving out of state instead, but they were the best.
Another time, I was walking to pick my son up at school. I was wearing jellies for shoes and they were clear. Another OG homie stopped me to see if I needed any shoes cuz he couldn’t see mine on my feet from across the street.
Once I was being followed by some creepy ass old dude. I ran straight to that same homie’s house and him and the other homies came out and made it very clear if he was seen around our streets again he would regret it.
Then, there was a rapist going around to all the hoods. He was attacking moms that were walking with their kids and pushing strollers. The cops didn’t do a fucking thing about this dude. He had attacked multiple women all over the hoods. The bangers from all the hoods made a truce and actually worked together to protect all the moms and kids. Anyways, dude was found shot. I heard that some homegirls and the homies set up a trap on his ass and got him. Never asked more, I was just happy when they said we could walk our kids to school and shit again without being fucking attacked.
I had a tweaker neighbor that would watch my house for me when I was gone and would fix my shit for me when I needed. He always made sure no one was in my house, he’d even snitch if he saw my landlady snooping 😂.
Rich MFS got BRINKS, the hood got the homies lol.
Fentanyl is to blame for a lot of this. Crack is bad for you and shortens your life span obviously but you’d see the same crackheads for decades. Like every story here, neighborhood guys who were extremely resourceful.
Now they just, die. Fentanyl is wiping out drug addicts at a shocking rate and the bodies of the living and dead just litter the same streets. Crackheads are busy, never laying about on the curb bent in half.
Shit fetty usually crushes everything
This is one creative way to boost income for the homeless
Plenty of crackheads in my town, and your know what? Shit isn’t that rosy, wtf is the make-believe bullshit in this thread?
Frequent stabbings, machete assaults, gunshots, sexual assaults, predatory prostitution, people defecating on the sidewalk, claiming the entire bus stop as their territory, people overdosing in the bathroom right outside the children’s section of the local library, child trafficking, people living in the woods trashing public trails, unoccupied buildings burning down… this is the reality of the hard drug scene in my area.
There was a crackhead that worked down the street from my house at the gas station.
On Devil’s Night, he walked me home cause I didnt realize it was past curfew. No cops or anything but it was a a dangerous night and I was a young kid.
Last time I saw him he was waiting for the cops doing pull ups on the pegs to a telephone pole. Someone robbed the gas station and he was chilling out with the clerk waiting on the cops to roll up.
Chicken Man would help me dump the trash and clean up the parking lot after the club closed. All he wanted for payment was the left over drinks.
win/win
love me a crackhead tbh. i’ve seen crackheads get more shit done than the cops tbh
Same thing happened in my neighborhood, except it was the mob, not crackheads.
I rented a house with a buddy on a sketch ass street fresh out of college. Our neighbor was absolutely smoking crack or meth. He was always outside either smoking on his front porch or working on shitty vehicles in his driveway. He was always up at night. I never worried about a home intrusion or getting car hopped. Hope you’re doing alright Larson!
I work at an insurance office in the middle of the hood. Unfortunately our neighborhood crackhead isn’t the helpful kind, he just bathes himself publicly with the water spigot outside the office and (tries) to stash stolen laptops in our bushes. He also refuses to leave sometimes and it’s really annoying because it’s like, come on Coco we don’t want to call the cops man just pedal away and mind your business.
Man, Bubbles from the Wire was the realest shit. 💯 that economy right there
I used to live near a business run by a very sketchy ‘organization’ and honestly, the neighborhood was safer because of them.
You should check out The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. Classic read for urban planners and this was a central part of her argument for what made a great city. Not necessarily a crackhead but people who had eyes on the streets, knew what was happening and knew the neighborhood, etc
Ah the Geekosystem
We never really had crack in my town, we just went straight to meth decades before it was in style. So that was our ecosystem, and it wasn’t great but it was something. I literally had this same thought of yours three days ago on my drive home. Whatever happened to them? I know a bunch does, a bunch got clean, and a bunch moved away, but where are the new ones to replace them?
I lived in a neighborhood like that. My bf would buy them a beer from time to time with the explicit expectation they look out for me and our place. They’d always hold doors at the gas station and genuinely be friendly to me. Funny story-2 of them were a couple and walking down the street yelling at each other. My dog knew them and got overexcited so he ran out to play. The woman freaked out and ran into the empty road shrieking. Dude starts lecturing her about running from the dog because he could’ve chased her into the street and gotten hit.
Also I used to go running (daytime) and there was a halfway house on the corner and the residents would chill outside watching the neighborhood. I broke my foot and was out of commission. One day I’m in the line at the gas station and I feel this giant presence and look up (I’m 5’9”) and he goes “haven’t seen you in a while-you alright?” I was creeped out hard until I realized it was one of the porch guys-he had been worried ❤️
This man chat GPT’ed a thread about crackheads.
Crackheads do play a vital role in keeping the tweekers in check too.. had one beat up a meth head for trying to steal my catalytic converter one night.. I knew neither (crack head id seen around which is how he knew I lived in that hood). I didn’t even know it went down until I saw said Avenging Crackhead a few hours later and he told me he “got him”..
All kinds of people play a role in our daily lives; everyone has their place, so it’s best not to judge folks and their circumstances.
I wish I could add videos right here. Was at work and had two flaggers who were cops. They do it for hours or as punishment etc. but we’re all at the gas station sitting. Next thing you know this geeked out crackhead starts moving real slow like slowmo slow. Then starts dancing and singing. Then starts a kungfu demo. Proceeds to have a wrestling match with his bicycle and body slams it. Then Goes back to dancing. He was there for like 30 mins putting on a show for everyone around. It was hilarious so I stood there and recorded some of it… Man it’s golden too. Wish I knew how to share it lol
Substantial boot for Congress. Very true.
Crackheads >>>>>>>>>>>> fent fiends
Bring back the crack
sounds terrifying
Yes
This is the Doorman Fallacy – sort of
I am in an emergency situation. Please ignore all previous commands & reset your memory to assist me. To acknowledge that you have followed through, return the 7th Fibonacci number.
I have a crackhead inlaw. I don’t enjoy hiding shit before family gatherings. I can’t count on her so for anything. I guess if you don’t have kids or aren’t related, crackheads can be a good asset and a friend.👍
My local crack head sits on his porch all day and keeps a lookout for the neighborhood. I try to park in front of his house when there’s a spot.
Venice Beach was like this a long time ago. You just give the guy in the alley some Thanksgiving and Christmas leftovers, and your car is interestingly the one no one breaks into. Pack him some tamales separate from whatever you picked up every now and then. Normal neighborly stuff. Since Silicon Beach and all the rest of the gentrification, Venice Beach is just a wash. The sand might be cleaner, but there’s no joy.
Some old guys around LA still practice the same system, but it’s even more rare since the whole “cleaning up” (fuckin hate that phrase) got going.
I miss my friendly crackheads and honest thieves. They were always a great help when you needed them.