It was getting harder to harmonize our schedules.

My wife and I are both piano teachers. We were getting more students, which was great. The problem was that we both worked from home. So she made the ultimate sacrifice and decided to lease an office space.

It took some time, but we finally found the perfect location. Not only was it a short 10-minute drive from home, there was a Starbucks and McDonald's in the same plaza, as well as a Korean bakery across the street. It would be convenient for Kate and her clientele, a cup of coffee or bite to eat whenever the urge struck.

Big changes are never easy, so of course she was scared. But she was more excited to be moving in.

When the lease was up 2 years later, she was even more ecstatic to be moving out.

There's this theory called "Broken Windows." The basic premise is that there are certain areas the police will never (willingly) patrol.

It's kind of like that feeling when you're dining out at a nice place, but then you walk into the bathroom and it looks like your worst nightmare.

Suddenly, you don't feel so good about that restaurant any more.

So when someone moves into your spotless neighborhood and leaves trash all over his lawn, you have every right to tell your homeowner's association to do something about it. Because if they don't, it's like saying this behavior is tolerated.

And if this issue is ignored long enough, it eventually attracts the wrong crowd.

Which is exactly what happened after Kate moved in.

Maybe we hadn't looked close enough, but we noticed graffiti on the walls, light fixtures hanging on by threads, trash bins overflowing too often.

Besides being a bad look, these broken windows also attracted the nearby vagrant population (there was a homeless encampment behind the parking lot).

Look, nothing against these unfortunate souls. Society definitely doesn't do enough for them. But imagine your piano student walking by someone dressed in tatters, muttering to himself out loud while drinking in broad daylight.

Bringing this to the attention of the property manager was futile. To put it mildly, she had a less-than-pleasant attitude and most of her answers to any of our requests were bluntly colored with the feeling of not my problem.