Are You Afraid Of Your Neighbors?

[gerntz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rk911 i get that but you also don’t want to make yourself EZ pickins for a crime if opportunity.

We've lived on this dead end street of 40 houses for 30 years. Two cars were broken into one night 10-20 years ago. With large unfenced yards, hard to sneak around.

[tmm99]

How about a homicide? A guy who was staying temporarily with his parents who lived three doors down from me was arrested for murder last year. I saw the whole arrest thing with the police squad moving in with their ballistic shields. I thought I lived in a safe and peaceful neighbourhood until then. But wait, maybe it is a safe and peaceful neighbourhood now that this guy is gone?

I guess you never know. We live in a residential area. We see small children riding bikes on the street, young kids walking to school, people walking the dogs, etc, etc.

[gerntz]

All this reminds me of the time when I was a teen when my Mom came home & found a brick on the kitchen table. She asked Dad, sister, & me if we put it there & honestly we all said no. She about lost her mind for the next few days & talked to/phoned the neighbors trying to figure that out &finally called the police who said, well, OK, you gained a brick. What's the problem? The other three of us just shrugged it off but it was pretty strange.

We did leave the basement garage door unlocked ALL the time. I mean 80% of the neighbors had lived there for 25+ years & most knew this. We were the newcomers. Finally Dad's sister who lived a block away stopped by & asked if we found the brick she had left! It was from the place Dad had worked for years that was being torn down & she thought Dad might want to have it(Why). He went nuts because a) he didn't care & b) the worry it caused Mom.

Still laugh about it. Am now.

[Time2]

I'm signed up with Nextdoor, but rarely see anything that matters.
Don't really fear my neighbors, but I do have neighbor stories. I live in basically a nice older subdivision with just about 100 homes. My wife and I moved in 25 years ago, The next door neighbor moved in about 17 yrs ago ago, and the one across the street maybe 10 yrs ago.
When the neighbor next door moved in I thought it was great, the had kids
just the age of my kids, within a week my daughter said being friends with the neighbors wasn't going to happen, and neither my son or daughter were friends with them from ages 10 and 12 until they moved out.
There were police at they neighbors house half a dozen time or more for any number of infractions they made. One time their were 4 state police cars out front and the boys were still in there middle teens. The mother died sometime after this.

The husbands girl friend had two busts, one for cocaine and another for heroin, her daughter passed out at a red light with her baby in the car seat, had drugs in her purse.

The greatest excitement was a day my wife called me at work and said she was outside and hear gunshots at the house next door. I ask if she called the police, she no, so I started for home and I called the police, I heard the officer clicking on her computer and she said, you can call your wife back, what she heard were just two flash/bangs thrown into your neighbors house.
The drug police did a raid on the house and took the inhabitants to jail,
The paper only had one son's name in connection with a bust of 100 grams of methamphetamine.

One spring my wife did cleaning of an fenced in shed area on the side of our home next to the neighbor. She came and ask me to remove 3 hypodermic needles from inside the shed. They had been climbing the 6 ft fence and going in the shed to shoot their drugs!
The neighbors across the street are worse. If ask, I'll write a blurb about them. You will ask, why isn't somebody in jail.

[maestro]

ND takes serious discipline to be a member. The larger the 'neighborhood ' you subscribe to, the greater the need for 'discipline', due to the varied cultures and political views. Crazy at times. I like it for recommendations on contractors and how they've worked out for home improvements and maintenance.

[rk911]

Time2's post reminded me of a neighbor we had for 5-6 year about 5-yrs ago. i had put this guy out of my mind a long time ago.

this guy rented a house a few doors down and across the street from us and initially seemed nice, friendly and quiet. living there with him was a woman that i soon learned was his ex-wife along with three kids, a girl about 16 and two boys, 13 and 8.

things went downhill pretty fast. there was an ever changing cast of characters living there short term but one guy was pretty weird. i was working in our garage one warm day with the overhead door open. i had my back to the door but had the feeling of being watched. when i turned around i saw this guy standing there just looking at me but not saying a word. i asked him what he wanted and he asked if i had a scrap length of chain. i did and gave it to him. then he asked me for a padlock which i did not have. without a word he turned and walked away.

one day near Christmas as we were preparing dinner we saw red flashing lights bouncing off the kitchen ceiling. walking out to the driveway i see the ambulance, truck and two marked squads that were joined by the PD watch commander in his unmarked vehicle. about 20-min later the medics wheeled out their gurney with a covered body on it. turns out the daughter's girlfriend overdosed on heroin earlier in the day and died in her bed. either they waited several hours to report the death or they didn't discover the body until hours later. i heard both versions. years later after they moved out a buddy on the force told me that some of occupants of the house were investigated for narcotics trafficking.

i casually knew the guy that owned the house. he had totally renovated the house from the previous owner, a very nice elderly couple. the husband died, the wife moved in with relatives and the house went on the market. "bill" put the house up for rent hoping to make some money. this was during the real estate down turn. so "steve" et al moved in. flash forward 5 or 6-years and one day i realize that the family had vanished. "bill" showed up the next day and took me through the house. it was trashed top to bottom. lots of garbage and junk left. apparently first-time landlord "bill" never conducted periodic inspections. he told me that "Steve" hadn't paid rent in forever and it took 8-months to get them evicted. a week or two later "Bill" was back with his truck and trailer and was cleaning out the house. i asked him what he was going to do with all the junk and garbage. he smiled and told me he learned where "Steve" had moved and was going to dump all of the junk on his lawn. sweet!

"Bill" repaired and painted and put the house up for sale. in short order we had new neighbors...a very nice younger couple. a nice addition to the neighborhood.

"Steve" was the gift that just kept on giving.

[meleana]

That is why we lived in the woods on a lot of land with no neighbors for 32 years. Was great.



Now soon we will be moving to a HOA community with neighbors surrounding us on 3 sides. Hope the neighbors are nice and hope they are quiet.



Right now we live in a rental house until our new home is built with some neighbors around. None of them introduced themselves to us. We rarely see anyone, just their cars coming and going.

[tsturbo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 I think holding back when you see/hear stuff only makes things worse. Makes more sense to talk with the neighbor, at least once. MJ is not a big thing in a lot of places.

Legal in my state👍😎

[Souschef]

rk911's post reminded me of an incident some years ago. In a house across the street, the father moved out and the 20 something son lived there.

The night before we were going on a trip, he had a party with a live band. After 10 PM we called the cops twice to shut it down. When it was shut down, the drunks came stumbling out across the street and peed on my palm tree. I was hiding behind a hedge with a .45 to defend my property, if need be.
Fortunately that was the last straw and dad kicked the kid out of the house.

[DAYDREAMER]

We love our neighbors. We live in the back of 3 acres with forest behind us. We never see neighbors. They are the best!

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by meleana That is why we lived in the woods on a lot of land with no neighbors for 32 years. Was great. Now soon we will be moving to a HOA community with neighbors surrounding us on 3 sides. Hope the neighbors are nice and hope they are quiet. Right now we live in a rental house until our new home is built with some neighbors around. None of them introduced themselves to us. We rarely see anyone, just their cars coming and going.

After living in the woods for 32 years you are going to love a house.[emoji111]

[walrus890]

OP....in a perfect world, yes, talking to your neighbor would be ideal. Unfortunately, many people today think they can do whatever they want and city and HOA rules don't apply to them and will be happy to tell you that you are the problem complaining about them. Been there/done that. Friends of our, neighbors through the years, and ourselves have seen it all. And these are nice suburban middle/upper middle class areas. Had barking dog issues and one friend got chewed out by the neighbor how dare they complain and this guy approached them very nicely. We had a barking dog issue round the clock and the neighbor and we and other neighbors asked him very nicely that his dogs are disturbing the quiet neighborhood and his response was what do we want him to do about it?(!). After you hear stories like that, experience such things yourself, I think it might be easy to understand why many don't want to deal with rude people, retribution from rude people, and frankly some scary, entitled, unstable people out there who are capable of some crazy things and I think given experiences of many, it's just often best to call in the HOA, police, animal control, etc whoever to deal with an issue. Not to say that everyone acts in a rude way but it's surprising how many people these days feel when they break a rule/law that is interfering with the peace of others, you're the problem. The 1st warning.....when a neighbor is in the house and let's their dog bark all day long in their yard without shutting it up....right off the bat, if a neighbor feels that entitled to let their dog yap all day without consideration of other neighbors peace, many including myself find it hard to be nice and tell a neighbor the obvious as they indeed can hear their dog as loud/louder as all the other neighbors.

[HFWR]

If a dog “owner” leaves a dog unattended, or worse, chained/tethered, to bark incessantly, that person shouldn’t have a dog. Do that to me, I’d bark all day too...

As for Nextdoor, I signed up, then promptly unsigned up. Too much internet drama, which Facebook already provides in spades.

[Cessna152]

This story seemed apropos:

“All My Friends Have Passed Away:” Lonely 90-Year-Old Sends Heartbreaking Letter to Her Neighbor Seeking Her Friendship

[bbbamI]

My memory brought back a nugget regarding a naughty neighbor across the street.

We had been to their house a few times; such a delightful couple. A few months went by and we found out they were separating. She left and he stayed.

I was a volunteer cop at the time (2007). One morning I came in on my scheduled day at the pd and found my neighbor's pic on the desk. A few days before, someone had called the police department and said they were afraid he was going to commit suicide. The police went there immediately. He went into a rage and tried to fight. They subdued him and confiscated 37 guns. Different types of guns...from pistols to assault rifles.

The info under his picture said if he walks into the police dept, press the panic button. Doing this would send two officers immediately. I was a bit startled at first seeing his face, but since I had been at the pd since 2000, quite frankly I really wasn't that surprised. We never really know what our neighbors are up to.

I didn't find out how all this ended. I do know he survived long enough to sell his house.

...and no, I don't fear any of my neighbors.