I am “blessed” with two unusual neighbors, one a foul-mouthed religious hypocrite lady (FMRHL) and the other a scary old man with guns (SOMWG) who keeps his handguns on the kitchen table and next to his sofa.
Over the last 5 years these neighbors have called the police to our house, in a middle upper class neighborhood, many times. Here's one example why.
We usually put the trash out when the kids go to school. But I learned the hard way that the law says to put trash out no sooner than 3PM on the day before pickup. And return them before 5PM after they've been emptied.
Shortly after the township published their yearly newsletter, mentioning that law, SOMWG called the police. I got a personal visit from the police, followed by a visit from the township manager who took pictures of the offending cans and sent a warning letter. He personally warned me that he would drive by my house every day on his way to work to check the status of the cans.
The upshot: this time I was prepared. A few weeks later detectives (who made a follow-up visit!) visited and I provided time-stamped photos of a half dozen houses in our neighborhood, including FMHRL's, with trash by the curb (OMG!) before 3:00 PM. And a photo of SOGWG putting his trash in the neighbors' trash cans. Ironically it is against the law to do that, since our local laws require that every house have a trash and recycle service!
Funny? Pathetic? Hypocritical? Yes. This incident was downright silly. But a few others were extremely dangerous. Watch this space for more stories.
3 comments on "Horrible Neighbors #1"
I sympathize with you about the foul-mouthed lady, but watch out for the guy with the guns, Jim!
In NYC apartment buildings people barely talk to each other, so our impressions of each other are gleaned through sounds heard through the walls and floorboards. Not exactly a friendly environment (say "hi" in the halls and 70 percent of the time get a blank expression). So far, no guns, though...
Ed
Neighbors are awesome, aren't they? We bought a house with a large, never used, backyard. We moved in and started cleaning all the brush up. While pulling stuff out of the ground I found a right front end of a car. That was interesting. I found out that, for years, neighbors were using the yard as a dumping area (the neighbor who told me seemed proud! He even told me that, just a couple years ago when his house was getting remodeled, the people we purchased the house from told him he could dump the busted up rock and concrete. You know I thought of him every minute I was pulling that shit out of the ground). The bumper was the oddest but not the only thing I pulled out of the ground.
Okay, all cleaned.
Cut to this summer. My girlfriend happens to see a neighbor tossing shit into the yard. She, nicely, approaches him and asks hm to knock it off.
"We've always done that. You're new around here."
She explains that she is aware of the old way, but, again, nicely, tells him there's a new sheriff in town so please don't do it again.
Oh, I don't even need to finish with this tale, do I?
After four or five times catching him (it did become some type of perverted mission for her by this time) she finally called the cops. After that, she catches him again but this time the entire family gets involved.
By the end of the summer the cops were there three times, the town inspector once, they were issued a warning, all because they refused to do a simple thing asked by a neighbor.
The inspector said she finds this happening in the town more and more as new people move in. They refuse to stop what they've always done. It's amazing.
But what your neighbors are doing and nothing more than harassment. I'm sort of surprised the police don't see that. And for the city inspector to tell you he was keeping an eye on you, wow! That's unreal.
Good luck with it, Jim. And, as always, keep us posted!
We were all quite friendly for many years until one, fateful, thing happened which triggered years of bullshit.
I was hospitalized and the crazy man saw my old son sitting in my car, in front of the house. He ordered him out of the car (my son was listening to the radio) grabbing him by the chin.
When I returned from the hospital and heard the story, I cautioned the neighbor to never touch my son again. That was the end of all reasonable neighborly good will. He's one of those over-chatty guys who walks his dog every day, talking to the neighbors, complaining about imagined offenses from our house.
The story still has some interesting turns ahead.
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