sucky neighbor

[Hello Kitty]

So we've been happy in this same house for 13 years now. Quiet and peaceful neighborhood. Our neighbor (more like neighboor) immediately behind us, however, can be annoying as heck. We share the backyard fence. He is NOT a kid, in his late 30's with wife and children.

- For a few months he kept throwing his cigarette butts over the fence. WTF??? My spouse kept throwing them back over, but that didn't do diddly squat. It only stopped after my spouse deliberately threw the butts into the neighboor's pool.

- The fence needed replacing. The other neighbors used a decent company to put up the fence, but neighboor wanted to go with a cheaper company. Fine, whatever. Except he tells the workers to MOVE THE FENCE LINE TO INCREASE HIS BACKYARD. WTF??? My husband has the workers stop and has it out with the neighboor. "Oh, but see it's a straighter line now, I'm sure it was supposed to be like that." Um yeah, right. Neighboor insists on hiring a surveyor, who couldn't determine anything. Fence goes back in old spot (and is crappier than our fence on the other side).

- We have a mimosa tree our backyard, was there when we bought the house. Neighboor complains a lot about the flowers going into his pool. My husband does cut back tree periodically, and tells neighbors to feel free to cut anything growing over the fence line. Neighboor still complains. Whatever.

- Our big walnut tree died, so got cut down. Squirrels mourn. Neighboor whines and whines because it shaded his house in the summer. "It's 10 degrees hotter in my house now!!! I had to install AIR CONDITIONING!" Neighboor keeps hassling us, asking if/when we're replacing the tree. Um...the old tree was huge because it was decades old. Even if we replanted, it would take forever to get tall enough to shade your house. My spouse is noncommittal. Neighboor finally gives up hope and plants two little trees in the 3 inch strip of dirt in his backyard (rest is pool/cement). I can still barely see the trees above the fence line (wouldn't hardly give shade to a skinny cat), and it's been at least 6 years.

Luckily he hasn't given us any grief in a while. Anybody else have 'interesting' neighbors?

[flybye023]

Don't know if it's interesting; the story is alot like yours. The neighbor was kinda white trash. Loud and obnoxious at all hours, threw beer/pop cans over the fence into our back yard, backed into our fence with his big gigantic pickup until he knocked it over. Denied that he knocked over said fence. (Somebody else did it, huh? Was it the lawn gnomes? ) Luckily the bank foreclosed on them and the new neighbors are nicer. They let their dogs up on the roof though and the stupid animals walk back and forth, howling and whining.

[Difdi]

Sortof a sucky neighbor and a sucky landscaper rolled into one.

My parents have a large back yard, and one tree near the house died for no apparent reason one year. They had some concerns about branches falling off and hitting the house, so they hired a tree cutting service to come and take it down.

So far so good. The company asks my parents to ask their next door neighbor if they can drop tree sections in the neighbors yard before hauling them away. Neighbor refuses and my parents let the company know.

The company, entirely on it's own initiative, then calls the neighbors, and asks them if they'd like some "free firewood". Neighbors jump at the chance, and tell the company yes.

Work crew shows up, takes down the tree quite professionally, but despite the earlier refusal by the neighbors, the work crew drops branches and log sections in the neighbor's yard. And does not haul even the tiniest scrap away afterwards!

The neighbor then becomes sucky, and holds my parents responsible for the damage to their yard and all the huge log sections lying all over. As if it was my parent's fault the neighbors had allowed the company to give them "Free Firewood!"

It never got as far as a lawsuit against my parents, but the neighbors still aren't speaking to them.

[TTAZ]

I've talked about the couple I have upstairs now that won't stop screwing, well here's an update on them, the girl is gone. There was a HUGE fight Sunday night with what sounded like furniture being thrown and loud screaming sobs "because you hate me!" "WELL FUCK YOU!", etc. I called the cops. The cops tell the psycho girl she needs to go. She then proceeds to pace up and down the sidewalk screaming "I NEED MY STUFF" and "I NOW YOU STILL LOVE ME!!" FInally she goes and now that he's alone up there we've all had incredible nights sleep. Now I wonder if the reason that their escapades only lasted 3 or 4 minutes tops was because he just wanted to get it over with to shut her up. Psycho.

My FAVORITE neighbor story though was the bona-fide crazy lady that lived here when I first moved in. She was on numerous meds, but would sometimes go off of them. I actually ended up reporting her to the authorities just so her caseworker would come by, and when they saw the shaoe she was in, she was taken away to a group home, which honestly was for the best. However, during one of the first times she went of her meds, my mother happened to be over and was playing some sort of Indian drum music to go with her selection of Walela (Cherokee trio) and Robbie Robertson (another Native musician). My mom has a tendency to play her music loud during the day, not window rattling, but loud enough so the drums would carry through the vents. Neighbor lady called the cops saying that INDIANS HAD SURROUNDED THE APARTMENT AND WERE COMING TO SCALP HER. I know she had mental problems, but I laughed so hard when I heard about it, I nearly vomited. The next time I saw her when I was on my way to work and she was outside, she asked where I was headed and I told her I was off to count coup.

Mean, I know, but I couldn't help myself.

[powerboy]

I had a neighbor that absolutely hated my whole family. She shot at my parents, luckily she shot a basketball. She nailed a rusty nail in through the fence. She shot at one of my late cats, she shot the chin. Yes we filed a lawsuit against her. And yes we had the police come out. One of the officers saw the nail and took a pic of it. She got served with the papers on her Birthday. She got sent to jail for 3 months. And we filed a restraining order against her, the judge thought it would be a great idea. I am glad that she is gone. My family had never done anything to her. Infact, a couple of years before that, I would take care of her lawn. Ofcourse she would pay me.

[Boochan]

No dramas here, even though I live on a main road route..
People behind us are elderly and friendly
Neighbours to the left are quiet, very friendly.
Neighbour to the right is a Dermatology Clinic.

No complaints.

[Shangri-laschild]

Nice neighbors though on either side there are a set of kids and when they were all about 2-4 they sure liked to escape the clothes and run around where ever. Awesome parents though who did what they could Friendly children though they were a bit scared of the motorcycle till I showed it to them.

[Misanthropical]

In our old neighborhood, a neighbor took offence that I had a problem with his son punching my daughter in the face for no reason.

The mother screamed at me that her children could do what they wanted when they wanted. I told her to grow up and if her son laid another finger on my daughter, my daughter would fight back and win.

The father then came over and started cussing me out and threatening me, saying if we did anything we wouldn't like what he would do.

The police took a report and that's it. It's not against the law for him to threaten me unless it's a specific threat.

They started following me around in their car. Once again a call to the police. They can't do anything about the stalking, since I never dated nor was married to the family, which is the only way to get a restraining order against someone in PA.

The teenage daughter and her friends came over and started screaming obseneities at me, because I was "scaring" her little brother by standing on my porch and watching my children play.

She and her friends were told to go away, which lead to the parents coming over and once again threating and screaming at us. The husband hid behind his wife when he saw my husband and screamed at my husband from behind his wife.

The police came out again and for the first time went over and talked to them. Only after the third police report.

The apt. manager said she couldn't do anything to them without a police report. I gave them to her and she threatened to evict both of us. This same woman pleaded with us to stay when we gave notice we were moving out.

Where we live now, the only thing that our neighbor does to bother us is having their children playing in the parking lot at all hours of the night, but to their credit, they will not allow their children to hurt mine and will come over to apologize and tell me it won't happen again.

[protege]

My neighbors are pretty cool. They pretty much keep to themselves, yet have offered to help me out if I need it. My *parents'* neighbors, well, they're another story... I've posted about them before, many times. They seemed normal when they moved in, but it wasn't to last.

Almost immediately, things changed. For one, they covered each and every window in the house. They didn't want "anyone peeking in." Never mind that the windows in the front are 8 feet off the ground, the Firebird in the garage hasn't moved since they arrived 15 years ago, and everyone else in the borough has a life

Then they started harassing the neighborhood kids about their yard. Apparently, everyone was using their yard as a shortcut. Kinda hard to do that with the fence in back, and the bushes along both property lines Didn't stop them from harassing the kids about it. As if that wasn't enough, don't even bother walking your dog down the street. (To them, every dog is going to shit on their grass...) Even if you're on the other side, they'll blind you with a high-powered flashlight. Karma got them one afternoon though--another neighbor's Newfie got out...and took a "power dump" on their grass

They just loved to bother the neighborhood kids. What usually happened, was that if a ball landed in their yard, they'd keep it. The rule *supposedly* was, instead of climbing the fence, we were supposed to knock on the door and they'd return it. Did that happen? Hell no--they refused to come to the door!

That's about the time that their house got egged. About once a month, they'd get hit. We all knew who did it, (and no, my family did *not* do it) but since nobody could stand them, nobody said a thing. It didn't stop though--one Halloween, they got hit *twice* in one night! Not only that, but their bushes and trees got a lovely covering of TP, along with both cars getting keyed.

Shortly after that, the spotlights, motion detectors, and cameras went up. The place looks like the Nazi prison in "The Great Escape" at night. Didn't stop the neighborhood kids from retaliating over earlier harassment. The place still got egged occasionally. However, kids soon found a new target--the white rock in their front yard. I don't know why you'd want a massive white rock a foot from the street, but whatever. That thing was just *begging* to get tagged or have dogs piss on it. Both events happened *multiple* times...and yes, my family *did* get blamed for it.

Speaking of the cameras, did I mention that they'd take photos of various people? For example, I'd be out washing or working on the car, and I'd hear a distinctive "click" from their porch. The best one came when one of their flowers got broken, and the wife (who literally *was* crazy--she lost her hospital job because of it) called the cops (who have since been dubbed "The Dahlia Squad") over it. As usual, we got blamed. Photos of my brother sitting on the couch in *our* house were offered as proof. Needless to say, the cop wasn't amused.

We had the cops called on us many times over stupid crap like that. They're a well-known joke at the police station, and in the borough. We've had the cops called on us for parking in front of their house (which is on a *public* street, BTW); for working on vehicles in *our* driveway; or anything else they want to blame us for. We've had certified letters sent to us, a few forgeries of letters from various county officials, and others. Needless to say, quite a few people can't stand them, and they think that "they're all out to get us" as if they've done nothing wrong...

But, they leave me alone for some reason. Maybe it's because I haven't really done anything to them (other than parking in front of their house just to torque them off ), or maybe it's because I take cars apart as a hobby. Maybe it's also because I got in that fool's face when he threatened to call the cops on me. (This was over the 'blue cloud' that came from the Tercel every morning. Supposedly, it was killing his plants...)

[Gerrinson]

Gah, just reread it, long post. Sorry!

When I lived with my best friend we had to take the old front porch off the house. It was originally built in the '30s and when we got underneath we discovered it wasn't supported by posts, like we thought, but old telephone poles resting horizontally on cinder blocks.

We wound having to cut the 4 telephone poles into pieces, with proper ppe because those things are loaded with chemicals - this is important. We also dug up 80 cinder blocks that were half buried in the ground. Most of them were stained where chemicals had leeched out of the poles over time. Ick.

So, we wound up piling the tainted cinder blocks and the toxic telephone pole pieces off to the side of the porch, in the front yard but behind the bushes so they couldn't be seen from the road. They could, of course, be seen from the neighbor's house.

We call a few places about disposing of these and no place local will take them because of the stuff they were treated with. In the mean time, fall turns into winter and we get a couple big snowstorms. The pile of toxic junk is buried in snow. Neighbor calls to complain about it saying that we ruined his Thanksgiving because he could 'see the mountain of garbage' and 'it ruined his appetite'. Of course, there was so much snow all you could see was...snow. He must lose a lot of weight in winter.

Anyway, he calls to complain, calls the city, finally calls the health department and reports that the 'garbage' is attracting rats. He also produces one dead rat as evidence. Personally, I don't think it was this deadly pile of stuff that can't be eaten by anything that was attracting rats. It might have something to do with the giant compost pile in his back yard, but what do I know...

Anyway, health department comes in, demands that it be removed immediately. We ask them for the name of a company that will dispose of it properly. They don't know, but we have to get rid of it. We finally tracked down a company in a different state that charged an enormous sum of money to pick it up and dispose of the garbage. Neighbor calls to complain that the truck was parked with one set of wheels on his lawn and now it will be RUINED FOR THE SUMMER!!eleventy!! He threatens to sue unless we compensate him $3,000.00 for damage to his yard. An 8 foot long by 10 inch wide strip of yard = $3,000? Yeah, not so much. He never did wind up in court with that case. Probably because all the pictures he took after the snow melted failed to show any damage to his grass.

He would then call to complain about things like our cars being parked in our driveway, but his landscaper needed half of our horseshoe driveway so they could unload their equipment. We used to nice enough to move for things like that, so now he was entitled to demand it. He called to complain that we put our garbage up by the road the night before garbage day and he was going to call the police because we were attracting rats again. We pointed out his garbage was by the road, too, as was garbage for every house on the street. His grown daughter came to visit him, used our driveway without asking, then came over to scream at us for causing her father to suffer 'stress'. We told her to move her car or it would be towed. That tow truck driver had a good laugh when she threatened to sue him for towing her car...

So, finally, I've moved out, and now the old man is selling his house to move to Florida. Apparently he came over to tell my friend that he (my friend) is the best neighbor that's ever lived in that house and he wanted my friend to know how much he appreciated having such a good neighbor for the last few years in the neighborhood.

[Dreamstalker]

When I was in grade school and we lived in what was semi-affectionately known as "the crackhouse" (older duplex where the bathroom was a disaster area and the flooring in front of my bedroom door was just a few ill-timed stomps away from falling into the basement, other than that the place was very nice though ), we had a few characters. Our upstairs neighbors were awesome (sweet elderly Jewish couple); every night the wife would engage in what we called "Doppler exercise". Basically powerwalking around the apartment..boomBoomBoomBOOMBOOMBoomBoomboomboom... Not annoying at all, just amusing as we could set our watches by it.

One neighbor was an Indian couple who would bring "extra" food over to us every so often...yummy. The husband loved to cook and would at times make way too much.

Our neighbor on the other side...he was a palletload of Froot Loops. Some kind of city councilman. There was a hole in the fence up in back of our houses, not quite anyone's property. I would use that as a shortcut from school as it egressed entirely into our yard (right on our garage roof). The dude took great offense at this and claimed trespassing, said he owned a gun and would shoot me if I did it again (I believe a police report was filed for that threat, but as he was a city bigwig nothing was done that I know of). Our cats were outdoor kitties at the time (there was a border fence and they stayed in our yard) he also claimed they were digging up his flowers (what flowers) and he would shoot them. We never did find out if the gun-owning claim was real.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Anybody else have 'interesting' neighbors?

*sigh* http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=23616

Our closer neighbors (just across the road) are nice enough people. Save for the fact that they were involved in one of the largest drug busts that that the tri-county area has known in decades. But that's the weird thing. Other than the fact that they had a massive garden of happy grass under their front porch, they're actually really nice people. They even had us over a few times when they first moved in, and we were treated to authentic Cuban dining *drools* Though I'd take them over the people in the thread above any day; they keep their yard clean, and they're quiet. It's more than I can say for other neighbors.

[protege]

The dude took great offense at this and claimed trespassing, said he owned a gun and would shoot me if I did it again (I believe a police report was filed for that threat, but as he was a city bigwig nothing was done that I know of).

Now that's just messed up. "Trespassing" on your own property? How the hell is that possible? Speaking of trespassing, after my parents' neighbors finally lost it, a *huge* wooden fence went up around their entire back yard, followed by various thick shrubs along the property line in front, and a row of hedges along the street. (That fence replaced a cheap chain-link one, that wasn't even installed correctly. At the time, there was a row of pussy willow trees there, and nobody wanted to rip them out...my parents said losing a foot of grass wasn't a big deal, and the fence got shifted over the property line.)

As if that wasn't enough, they stapled "no trespassing" signs only on our side of the fence (Kinda funny, since they had to trespass on *our* yard to paint the fence and install those signs...

Needless to say, those promptly came down--when my mother saw that, she was pissed, and ripped them off. How they knew that she did that, I don't know (the signs were invisible from the street)...unless they came into our yard again...but the cops did get called. Nothing came of it, since 1. the idiots were on *our* property at the time, and 2. since the new fence was installed exactly where the old one was, technically it was *ours* to begin with.

The outcome was that they started throwing their yard waste over the fence..and after some of that crap landed on my father, he called the cops. Cops came, and told them to knock it off. Goofballs said they "had a right" to do that. Again, the cops said not to do that, otherwise they'd be charged with littering. Whatever, it hasn't happened again.

I'm just surprised that some of the other things haven't landed us into trouble. Things such as a few of the MG parts on the back patio (gas tank, and other nasty stuff), or even that the dead car was sometimes in the driveway. "Sometimes" meaning we'd push it outside, work on it, then roll it back into the garage.

Surprised, and confused, I guess...mainly because they got our other neighbor into trouble with the borough, because he had a landscaping business and kept the trailer in his driveway. (There's actually an ordinance against that...which can be dealt with by getting a variance.) Also, these same idiots sent a certified (complaint) letter to the guy down the street about the "unsightly" object in his yard. Anyone want to guess what it was? A kiddie pool leaning up against their storage shed!

[IT Grunt]

I've got one of my own. Things have calmed down a good bit since, but here's the story:

My house is in a rather new development, and when I bought my lot, both lots on either side of me were still bare dirt. The front corners of each lot were marked with white posts (the original pins were destroyed during utility work, but the rear pins were still in place.) I left them there, because they were very convenient for figuring out where the line was so I didn't accidentally do anything to an adjacent lot.

A few months later, a next door lot is purchased, and a middle-aged couple moves in. Now, when I bought my lot, the front quarter was fill dirt that had been bulldozed from the hillside across from us to make lots on that side. It tapered off and joined with the original ground. This ground was still the way God made it, with a creek running through it and LOTS of briars, brambles, weeds, trees, and weeds. BIG weeds. 5' tall weeds. Since we had never owned a house before, I didn't have the equipment to deal with it. I did manage to get one of my mom's old gas trimmers running and get the weeds closest to the house cut down to make room for the deck, but I wasn't concerned about the rest of it for the moment.

Anyways, another couple of months later, I get this anonymous letter in the mail. No return address, handwritten address. In it, I am basically blasted for my backyard (I didn't grow it that way on purpose, folks!), chastising me for mowing only the front and not the back. (How do you 'mow' weeds!?) My mower would have had the hell beat out of it if I even tried it. It was signed, "The concerned homeowners of <development>". Now, there were only 2 lots that bordered mine. The lot on the other side, which had also been recently purchased, was just as bad as mine. The other neighbor kept his back yard fairly well maintained, but only because the person who owned the lot before had cleared it (there was still a concrete pad there where a house had stood). Sherlock Holmes would scoff at the simplicity of this one.

So, I basically ignored it. I did eventually get a good trimmer and was able to get most of the weeds down to the creek cleared and get somewhat of a back yard. Meanwhile, the neighbor who I strongly suspected sent the letter began to mow not only his yard, but mine as well, right up to the side of my house. This concerned me, especially since during his moving it, a moving truck knocked down the white post that marked the line. Naturally I thought he thought it was his. So, knowing the location of the original post (I measured it for just such an occurance), I put a simple wooden stake up. This pissed him off royally, and set off the following incidents:

- Parked his truck as close as possible to the stake and the line.

- Revved his truck every morning, as loud as possible, at 5:00 AM. Our bedroom was on that side of the house.

- Spun out constantly, leaving mud tracks through the yard and kicking rocks into my yard.

This continued for well over a year. Then, while I was on a business trip, I get a call from my wife that the pole has disappeared. Now there's really only one suspect, so I ask my wife to talk to this guy to see if he knew what happened to it, and perhaps get some insight into what has this guy pissed off. He went off, claimed he knew nothing. Threatened to call a surveyor (more on that in a minute), and basically scared the shit out of my wife. My wife retreats to the house, and then hears what sounds like him running around his house hooting and hollering, firing off a gun. I wish she'd called the sheriff right then and there, but she was scared shitless and couldn't think of much else.

So, to one up this guy, I call a surveyor myself. In fact, the exact same surveyor who had surveyed and divided the land into lots in the first place, and thus had records of where the pins were set. Had him reset the front pin on that line. Now during his tirade to my wife, he threatened there would be trouble if the stake had turned out to be on his land. Turned out, it was actually a foot onto /my/ side. The line was further into his lot than we thought, which only pissed him off more.

This started a series of constant verbal abuse from him, to both my wife and myself. He put up landscaping timbers along the line, and stretched a string across with with a 'NO TRESPASSING' sign. (Has the childishness of this situation started to show yet?). He'd complained to my wife about the footprints of the surveyor being on his lot. Um.. duh. How would he put the pin in? Telekinesis? This continued for well over three months, until one day he was at it so bad my wife was in tears, so I called the sheriff. I explained the situation, also explained that I was in the belief that this man wanted a confrontation and was calling me out. So, they were going to send a unit out to deal with it.

The sheriff came. Brought us out together, introduced us and let the guy tell his side of the story. He claimed my wife accused him of stealing the pole (duh... who else would have?), and that if I wanted a bad neighbor, he'd give me one. I countered with his truck revving, and his response was that was how he warmed up his truck. By revving it into the red zone 60 times in a row each morning at 5:00 AM? (The engine started sounding pretty bad later.) I explained the situation, in that I felt uncomfortable with him mowing my lawn, and the sheriff helped dispel my fears that his doing so would cause him to be able to claim my land. I had heard about a law that if someone does something to your land, and you do not challenge it for 7 years, they can claim it. Turns out that only applies if they build on it. However, I still didn't like it because if my lawn was not mowed yet it made it look ugly.

After that, the situation calmed down. He still revs now and then, but no where near the level that he did, and he respects the line. To say the least, it was one hell of a first experience with property ownership.

[XCashier]

Currently, my neighbors are pretty good. The one who has the parking space next to mine can't park their car worth a damn, it's always over part of my space. But that's the biggest complaint I have against any of my current neighbors, and that's a minor irritation.

When we had the house in Phoenix, that was a different story. Most of our neighbors were very nice and kept to themselves, but we were on a corner lot and that attracted all the nogoodniks in the neighborhood. Twice we had a bunch of people convening uninvinted on our front yard, one of which was a screaming fight where some folks threatened to kill other folks, then claimed "we didn't do nothing!" when we confronted them. I've had the flowers stolen off my rosebushes, the garden hose used without permission, my car broken into and rifled through, my MIL's pickup stolen from in front of our house (broken glass where the truck was parked), the window in my son's bedroom smashed and a crack pipe left on the front lawn! I loved that house, but I could've done without that nonsense.