QOTD #66: Do you have a bad neighbor?

Well, the local bear trashed my Tacoma causing $9000 damage, the neighborhood mountain lion leaves deer parts in my driveway, and the flippin' moose eat my roses.

The humans are mostly fine.

 

We have one neighbor within a quarter mile of us (country living!).
Husband and wife there now, with children that have recently grown up and moved out.
The wife is lovely. We would spend more time with her if her husband wasn't such a malicious asshole.
He's paranoid and combative and has had not-so-secret affairs that must be a huge embarrassment to his wife.
He also has this habit of being out in winter in shorts and a t-shirt. We live in upstate NY so I'm not sure what that's about.

 

I'll be back to with more details about my partying neighbors, the neighbors who let their sewage partially flood my yard, & the ones who refuse to get their landlord to repair the fence despite the fact that we both have dogs.

 

I only had one neighbor with a big Dodge Ram truck that he would warm up in the winter for 20 minutes, and you could hear it all over the neighborhood. But, luckily he moved.

 

The street behind us is short cul-de-sac. The houses are duplexes and townhouses. Some of those folks think nothing of blasting their loud music until three or four in the morning. And not just on Fri and/or Sat, sometimes they start on Sunday night and don't stop early Mon morning. We called in one noise complaint on the people directly (sort of) behind us because they hosted the Sun/Mon parties. It's gotten a lot better. I'm guessing that other neighbors have called the police.

The landowner, or her handyman, of the above mentioned ^ properties had a clogged sewer line. Their solution was to remove the access cap so that the sewage didn't back-up into the tri-plex of townhouses. We wound up with several large pools of sewage in our backyard and a stream of sewage running beside our house and out into the street. My guess is the handyman tried to flush the line and left a hose running. After I complained to one of the residents, and called it in to the City for an official complaint & report, the handyman ran a snake into the line until it finally cleared.

The neighbors on one side have a sagging wood plank rear fence that needs to be replaced (best solution) or at least propped-up (band-aid solution). The problem is their sagging fence is affecting our rear fence, and leaves a gap at our respective property lines where the side fence Ts into the rear fence. I've told them many times it needs attention and they need to get the poperty owner and/or property management company on the ball. I've also stated that if I do the repair to save my back fence I'll do it such a way that their rear fence will no longer be connected to the side fence that we share, and will no longer be connected to my portion of the back fence. The problem with that their rear fence would fall down, and I could face legal issues.

 

I have some of that, diesel trucks downshifting at 2am are a bit annoying; but it comes with the territory.

My neighbors have talked to me a couple times about Molly. Basically, if she's going ballistic there is a bear nearby and you ought to be thanking her, rather than complaining. They actually looked for the bear last time and spotted it. It's no longer an issue and they see the bear warning as a good thing.

 

One of next door neighbors was scared of dogs because he was severely bitten as a kid, he frequently asked us to make the dogs couldn't get into his yard. One night the police were searching our yards for some suspects (I never learned what they were suspected of doing), and the police said the suspects had been seen running into the area behind our houses, and also said our barking dogs most likely drove them away. That night our neighbor was thankful for our dogs.

 

Our snail neighbors are dicks.

 

We live in a condo community in Northeast Florida at the moment. 90% of them are douchy. Parking on the sidewalk, letting their dogs poop in our little patch of grass next to our driveway--which makes it impossible to open the windows in the warm weather, yelling at random hours. I'm ready to move. At least if we end up in a condo or apartment in our new city, they've been built to keep city noises out and will (hopefully) have appropriate sound barriers. This place is ridiculous. We have a humidifier the bedroom because it helps with breathing at night... And because it drowns out all the bullshit that comes from living in a community like ours.

 

Our bad neighbor was the reason we moved. Life is much more peaceful now.

I've bitched about her here quite a bit, so instead of going into a full-blown story, here's some highlights:

• Left two dogs outside in all manner of weather with no shelter. Someone called animal control, they told her the dogs needed shelter...she put out a travel carrier that the bigger dog couldn't really fit in.
• Left four dogs in the house while leaving for weeks/months at a time. Her mom would dump a bag of dog food in the living room once every couple weeks and leave.
• Came home once after being gone for a month, kicked a dog out of the house, left again (this is how we ended up with Leia.)
• Knocked on our door one night after we'd gone to bed, but before we were asleep. Wanted to know if we had any liquor.
• Borrowed the broom. Never brought it back. (this is relatively small in the grand scheme of things, but it really irks me for some reason.)
• When she was home, she was always screaming at someone. Her friends, her dogs, her mother, her boyfriends. She and a guy got into this really violent argument, yelling and throwing things and breaking stuff. It got quiet, and I was honestly scared she killed him. Then they started having really. loud. sex.
• We suspected she was on drugs, but didn't really have proof. When we first moved in, she was around 19, and kinda pretty. Kinda trashy, too, but whatever. When she came back after being gone for a year or whatever, she looked strung out, she had the shakes, and she just looked...bad. This would also explain some of the periods of relative quiet, followed by angry outbursts. And the rotating cast of characters in and out of her house all the time.

At some point (probably after the neighbor across the street called the police instead of animal control about the dogs), she decided that we were the ones who kept calling the cops on her, and decided she hated us and wanted to make us miserable. Following that:

• Showed up after being gone for over a year, banged on our door to wake the dead at like, eight in the morning, and when we didn't answer fast enough, left a nasty note saying to get off her side of the driveway or she was calling the cops. Note also said something like, "I'm back and you can't do anything about it."
• Continued to scream at people in the house all the time. Since the house smelled awful, she always had the windows open, which pretty much meant we always left ours closed.
• Started yelling at the dogs to "shut the fuck up." Which would make them bark at her. (note about our dogs: they bark. They don't bark incessantly. We were always outside with them, and if they started barking, they came inside immediately.)
• Left us (and the neighbors across the street) these really passive-aggressive notes that sounded like a junior high kid had written it.
• Yelled something at us every time we left the house ("keep your damn beasties quiet!" "I'm not leaving, so get used to it!" "Stay off my side of the driveway!") Ran back inside immediately after delivering whatever message she felt the need to convey.
• Started yelling that we "slammed our car doors too loudly" every time we came home.
• Decided Eden played his music too loudly, blasted her radio and screamed along with the lyrics. I recorded some of that, but unfortunately, missed the worst of it (including changing the lyrics of "What's My Age Again" to "nobody likes you when you're assholes!" I was inclined to agree with her on that point, though we disagreed on who the asshole in question was.)
• Started threatening our dogs.

That was really the last straw. Our landlord knew we'd been having issues with her, and when she ramped it up even more, he found us a new house. Part of me was a little ashamed of moving, like...I don't know, leaving was letting her win. But then I realized we got a bigger house with a bigger yard, and way nicer neighbors, so really, who's the winner here?

 

My new neighbor invested heavily, serious upgrades to the double wide mobile home and acre he purchased. Built a shop. Paid for a shop to be built and it is wonderful. Over 40 ft long and 30 ft wide with an additional 10 ft over hang. All steel exterior with a hydraulic car lift to boot. Privacy fence on three sides, not my side, Now he's breeding German Shepards, has 9 of them all in different stages. Attacking the 4 ft wire fence as if they have rabies whenever me and my 3 yr old GS decide to walk to our barn. So nice. Talks about what he pays for his purchases and asks me personal questions. As in : " I don't mean to be too personal, but...." and he has wondered around and got himself involved in every ones business. I am sure he has some income from some where besides breeding and selling guard dogs, he must have, the two of them don't work and are my age. The last neighbor that owned that house breed a trained pit bulls for fighting and was a drug dealer. Had to be, they didn't work either. what is it with that fucking property.

 

I'd ask him to upgrade that fence, muy pronto.*

Sometimes you don't know about your neigbors $$. One our neighbors works as a real estate appraiser and his wife works part time at a school. They put three kids through college, and they frequently go on long hunting trips, go to out of state rodeos, take frequent vacations, etc. It wasn't until he described their hunting "camp" and the amount of land that I realized they have old family $$ from extensive land holdings.

* But it's not like I have great track record with neighbors and fences .
The back fence I've previously mentioned is going to need action on my part because of all the rain & storms we've had.

 

I am trying to think when I last had a bad neighbour. I think it was shortly after we moved back to Toronto. We shared a wall with a young couple who blare music at early hours. They weren't all that bad when you met them face-to-face and were only about a year or two younger than us (early 20s). Other than the music early in the morning, they were okay.

No other neighbours have been worse than that.

The worst thing I can say about our current neighbours is that they kind of stick to themselves.

 

Over the past few days some? all? of our "fence issue" neighbors--they're renters--have been moving out. Because they're part of a culture where having numerous relatives, and even acquaintances of distant relatives, live with you is common, I'm not sure if everyone is moving out or just a few folks. Hell, I can't tell who lives there from those who stay several months from those who just stay a few days from those just visit for a few hours.