The house was in Santa Monica on a cross street between the boulevards, within earshot of the coast highway and rifleshot of the sea. The street was the kind that people had once been proud to live on, but in the last few years it had lost its claim to pride. The houses had too many stories, too few windows, not enough paint. Their history was easy to guess: they were one-family residences broken up into apartments and light-housekeeping rooms, or converted into tourist homes. Even the palms that lined the street looked as if they had seen their best days and were starting to lose their hair.
After the Great original occupants left their homes, the garbage descended to feed upon the deserted planks disguised as humans.
After the Great original homeowners left, human garbage descended upon the deserted planks, and reveling in their ocupation, oozed their distinctive brand of urban blight, sadly.