crotchedy old neighbor

when i moved into my house, the first i heard of HOA was when i got the keys to the place, da what we said, nothing but a pain in the ass, $.02, RD

 

I had a neighbor call the cops once. I supposedly had human remains on my property.

 

I have a neighbor 2 houses down (in town) who junks....The rest of our neighborhood is clean with all new homes thanks to a tornado about 8 years ago...His yard always has at least 2 cars, a horse trailer (they don't even have horses), 2 slide-in campers, and 2 or 3 utility trailers, along with the rest of the clutter...Last summer he scrapped a 24' Uhaul truck right in the front yard!!!it gets better, he cut it up with a 4.5" grinder...the whole truck!!non-stop he was cutting all day and night, until I went out and cut his cord and popped his breaker at 2:30 am. then proceeded to ask him nicely to knock it off.....he's been quiet after 9pm ever since, but the city won't make him do anything about the mess...

 

Moved into my House in the 80's when it was county and the stupid decided we needed to be a city -- OK -- up until last year I had had the same neighbors for 20+ years, One of them behind me had leveraged his house to help out his kids and then the crash hit and he lost his house. Somewhere in the forecloseure, a complaint is issued on my rear deck/patio cover. It turns out my deck is 6" too long, Been there for 20+ years and now it is 6" too long f**k me. So I go to the city -- how about variance -- "we don't allow variances" -- OK -- So I have to move the supports and trim the deck 6" PITA. So suddenly, I'm reading the local paper and the city is preparing to give a cell tower a 186' variance so they can build a cell tower on city property and the city can get the "much needed income" -- I went ballistic at the town meeting and got the tower project canceled -- -- F 'em all and feed them rice

 

My brother -in-law told me this one time. A guy moved into a neighborhood. One of the new neighbors came over to talk to him. The new neighbor asked him what his old neighbors were like. He said they were not friendly, did not respect him, etc.etc. They were all lousy neighbors. The new neighbor said that is what he would probably find in this neighborhood too.

The point being, that you might be the problem. My brother-in-law always had a story with a point.

The other story I like was this one. I guy was driving down the road and he saw this guy holding a pig so the pig could eat the apples off the trees. The guy turned the car around and asked the farmer if that was not time consuming. The farmer said what is time to a pig.

 

Oh yeah, btdt. Had a few interesting neighbors in my day. Where I live, it's street parking pretty much and some times there are a ton of cars there. Well one of the neighbors got me orange stickered (junker car) now keep in mind I am daily driving this thing at this point. Have you ever had to remove one of those fucking things? Gummout doesn't work on the glue they use! I would make sure that when I was coming home from work at 1 or 2 AM that I would be positive to downshift into first or second gear at 35mph or so with basically what amounted to an open exhaust.

Besides that, haven't ever really had too much to complain about. Except the liquor bottles the idiot kids next door would throw into the yard after drinking under age. Shoulda thrown em in their pool. Oh well.

 

I got a wing nut across from me that actually bought an old truck put plates/insurance on it just to park in front so I can`t park there. Who`s laughing ? He`s the idiot throwing away $600. - $800.00 a year !!!! LOL !!!!!!!!!!!

 

Man, lots of stories here, good and bad.

I learned awhile back that when buying a house, keep in mind you're buying into a neighborhood too, and that good neighbors can be as important as a good house. Especially if in town or a developed sub or community.

We had neighbors from Hell once. They're still in their old rundown, blight-striken place while we moved from our nice home next to them. Our former place has since degraded almost to the same level and the place next door. Sad to see it but - oh well, no longer our concern.

We're now in an unrestricted neighborhood where the unwritten rules of consideration and mutual respect are enforced by all, if you get my meaning.

 

I'm lucky most of my neighbors are illegal. I've gotten a few letters but usually it's just when the county does there cleanup rounds. Did have alot of problems with noise after 10p for a while a few calls took care of that.. that's my cut off it's bad enough I have to wake up a 4:30a and typically go to bed at 8ish.

 

A few years ago the city wanted to limit the number of "old", "junk", or "eyesore" cars on private property. I went to city hall when the idea was going to be discussed. The council talked about what conditions made something a nuisance. I asked what was a nuisance, the car or the person constantly calling and complaining.

In your case the latter is the nuisance. Good luck.

 

25 years ago I owned a house in a beach neighborhood, all 30 foot
wide lots. Everyone parked on the space between there house and
the next house, 1/2 on their property, 1/2 on the next property. I had
a double lot so I was the only one on the street with parking on his
own property. I came around the corner one day and found my neighbors
idiot son working on his mustang, and wiping his hands off on my new
siding! The next day the surveyer came, marled the property lines and
a fence went up- they now had to park in a city lot a block away!
They were really pissed off when I allowed the neighbor across the street
to use my driveway to park her son's car as they had no room. Karma
is a bitch!

 

So,did you?

 

That's quite a bit of an overkill-glad we're not neighbors. Did you possibly consider just speaking to the parents,educating the kid-teaching him how to be a good neighbor, and having the kid clean your siding? Seems to me that YOU were the crappy neighbor here. Heaven forbid someone spits on your sidewalk. JMTC

 

the click-click of a pump and a 94-3030 are great sounds, a high chain link fence and junk yard like dog work wonders. but how would one to deal with a 30 something year old drunk who drinks around 3- 12 packs a day,lays around on welfare.partys every week end from 2000 to 0900 hours.when the cops fail to be able to do anything?

 

I was the neighbor from hell when I was a kid. My parents lived on a corner and I had cars parked outside the fence all around the perimeter. Most were donor cars and junkers. The good ones were in the yard. We also had wild parties complete with burnout contests in the street complete with a bleach box. We used to grade our parties on how many cop cars showed up. All of the neighbors were invited and many showed up and got shitfaced with us, lol. In all, they were pretty good and I never had a complaint lodged when I lived there. We always helped them with their cars and never took a cent for payment.

I bought my house in 1986 especially since it is a bit remote with no close neighbors. I back up to state land on 2 sides, my neighbor next door (who turned the ultimate shit dump into a nice house) runs a business out of his double-plot yard, but you'd never know it from the street and his equipment that he parks there is neat all the time. One of his crew backed into my fence last year and broke a piece of my stockade fence. He noticed it and replaced 3 other sections and a couple of posts while he was at it. So I can't complain.

The best bet when you want to buy is to scope out the surroundings first especially if you tinker with old iron.

Bob

 

Me and my wife just bought our first house last july, and after reading all these stories I was real picky about the neighborhood we were in. We ended up moving into a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood with half retired folk, and half young couples like us. There is a lot of rv's and snowmobile trailers, and ice houses and all that sort of thing stored in side yards and backyards here.

When I lived with my parents as a teen, we got hassled by a neighbor about a o/t project car I had and it came down to a inspector visiting us one day. The yard was very well kept and the only problem was the appearance of this non operating vehicle in the driveway. The inspector was freindly enough to give me the tip that 20 dollars worth of gray rattle can primer and current tabs would make so he wouldn't have to come back anymore.

 

None that they found. I opened the hearse but not the crawl space.

 

Not car related, but when I was a kid the mean sob next door shot our dog. It was a golden retriever and was not a nuisance dog, but the jerk shot him anyway. About 10 or so years later I got the news that he had been in a fire and had severe burns. I was just all broken up about it.

Did have a couple of near code violations on my caddy. They complained about the spare tire I had on the ground behind it. I just threw it in the trunk. Also they said it needed to be operable around the time I moved, so I just moved it to the new place. Got a really cool brother in law with a truck and trailer.

 

Man have I had some nightmare neighbors. Once I came home to tickets for expired registration on three of my cars (All three had current tags and insurance and were driven regularly!) That same week I came home to a ticket on my 12foot 1959 camping trailer for being parked on the street in excess of two weeks (It was still hooked up to my truck, I had bought it that morning only 8 hours earlier). Another day I came home just in time as a tow truck was hooking up an old pontiac I had, the parking enforcement officer said it was an "abandoned vehicle". (There's was another time that it was towed for the same reason, I had to pay $384 for 10 hours of being in impound. The police department said "our mistake" and it was a full 30 days later that I was reimbursed.)

The tickets were dismissed, the car didn't get towed. I was in no wrong. Then harassing notes started showing up taped to the front door in the middle of the night, anonymous of course. I ended up finding out from a friend who does the guys yardwork that it was a sheriff down the street who was behind all of it. That's why the city was so quick to take his word and issue tickets.

After all that I ended up moving to a cool little place in the hills, My neighbors had 8 vehicles and three trailers. It ended up being hell from day one. I could write a book about the two years I was there.

They had that mentality of, "it's ok if we have lots of cars but nobody else can".

In my experience, I've come to the conclusion that there's no keeping miserable people happy.

Oh yeah, and the best neighbors are NO NEIGHBORS!!!

 

This is the best suggestion yet. Treat them with respect, until it's time not to, then get busy.

 

You got to love neighbors like that! You just need to get creative and display goody stuff well insite of all your neighbors. My neighbors know if they piss me off I will just get more old cars sitting around my place just to make there place look worse! Afew of them have told me that themselves. Theres a house in my area that the neighbors were complaining that the guy needs to clean up and paint his house. He did just that, he painted his house a bright green with reddish orange trim and then left it that way for like 5 years. Wonder what the others thought about that then?

 

One day I hope to live somewhere where my neighbors are at the minimum 200 yds away. Right now it's more like 15-20 ft between houses.

 

I have 20 acres of woods. On the neighbor's 20 acres there is another 10 acres of woods adjoining my property. Where I want to put a house in the middle of my property is 200+ yards away from the neighbor's house. When he ties his dogs outside they bark a lot. Although not like they are next door, you can hear them surprisingly well from where my house will be. Maybe a few square miles in West Virginia or Montana would work?

 

And then you can deal with folks trying to haul stuff off because they "found it abandoned out in the country".
Larry T

 

Larry can I buy that space behind your place? ^^^

 

I have more trouble with people giving me stuff. A stolen Lincoln Mk VIII was burned in my driveway just off the road. An Escort was burned in the road in front of my place. In addition to routine the McDonalds bags and empty cans long the road, people from town a few miles away ocasionally dump brush, wood, old furniture, piles of dirt, etc.

 

I guess I have been pretty lucky! For the last 4 months I had rolling '62 Studebaker chassis with a 327/th350 sitting on the street in front of my house. I live in a pretty nice suburban nieghborhood. I kept bugging my brother to let me borrow his car trailor, but it seemed one of my nephews or his son-in-law always had it tied up! Finally my old buddy came down over the holidays, and we yanked the engine and trans (going in my '29 Chevy) and cut up the frame with a torch. I'm glad I got rid of it before I was cited and somebody complained about my temporary garage in the driveway! That garage had a ripped cover on it for two weeks untill my replacement cover arrived.

 

Had a girlfriend who's neighbors kept bitching about and calling animal control over her dog "barking", everytime I was over it was their dog barking like crazy, came reeeal close to getting in a fight with the old man one day but was able to brush it off. 2-3 days later he died in a motorcycle accident. I wasn't sure how to feel about it, but it was nice that the problem went away.

 

Trim up something like this for him or her

 

the people on my street used to bitch about my stuff.until i started fixing their mowers&weedwackers,the lady across the street was one that really bitched,,she told me she got a quote to have some bushes in her yard removed ($1200.). i pulled them up with my winch and stacked them for the trashman,,now i can do no wrong....