In June 2001, my husband, Steve, and I were interested in buying the Homer Talley House, on South Sixth Street, which had previously been the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. The fraternity members had vacated the house, but left considerable detritus in their wake. Farrington’s Grove had organized about 30 neighbors to clean up the house and haul out the remnants of 35 years of fraternity use. Each of us was going about our assigned tasks, tearing out partitions in the attic, hauling elderly couches, chairs and television sets out of …