Quite a few years ago I wrote a post about the runners I seemed to see often on the paths, and what I named them. There was Forrest Gump, of course (runner dude with a long beard) — I don’t remember the others.
My husband and I also have nicknames for some of the houses in our neighborhood.
Hobbit House
I think this was the first house I named. It’s definitely stuck. When I’ve run, or we don’t have as much time, or Mr. Judy is walking the dogs, we’ll go to the Hobbit House. I don’t know why, but I imagine that’s what a Hobbit house would look like.
Little Dog House
The house on the corner of our block with a chain link fence used to be home to three little dogs. Getting Lola and Bandit past the running and barking dogs was always “fun”. They moved this year and the new people don’t have dogs.
Running Dog House
Running Dog house is opposite little dog house. There’s a fairly young golden? Irish setter? that lives there. The minute he sees us coming, he’s usually running his fence line. Another house where it can be fun getting Lola & Bandit past without waking up the neighborhood — especially when the little dogs were out, too.
Cat Lady’s House
That’s where second Bandit lived. Yup, she had a fearless cat named Bandit. We almost died laughing when we finally found out his name. She had all sorts of cat stuff on her front door patio, which is why I called it Cat Lady’s house. Turns out she inherited Bandit from someone else in the neighborhood, and she’s since moved & found Bandit a new home in the neighborhood. So she really wasn’t a cat lady after all but we still call it Cat Lady’s House. Never judge a book by its cover!
Rabbit House
I recently dubbed a house on our “route” rabbit house after there were three bunnies there one day, a couple the next. Apparently the rabbits like to move around, as I don’t see them there anymore. Our neighbor’s house became Second Rabbit House when I saw rabbits there several days in a row — culminating in 5 bunnies one day! That’s the most I’ve ever seen on one lawn at a time. Apparently they’ve moved off to greener pastures, too.
Tomato House
These people have their garden all along their driveway. Lots of tomato plants, hence the name.
As you can see, many of the house names revolve around animals. It’s kind of a short hand between us: I can tell Mr. Judy to walk the dogs to the Hobbit House, or even just go to little dogs house (even though there are no longer little dogs there).
Do you have “pet” names for the houses in your neighborhood?
Do you have some sort of verbal shorthand with your SO?
Are you going to start thinking about naming houses in your neighborhood now?
Linking up with Zenaida Arroyo and Kim @ Kookyrunner
This week I am also joining up with the new Runners’ Roundup linkup.
Chocolaterunsjudy 
Haha, I love this, Judy!
We do the same! Although most people here in the city live in apartment houses, there’s a lot to observe on the balconies and on the street.
One dear elderly couple frequently opens a bottle of bubbly in the evening on their balcony, so they’re the “Champagne Couple”.
Another family often call their little daughter Mila from their window to come home for lunch or dinner. That’s the “Mila Family”.
There are loads more. I’m happy here – it’s very peaceful.
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Champagne Couple! I love that! Yes, we often talk about the houses where dogs we know live. Generally we don’t actually know the owners name, so it’s Memphis’ mom, LOL!
This wasn’t really where I wanted to live, but still, it’s a nice neighborhood & we’re generally happy here too. We did have something really weird happen yesterday. Too long to go into that here, but it ended ok.
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All the kids have grown and everyone has moved away but us. So we refer to the houses in our culdesac by names such as where Bruce or Bill used to live. But not often since neither one of us walk dogs. I don’t like to run in the hood. We do sit on our front porch a lot esp my hubby and watch everyone walk or run by. We should start naming them. Lol
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Some people who moved were because they kids had grown, but new kids moved in. Obviously we don’t have a front porch, but we sit on our deck. A lot this year! I’ve even started to eat breakfast out there on nice mornings.
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It is cooler on our porch and my hubby likes to people watch.
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At least it gets him away from the tv!
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Exactly. Thank God for tennis season So he gets exercise.
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Ha! I love the names for the houses in your neighborhood! I think I would never want to be known as “The Cat Lady” for some reason, even though I had cats for pets for most of my life.
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Oh, I was a proud crazy cat lady for years (although the most we ever had at one time was 3). People were shocked when I said I wanted to get a dog!
I’m one of those rare people who truly love both cats & dogs, but I had the cats first so we waited a very long time before we got our first dog together.
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Very clever! Ironically, as much as I name so many inanimate objects (Milly, Ellie, Gustavas, etc.), I don’t recall ever naming random houses in the ‘hood. I have thought of writing a post, though, and showcasing all these “friends” of mine 😉
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And I rarely name inanimate objects. 🙂 I think it just arose as we talk & had to have a way to tell what we were talking about.
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I love that you have nicknames for houses in your neighborhood. There is a house near me that has plastic pink flamingos in their front yard all year. It seems odd for a house in Connecticut to have flamingos since were not exactly a tropical state, lol.
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I’m trying to remember, the flamingoes have a significance. Can’t remember what it is. Hispanic? Someone from the south? Or may they just like flamingoes, LOL!
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In our old neighborhood in Chicago, we had names for some of the houses–here, not so much!
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Oddly, I think we’re the opposite. I don’t think we had names for the houses when we lived in TX.
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Haha I love that you have nicknames for the houses in your neighborhood! The Hobbit House one is cute…it has lots of greenery around it so I can see why you’d call it that.
I only have one nickname for a house I run past frequently (not even in my actual neighborhood, but a close one) and I call it the Italian house because it’s brick and has these spiral tree things in the front yard that reminds me of wine country in Tuscany.
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That house sounds nice! I bet it makes you happy when you run past it.
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Sounds like fun to name the houses in your neighborhood! Most of the ones I run/walk by look the same. But I could probably come up with names for the people I pass every day:)
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I guess some of the houses/people in this neighborhood are kinda distinctive (to us, anyway). As I told Wendy, we didn’t name houses when we lived in TX. Weird, huh?
I like naming people on the run. It’s a good distraction!
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Every street has to have a cat lady house! I am intrigued by the tomato plants like that in the driveway. What’s up with the canoe!? Fun!
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Well, there are a lot of lakes north of us. A lot of people really love boating.
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Omg the tomato house is amazing. I do the same thing, too. There was this one house in our old neighborhood that was OVER stocked on vegetation. My son (he was like, 3, at the time) nicknamed it Beauty Land. My husband and I thought it was an eyesore but kiddo loved it and it stuck!
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Beauty Land! I love that; how sweet! We all need to see things through the eyes of children, right?
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Oh, so cool! I could see this happening in the neighborhood where I grew up. Now, I live in a planned community, so it’s a little hard to differentiate.
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That would definitely be a challenge!
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So funny my husband and I do the same thing. All of the extra walking we’ve been doing since Covid required a whole new set of nicknames. I always wonder if others have a nickname for our house 🙂
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Oddly, enough, I never thought if someone had a nickname for our house! Boring house, maybe, LOL! You know, the one that turns the lights off at Halloween because we don’t hand out candy anymore. The one that never decorates for holidays. Of course that’s not really unique to us.
Most likely the one with 2 cute little dogs (especially now that little dog house no longer has dogs).
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I love this! No, I don’t name the houses in my neighborhood but now am thinking about it. 🙂
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It’s a fun distraction, especially when you’re running!
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I love this! We have been referring to houses by the different rainbows etc they have had in their windows and also we know a few more people in the street now from me being in our Covid response group (never used to help anyone but we have drawn support from it and swapped plants!). We do have the Racist Man House unfortunately, that has a union flag hanging out the front and posters in the front windows one does not want to see.
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Thankfully as far as i know, we don’t have racist man house.
Most of us here in our neighborhood keep to ourselves. We know a few of our neighbors, but none really enough to socialize with (even if we could now).
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When I helped my brother on his newspaper house, we had names for all the houses. Now other than the pumpkin house (which has been repainted, not pumpkin) we pretty much refer to houses with the names of the people who live there.
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We also refer to houses by the names of the people who live there. The ones we know, anyway! Or the dogs’ names . . .
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