Since we've been here, the ghost has appeared

From: Carolann Belk
Date: Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 10:23 PM
Subject: First Pink House Update!

Oddly enough, your most recent post of my message coincides with the e-mail we were planning on sending after our Pink House christening party, which occurred last night. Needless to say, it was epic. Two kegs were tapped, random freshmen made appearances, and the night ended in a mud puddle that we drunkenly attempted to mop up in the kitchen. Luckily we didn't get in any trouble except for a comment from a neighbor about having to clean pink cups out of the street (oops!).

I guess I should begin this story telling how we worked our butts off to get this house a year ago. I saw it come up online in July, didn't really consider it due to the price ($3500-yikes) but then once we shopped around some and realized the study would have to be a 5th bedroom, we knew we had to go for it. We conned 2 of our guy friends into signing the papers needed for us to get the house since we needed at least four people and told them they could switch off the lease later, which inevitably happened and they probably regret it now. Long story short, we called the realty company about every day after touring the house to beat out all the other people that they said were also looking at it, and ended up getting our official papers in the day before another group of girls - sucks for them, good for us.

Since we've been here, the ghost has also appeared. On top of the upstairs shower turning on by itself incessantly – which we attribute to a lose knob – one of the roommates was doing laundry one night and turned on the dryer, left, and came back into the room 5 minutes later to find the dryer door wide open. Then about a week ago one of the upstairs roommates woke up in the early morning hours to someone apparently attempting to enter her locked door by shaking and turning the knob, and when she asked who was there it stopped. Creepy.

Here's a link to our facebook event for the party.

I'm also attaching a picture of the roomies from last night + the 2 other roommates who I photoshopped in because they were probably off filling their cups. And a picture of randos in the kitchen and the keg gargoyles keeping watch.

Pink House For Rent...Again!

In a twelve-year rewind, the Chi's have once more (at least temporarily) abandoned their ill-timed plan to sell the Pink House to a deep-pocketed single family, and instead put the place back up for rent.


It's been renovated again, and now features amenities like carpeting on the stairs and hardwood floors nearly everywhere else. When I visited recently, courtesy of the contractors who had just finished re-painting inside and out (covering the Mona Lisa with yet another coat of white), the place was sparkling. But there was clearly still work to be done, because the downstairs bathroom looked as grungy as ever. Leaning over the tub to take a picture, I half expected spider crickets to come swarming out of the air vent.

The current asking price on a Pink House rental? Thirty-two hun a month, or roughly twice what I remember our crew last paying when I moved out fifteen years ago. After figuring in inflation, that's nonetheless a steep rate for a five bedroom (or 4 1/2, taking Jay's room into account) student crash-pad. And since today's kids are less likely to want to share bathrooms than the Gen-X'ers who came before them, and even Chapel Hill's sorority girls who deal a little coke on the side have lately fallen on hard times, maybe it's no wonder the place is still available (as of 9/20/09) six weeks after I first saw the for rent sign.

UPDATE 10/25/09 – As Fall Break 2009 for UNC students drew to a close, I drove down North Street on my way to the Franklin Street post office. Lo and behold, no renters yet.

UPDATE 11/26/09 – The day before Thanksgiving, and I finally got the memo that Hell closed down nearly a year ago. While checking out the debris piled at the top of the outside stairs (including Hell's soft pretzel cabinet), evidence the space is still being excavated, I looked up through the chain link fence and saw a bicyclist zoom through the deserted parking lot of the Phi Mu sorority house. Curious, I noticed the rider was headed for the Pink House. Could it be rented? There did seem to be a couple of trucks parked in the back yard.

No, it was only the blogger next door on his way home. I introduced myself and explained I used to know the old couple who previously lived in his house. He was remarkably cool for being accosted at dusk outside his own crib by a quasi-cyber stalker, and said the place is still sans residents. And he thought Sylvia's initial rental asking price this go-round had actually been $3600, thirty-two was at a discount.

North Street is burning!

More from the guy next door. There was a FIRE on their lawn one recent spring afternoon, and if not for the intervention of one of Chapel Hill's trusty Carolina blue fire trucks, the Pink House could have burned down. So nearly seventeen years later, Raj's bad fire feeling came to pass. And on the star-crossed date of Friday the 13th, no less.

"Flames!? On the front bank, 50 feet away and moving towards our house?! Ah!!! I shoved an empty bucket underneath the bathtub spigot. As it filled I could hear the fire truck approaching. I ran outside and dumped the water on flames closest to the house..."

- Further Musings, "Fire!"

Here's a whole bunch of his posts about life on North Street.

The view from next door...

Next door lived a very nice old couple (the Sommerfelds), whose bedroom faced my upstairs room. I was constantly afraid the techno, disco, jazz, hip hop, house, funk, and all the rest of the records I played until late hours of the night were going to give them seizures. This wasn't the little blue house where Phi Mu's sorority mother lived, but the white house on the opposite side. The Sommerfelds kept a beautiful backyard garden. Like ours, it stretched all the way back to the chain link fence that separated North Street properties from Rosemary Street parking lots.

The Sommerfelds both passed away several years ago, and now there's a young married couple who live in their house. He and his wife are huge gardeners, so they've kept the backyard garden thriving. And the guy, when he's not attending grad school at UNC, keeps a blog. Since June of 2008 he's watched the Pink House sit vacant, grumbled at Sylvia's failure to maintain the place, and occasionally written about it.

Like in this post:

"This afternoon, under the warm sunlight of these first days of another Chapel Hill spring, I cut behind the empty pink house next door on my way home..."

- Further Musings, "The Beauty of Spring"

The undercover cops didn't even wear pink!

Scene report from the Pink Party, Fall '06, almost exactly fifteen years after we moved in and threw OUR first Pink House party. The more things change... I love how these girls told the Chapel Hill fuzz which end was up re why kids scattered when the blue lights arrived - "you see a cop and you duck...you just don't want to be around cops." Priceless!

From The Pink House of Chapel Hill:

"Our first Pink House party was fabulous. It was a pink theme, and I am happy to report that a lot of people followed the rules. It is Chapel Hill, after all, so it shouldn't have been too hard. The girls and I spent all Friday late afternoon decorating. Seriously, we went all out. We doused our house with pink streamers and balloons. We strung up white lights in the backyard and in the shed. Put pretty pink table cloths over the beer pong table and the flip cup table.

Our house was so cute. We made pink pj, got a keg, got some pink wine and made pink jello shots. About 150-200 people showed up. We all dressed really cute in pink (pictures coming soon), and everything was going perfect.

Then the Chapel Hill police show up. They check mine and the girls' IDs, then tell us that there had been a noise complaint about our party and that we shouldn't have underage drinkers there. I responded that most of our invitees were 21 or over, but the cops retorted that our guests must be underage since 3/4 of them left.

I told them that's just instinct. You see a cop and you duck. regardless of whether you're doing something wrong or illegal. You just don't want to be around cops.

Well, I was a little skeptical that there was really a noise complaint. We live right beside a fraternity that keeps me up every night with their music. We live behind three very large bars, and there are students up and down our streets. I highly doubt that anyone complained. The cops stayed across the street for a while, and some undercover cops had even been chilling at our party for some time. They even cited two of our underage guests in our backyard!

I walked across the street to ask the cops if our party's noise was up to par since they cleared out 3/4 of our guests and since we turned down the music. It was only 1:30 am. Then, we got to talking about how and why they busted our party. Apparently, one of them told me, there was a "911 call" about the Pink House party. The cop even used the lingo, "the Pink House."

That makes me think that they were just on the prowl for parties that night. That, and the fact that today's police log shows the police activity from Friday night and it seems like every party in Chapel Hill was busted. One observation: when there's a noise complaint called in by a neighbor, I highly doubt the Chapel Hill police scurry up all the undercover officers they can and come chill at a party. Seriously. And the undercover cops didn't even wear pink!

From today's police log: society victim of loud music/party/other noise, at 130 north street, chapel hill, nc, between 00:18, 09/16/2006 and 00:18, 09/16/2006. reported: 09/16/2006."

- "cops don't like pink" by Shanny (aka Shannan Bowen)

Regardless of the facts, I still suspect Larry Short made the 911 call. Thanks to Shannan for the photos and on-scene reporting, and co-hosting (along with her 2006-07 roomies) such a worthy addition to the house's long line of legendary parties!