On Wednesday I was on the “Today Show” to talk about some do’s and don’ts to handling some of your biggest neighbor pet peeves. So now I’m curious: do you have some neighbor pet peeves or horror stories of your own? I’ve been pretty lucky in the neighbor department, with a couple notable exceptions. In the last place I lived, which was really Drew’s bachelor pad that I moved into with him for about three years, we had really loud, thoughtless upstairs neighbors who played house music all night long right above our bedroom. They also threw loud parties and would leave “treats” for us outside our door, like fast food scraps, cigarette butts, and even barf. Yes, barf!
It didn’t help that we lived right in the middle of Midtown, just blocks away from Times Square (God, I shudder just remembering it now…), and noise was always a problem. One night, maybe a year after I moved in, some other neighbors in a building behind ours were having a big, loud party where guests were getting drunker and drunker (and more obnoxious) by the minute. Something in me snapped — the months of endless car alarms, the house music blaring upstairs, the barf outside our door, the throngs of tourists making it nearly impossible to navigate the walk from our apartment to the subway — it all built up inside me until this one night when these party guests were becoming more and more out of control and I finally threw open our window and screamed at the top of my lungs, as loudly as I could, “Shut the fuck up!! Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!!” In that moment, the whole neighborhood went silent. It only lasted a second or two, but it was a very pleasant couple of seconds.
These days, I’m much happier on our little tree-lined street in Brooklyn, and I’m proud to report I haven’t once lost my temper with a neighbor. What about you? Any neighbor temper tanrtums or major stand-offs?
[photo via this isn’t happiness]
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AKchic July 15, 2011, 5:12 pm
Oh Goddess! I moved into a place, the owner of the 4-plex happened to be a guy I hired at a company 5 years earlier. It was ironic. Neither of us worked there anymore.
Anyhow, we move in and then he says that he’s made his 20 year old daughter the apartment manager and she’ll be living upstairs. That she needs some responsibility and managing the 4-plex shouldn’t be a big deal. I said no problem. I was pregnant with kid #4 and really wasn’t thinking in terms of “how bad can a 20 year old in a huge 3-bedroom apartment above me really be”.
She was a crack addict and a party girl. Every night, all night long. Daddy worked on the slope, so for two weeks at a time, I couldn’t get a hold of him. His wife ignored me and told me to deal with the daughter, who obviously couldn’t handle it. She even had the nerve to tell me to keep my kids quiet during the day so she could sleep her hang-overs off or she’d have me evicted (luckily, Daddy was in town that day!).
When she started using our rent money to feed her drug habit, we moved. She’d take our rent money and tell her dad that we weren’t paying. It was the beginning of summer and he was working extra shifts up north for extra money.
I’ve seen her around town since then and have heard from former neighbors about her issues. I work in the treatment field and her dad asked for referrals and for help, but she refused to go. I feel bad, but giving a 20 year old addict “respsonsibility” with no accountability won’t clean them up.
parrt July 15, 2011, 7:42 pm
you are a very colourful individual…
you life should be a reality show.
AKchic July 18, 2011, 5:36 pm
No thanks. I work enough hours without having a camera crew following me around.
parrt July 15, 2011, 7:42 pm
you are a very colourful individual…
you life should be a reality show.
missmolly July 15, 2011, 5:41 pm
The only issue I’ve really had is noise. I live in an apartment building and my bedroom wall is on the other side of my neighbor’s kitchen/living room wall, so whenever they have friends over or anything like that, that’s where they hang out. There have been maybe 3 times I’ve gone over and knocked and asked them to keep it down, each time after at least 1 am. I wouldn’t say anything if it was daytime, but that late on a weekend? C’mon. I need my sleep. I tried to be respectful about it by taking it up with them directly rather than making a complaint to the office. I think the one girl is terrified of me now though, she gives me all these awkward glances if we run into each other in the hall. It’s ok, I don’t hate you, I just want you to be quiet sometimes! haha.
Oh yeah, and in the house I grew up in, one of my neighbor’s poisoned another neighbor’s dog. We didn’t like that too much.
missmolly July 15, 2011, 5:42 pm
Oops, meant weeknight, not weekend.
Quakergirl July 15, 2011, 5:51 pm
The two neighbors on our floor (teeny, narrow, very tall building, so only 3-4 apts per floor) are actually pretty good, as far as neighbors go. One of them is about 20 years older than Quakerboy and I and has lived in the building for 15 years or so. He smokes out his window and every once in a while it smells like cigarettes in the hallway, but you can never smell it in our apartment, so it doesn’t bother me. He’s very quiet, friendly, responsible, etc. Overall a nice guy– the type that if you needed someone to hold the hinge on while you screwed in a cabinet door, you could ask him, no problem. The other neighbor, who Quakerboy and I call DudeBro Neighbor because we have no idea what his real name is, is a bit of, well, a dudebro. He’s always wearing a bro-tank and flip flops around the building. Very occasionally he throws a loud/crazy party, but only on weekends. He does usually have female visitors that arrive around 11pm and leave the next morning, but that kind of adds to his persona in an amusing way and they never bother us, so whatevs.
Our upstairs neighbors, however, are well…weird. There’s something not quite right with that family and I can’t put a finger on it. It’s a married couple, two kids, and then a nanny there 4-5 days a week. The dad seems nice, but the kids won’t speak unless he prompts them (they’re about 15 and 12, and to the best of my detection don’t show any signs of autism or the likes–it just seems like they’re very nervous/shy). I’ve never seen the mother, though. The nanny is a bit…off. She just seems very on the edge. Psycho is perhaps too strong of a word, but I dunno, she makes me a little uneasy, and I’m a grown adult. The weird thing is though that there is loud crashing and banging noises coming from upstairs every single day (it sounds like a WWE match), and every once in a while you can hear two people (maybe the mom and dad? maybe the nanny and the older child? unclear) get into an extremely vicious screaming match that will occasionally spill into the stairwell. I mean fighting is normal, sure, but this is…brutal-sounding screaming at each other. If it happens again I probably should just called the police or CPS and let them sort it out. So aside from the noise, it’s just a very unnerving situation to encounter them because I don’t know how to act around people that creep me the eff out and whose family dynamic is somewhat concerning.
Painted_lady July 15, 2011, 6:57 pm
Yeah, I’d say for sure call CPS anonymously. The kids are showing some pretty classic signs of abuse. And if it’s nothing, then nothing will happen.
beans629 July 15, 2011, 8:04 pm
Yeah, I’m going to go with abuse. That’s what immediately popped into my head when you said they didn’t speak unless prompted by dad.
Although, my mind automatically goes to some bad episode of Law& Order in which the Dad and Nanny are holding the Mom hostage and controlling the kids.
*shrug* But you know… I watch way too many police shows. 🙂
Quakergirl July 15, 2011, 8:45 pm
See that’s my thing– I always jump to the worst conclusions because I used to work in a criminal court and I don’t actually have any evidence that there’s any kind of abuse, just that the kids are shy, the nanny’s creepy, and they yell a lot. I mean my spidey senses are tingling, but what do people think– is that enough? My concern is that I’ve also seen the flip side of this situation– where people were arrested for no reason on others’ suspicions and have a hell of a time getting the record straightened out.
Painted_lady July 15, 2011, 9:26 pm
I’d rather file a report that turned out to be false than not report something that was really happening.
Ally July 16, 2011, 5:11 am
It’s good that you’re concerned. I would tend to go with “better safe than sorry”. Surely the organisations that deal with issues like this must let you stay anonymous? I know here in the UK you don’t have to give your name. I bet they investigate a lot of cases where it turns out nothing is wrong. That would be better than there being abuse upstairs an no one reporting it. Have you considered asking your nice neighbour if he’s noticed anything odd? Sometimes having someone else acknowledge your concerns makes you feel like you aren’t just being paranoid.
Quakergirl July 16, 2011, 12:28 pm
That’s a good call about asking the nice neighbor, because he’s lived here a lot longer than we have and has probably had a few more interactions with them. And yeah, having him confirm the same suspicion would definitely make me feel a bit more justified in saying something. I would say something anyway if I were to hear that level of commotion again, but knowing that someone else heard the same thing the same way would also probably give a little more credence to the report.
CMF July 18, 2011, 2:25 pm
So funny! There was a guy at the gym my brother and I used to go to that we called DudeBro! He started every sentence with, “Dude…” and finished it with “…bro,” no matter who he was talking to. “Dude, it’s crowded in here today, bro.” Ah, the DudeBro.
Prague July 15, 2011, 5:59 pm
My neighbor burned down my house while stoned out of her mind….she took out an entire row of townhouses.
missmolly July 15, 2011, 6:06 pm
Yikes. I’d say that’s about as bad as it gets.
Kate July 15, 2011, 6:12 pm
That happened to a friend of mine, another tenant burned a 4plex down. Drunk and stoned, passed out…amazingly no one died.
applescruff July 15, 2011, 8:15 pm
Whoa…you win.
Starla July 15, 2011, 5:59 pm
I live in a flat, in a converted terraced house. The lady upstairs is a severely mental, loony, depressive, alcoholic nut job. I have put up with her shit for 3 years. The paramedics and police are here all the time, at all hours of the day and night. They broke the house door in. Several times. People she has invited in off the street, have defecated in our communal hallway.
Thankfully, she seems to be sober right now, and things are ok (for now) but man is she hard work. And an awful waste of police and paramedic resources.
Painted_lady July 15, 2011, 7:12 pm
Yeesh. I had a guy in the same apartment complex as my crazy next door neighbor with the honking daughter; he looked like the Unabomber and would bring back hookers to the complex, like stereotypical crack ‘hos who would stay the night or the afternoon or whatever and then come back looking for him when they were out of drug money. And if he wasn’t there they’d start going door-to-door trying to get a “date” and if a woman answered the door would say they were looking for this guy.
He was supremely creepy as well; my dog would go insane everytime he’d walk by and I couldn’t figure out why until I was home sick one day and the creeper started banging on my window to set my dog off. He finally quit when the mutt and I ran into him on a dark street and the mutt – who is very chill with people and generally just wants a good scratch behind the ears from passing strangers – tried to pull him off his bike, and then I caught him that night talking to the dog through the front window and I told him if I ever caught him going past my apartment at anything slower than a run I would call the police and tell them he was soliciting prostitutes, threatening my dog, and lurking outside my window at night. I may not have had a legal leg to stand on, but he was sufficiently frightened enough to leave me and my dog the hell alone.
beans629 July 15, 2011, 8:08 pm
I don’t know if I should blue or purple thumb that story. I so want to blue thumb you because you stood up to the crazy creepy dude but on the other hand purple thumb him cuz he was just so dang creepy and I feel bad for you.
Painted_lady July 15, 2011, 8:17 pm
Haha – honestly I wasn’t home all that much until the last couple of months I lived there. Which is why it took me forever to figure out why my dog would go bananas when he walked by. To make him even more skeevy, the landlords had converted the storage room off the laundry room into a tiny studio, which is where he lived. His front door was right next to the dryer, and I didn’t realize anyone actually lived there until I was doing laundry late one night and he opened up the door and started yelling at me for keeping him awake. I started doing laundry with my multi-tool in one hand, ready to pull out the knife if I needed.
Lydia July 15, 2011, 5:59 pm
The only real problem I had was when I was a student and living in an area with lots of other students. One of our neighbors had a turntable and liked to practice at a really loud volume, with the windows open. He did immediately turn it down the one time I asked him to, but I still can’t help but wonder why he’d even have it up so loud if it was just for himself (as opposed to playing music for a party, where I totally understand).
There was also an issue with the people in the flat opposite from me stacking their empty beer bottles on the roof – one day it was pretty windy and they started falling off, right before my window and front door. It took a while to figure out what was happening, because the building housed a large number of students and it was hard to find out who was responsible. I even called the police because I thought someone was actually throwing the bottles off the roof (this had been a problem before in that neighborhood). In the end some guys from the building figured it out, but they still seemed pretty resentful when I asked them to clean up the broken glass in front of our flat. Ugh.
SpyGlassez July 18, 2011, 12:44 am
In our old apartment, there was a family who lived below us (well, half the family; the other half lived in another part of the apartment complex – our state has a lot of refugees from countries in Africa and that’s what this family was). We called them the Ukulele Guys, because it was these two guys who apparently worked at night and generally had the family’s kids during the day – like 6 or 7 kids under 10. The kids were good, and the apartment walls were thick so most sound didn’t carry, but sometimes at 9 or 10 in the evening on a Friday or Saturday we would hear what sounded like ukulele music. It was always kind of loud. We thought it was the guys, then thought it was the kids, then thought it was a game because it always sounded the same…it would go for an hour or two, and we would try to put up with it, but sometimes it was hard. I generally worked early shifts on Saturdays and Sundays, and I find it hard to sleep if there’s noise. But we’d put on a fan, and the one or two times that it got really loud down there (like the whole family was over) we might go down at midnight and ask them to hush just a little.
Amber July 15, 2011, 6:10 pm
I had one of those “Are you gonna do mine next?” neighbours.
Mowing the lawn:
“Hey! Mowing the lawn! Are you gonna go mine next?”
Taking out the garbage:
“Taking out the garbage I see! Mine’s in the garage when you’re done!”
Bringing home takeout:
“Smells good! Where’s mine?”
DUDE – AFTER THE BIZZILIONTH TIME IT IS NOT FUNNY. Get some new material, stat.
mel July 16, 2011, 9:49 am
I GET THIS AT WORK. Those jokes are not, nor have they ever been funny.
AnitaBath July 18, 2011, 1:03 am
Oh god, kind of like when people bring stuff up to the cash register and think it’s hilaaaaarious when they ask, “So are you paying? HA!”
Right. You’re so witty. I don’t get that every day or something.
kdog July 15, 2011, 6:26 pm
I have bitchiest queen ever living below me. Honestly, I think we probably annoy him more on a regular basis, but he’s such a jerk. When he first moved in we helped him move furniture and even took him to the auto parts store for a replacement battery once when his went dead and we couldn’t get it to jump-start. He screamed at me so bad once the morning after we had a party (on the weekend, about 8 people, over at 1:30) that he actually came upstairs sobbing and saying that “I have a problem with yelling. I yell at everyone.” His roommate is really nice and we chat sometimes, but I avoid him like the plague now.
kdog July 19, 2011, 12:10 pm
Mmmm. I’m guessing the thumbs down has to do with the bitchy queen part? I guarantee that I mean that expressly for this one guy (whose main points while yelling at me told me were that my house was poorly decorated and that I drank cheap beer) as opposed to a general judgement, although I do recognize it’s problematic if I even have to explain that…
cmarie July 15, 2011, 6:27 pm
I call my apartment the crazy house. One of my neighbors walks around with a stuffed doll, dressed with food stains on it’s mouth. It’s name is David. I see another panhandling pretty much everyday. He always waves and tries to make conversation when all I want to do is walk away. I see people giving him money and sometimes I want to grab it and tell them that not only is he not homeless but he has a steady income and his family is always at his apartment helping him. The neighbors across the hall are either smoking weed or screaming at each other. We have to block the door or the cats start acting loopy. They also never take their recycling out. Our recycling is located in the garage but they always leave their bags of crap all over the hallway. I’ve written so many notes and complained to management more than once. My one neighbor has like 5 dogs. One of them is a little puppy that they’re always losing. I have had to knock on their door and return that dog so many times. Once, I had to do it 3 times and each time they were so surprised that the dog wasn’t in the apartment. Oh yeah, they (and by they I mean the residents) pee and crap in the elevator all the time.
Britannia July 15, 2011, 6:43 pm
Sell the puppy!
Steelbird July 15, 2011, 8:18 pm
Next time the dog gets out take it to Animal Control. Generally they’ll make the owners pay a fee to get it out which will teach them to keep a closer eye on the dog and it will put the puppy in a safe place until they get it and the poor thing won’t be running loose everywhere getting into who knows what kind of trouble.
Painted_lady July 15, 2011, 6:35 pm
Oh wow. I had a next-door neighbor who was batshit crazy. She was about 90 million years old and I knew we were going to have issues when, my first morning, I took my dog out and she screamed at me that I needed to take him someplace else because she was afraid of dogs and also she didn’t want him peeing on our curb (I’m actually kind of fanatical about poo bags, and at that point he had only hiked his leg on a tree). The landlords had told me where the designated pee spot was, and I respected that and yet she yelled at me even though she never went outside. Then she got her own puppy who was tiny and never kept her on a leash. That’s probably one of my biggest pet peeves. My dog is big, and he’s pretty good-natured, but if some little dog with a Napoleon complex goes after him, he’ll snap at it and may do a lot of damage. I keep him on a leash, but I can’t do a thing about keeping unleashed dogs away from him. It was terrifying if she was out when we came back from a walk because she’d run straight for us. KEEP YOUR DOG ON A LEASH. Please, please, please. Even if your dog’s too little to do any real damage, keep them on a leash to keep them safe!!!!! Anyway, this lady had a middle-aged daughter and she would come visit at all hours of the day. There was a parking spot right by the apartment, and for some stupid reason, instead of getting out and going in, the daughter would lay on the horn until her half-deaf mother would shuffle out. Eight o’clock on a Sunday when I was sleeping in, eight at night when I had a six-thirty call the next morning, just about whenever she felt like it. I finally got fed up and went out to ask her not to do it (aside from waking me up, it also scared the hell out of me), and she told me she’d been doing it for the eight years her mother had lived in the complex and her mother couldn’t hear, which was the dumbest damn reasoning in the world. Then after that conversation, she started leaning on the horn even longer AND started honking when she left. I was SO glad when I moved from that hellhole.
SpaceySteph July 17, 2011, 3:36 pm
My parents had a neighbor with a Napoleon complex dog too. My mom has a retired racing greyhound. He’s really calm and sweet, except where there’s those jerk little yappy dogs around. My mom walks him around the neighborhood twice a day and there’s one corner that was a major pain. They would let their Yorkshire terrier out in the front yard alone and not leashed. It seemed to know that my mom would always hold the dog back, because it would go right past where he could reach and start yapping at our dog. My dad always joked that he was going to let the greyhound get loose one day when he had to walk the dog, and that would be the last we ever heard of the little yappy dog.
They just moved, thank goodness. But really, just because your dog is the size of a squirrel doesn’t mean you can leave him in the yard to torture the neighbors.
Calliopedork July 15, 2011, 7:00 pm
My last neighbor would call my landlord atleast once a week to complain. She told him we were running an underage whore house everytime we had friends over, that I beat my dogs, that we were running a dog fighting ring, a meth house and illegal boxing matches. She also called animal control and said she was afraid our dogs were going to jump the 8 foot fence and eat her poodle.
Britannia July 15, 2011, 6:00 pm
The only problem neighbor I’ve had is with the neighbor directly across the street from my grandparents’ house that they keep here in Tucson as a “staging point” between their real home in Mexico and the vacations they take throughout the year in the United States.
Even though I don’t live there anymore, I’m still having problems with the neighbor — our neighborhood’s driveways are virtually non-existent, so you either park your car in your garage or in front of your house, half on the driveway and half in the street. If people on both sides of the street are parked in front of their houses, the street is reduced to a single lane, which has made more than one person fuck up my old Corolla trying to get by – knocking off my mirror in one instance, scratching it in another.
Well, this guy seemed to think that it’s okay to park his humongous truck in front of OUR house, even while I lived there, so that his driveway stays clear. If he knew I’d be gone all day (but didn’t know that my boyfriend was home, watching through the curtains) at work, as soon as I left, he would move his truck to block my driveway and then would move it once I got back and started honking at him to move his damn truck… at first, I would park elsewhere and go knock on his door, but it happened so many times I got sick of being polite and would just start honking.
I complained to the HOA, but of course to no avail. He doesn’t even use his garage – it’s filled to the brim with junk, and I even offered to help him clean it out one weekend but he said, “No, I’ll get around to it myself.” But he’s never bothered. He just parks in front of one of his neighbor’s driveways every day, but mine especially since it’s right across the street and he knows that the actual homeowners, my grandparents, aren’t usually there. My grandpa can put the fear of God in him, but he just waves me off.
Now that I’m living in my own house, I still go up to my grandparents’ house at least once a week to pick up their mail, check on and dust their house, and clean up the yard if there has been a rainstorm since I last came by. The guy’s now taken up permanent residence on the half-driveway, despite my having had him towed recently when he actually parked ON our driveway (parallel parked, since it’s too short to straight-park) and wasn’t home to move it. I am recovering from a spinal injury and I’m not going to take his shit by parking all the way down the street and walking to the house when I have the right (and he doesn’t) to use the house’s driveway to get into the garage! He left a very nasty note on the door of the house after that… I’ve kept it so that my grandparents can see it and take issue with him when they come back from their summer vacation.
I left him a note, the very last time I was there and his truck was parked yet again in our driveway, that I had sent multiple complaints to the HOA and if he was still parked there when my grandparents returned to the house in August, I’d file a complaint with the police department. I don’t know what exact complaint I could submit, but this has been going on for 2 years now and I figured it was the only threat I could possibly, legally, say… since threatening to go at his stupid truck with a baseball bat wouldn’t exactly be legal. Ugh.
Kate July 15, 2011, 6:09 pm
I had a neighbor who did something similar, except it was a commercial trailer with landscaping equipment loaded. They would park it in front of my house every night, and conveniently keep their driveway empty. That meant no one could park opposite of them, since the street was so narrow. The cops came by regularly because other neighbors would complain they couldn’t drive down the street! Nothing was ever done, either. I was happy to move.
cdjd0523 July 15, 2011, 7:07 pm
I have had similar experiences happen and I’ve found one way that works for the most part. If you and another person (even a neighbor who is willing) have enough space park 1 car in front and 1 in back so close that if the rude person trys to move they will hit one of the cars (make sure to jot down their information so if they do hit you then you have it when you file your police report). That way you ensure that they will have to come ask you to move one of the cars for them to get out. At that time you can decide to move and make a snide remark or make them wait til you are leaving, if they have to wait long enough most times they will decide to park elsewhere so they aren’t stuck waiting on the people who blocked them in.
Kate July 15, 2011, 7:12 pm
We’ve done this at my current house. We live near a high school, and the kids park on the street. In the morning they do typical teenage shit, which I now realize is beyond irritating (blasting music, revving cars, screaming at each other at 6:30AM). We (neighbors) strategically park so they have nowhere to park. One downside, my car (in my driveway) was broken into and whoever did it stole a large amount of change I had for meters. No proof who did it, but the police were the first to blame the kids.
beans629 July 15, 2011, 8:18 pm
I would almost suggest taking one of those bright colored window markers (the kind you can get at target or walmart) and writing a note on his windshield.
You know something like… ‘Hey asshat quit being an inconsiderate jerkwad and don’t park this piece of shit car in MY driveway.’ Have a nice day 🙂
But that’s just me. 😉
He’ll be totally pissed that he has to clean that off his windshield before he can drive his car.
justpeachy July 16, 2011, 2:56 am
I drove past a car, in traffic in the lane next to me, the other day that must have parked somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be because someone had written “DON’T PARK HERE” all over it in window marker.
Best. Thing. Ever!
SpaceySteph July 17, 2011, 3:11 pm
Wow I just want to say you’re the best granddaughter ever. I don’t even dust my own house once a week, let alone someone else’s.
AnitaBath July 18, 2011, 1:02 am
Have you tried conveniently leaving a bed of nails in the driveway when you’re not at home?
caitie_didn't July 15, 2011, 7:11 pm
I’ve never really had neighbour issues. This past year in my student house, the girls next door had this weird, flirty “war” with the boys across the street- they were always pranking each other. That’s fine, you know…no big deal; doesn’t affect my house. But one night the boys snuck into their house and took ALL their kitchen furniture out and left it on the driveway. Admittedly, it was a pretty clever prank, but my roommate was late for work because she had to move the furniture before pulling out of the driveway.
The people in my parent’s neighbourhood, where I grew up are fantastic! Like seriously, perfect neighbours….we used to have street parties on a regular basis in the summer and one neighbour still lets me and the sibs swim in her pool whenever we want! I think the biggest disagreement that’s ever happened was over who was responsible for mowing part of a boulevard.
mel July 15, 2011, 8:00 pm
I’m the kind of person who should probably live on an acreage, far away from everyone else. I feel like Wendy did about being in the noisy city, all the time.
When I was a little girl, some kids from down the street shot and killed my dog with a pellet gun. He was a sweet, big honey-colored German Shepard cross, possibly a contender for best dog ever. He had so much hair that we never knew he had been shot. Then one day he just died from the lead poisoning. That was my first and obviously most traumatic experience with neighbors.
Since then, I’ve moved out on my own and had the average annoying apartment experiences. My old building was celebrating it’s centennial that year. It was a gorgeous brick apartment building with all it’s old character features and hardwood floors. The woman above me, I never met, but she used to clump around her bedroom in high heels while I was trying to sleep in the bedroom below her. To this day I wear earplugs to sleep because of that racket. In that same building, my corner unit only shared a wall with one person, who liked to watch hockey and whoop loudly. By himself.
I never confronted him though, I saw him once and chickened out.
In the new apartment I share with my bf, our next door neighbor is an elderly WalMart greeter, who lives with a son, or a grandson or nephew or something who obviously is taking advantage of her. I can often hear him yelling at her. Its really upsetting, and I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do. Further, he seems to be about 26, but has a parade of teenage girls going in and out of the apartment all night. Screaming in the strairwells, vandalizing the old lady’s car, trapping dogs in the apartment. We’ve called building management on them a few times, and our manager, to her credit is amazing and really good about keeping order in the building.
Luckily, I haven’t been to the temper-losing place yet, but I think if someone else parks in my parking spot again, I may have to. And yes, besides my dog, parking is the one thing about community living that makes me CRAZY. 🙂
SweetChild July 16, 2011, 1:23 am
Oh my god I haven’t finished reading your comment but I have to say your poor dog!! If anyone were to hurt my pet I would murder them. Honestly they would get the beating of their life I love animals so much! 🙁
mel July 16, 2011, 9:45 am
I feel you, I was so young, I don’t even remember what my parents did. I know that my mom knew it was them on a hunch because she knew they used to shoot a pellet gun. But she’s not incredibly confrontational. My stepdad was a dick of the highest order who hated the dog, so I honestly don’t know if they just let it go or what. Had I been older, I probably would have taken that pellet gun and shot one of them in the leg, and been all, “HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?”
Because seriously, sweetest dog ever.
anonymous July 16, 2011, 7:05 am
This could be senior abuse. You could call your dept. of human services to report it. Poor old lady.
mel July 16, 2011, 9:38 am
I’m contemplating it. I’ve only heard one or two incidents, and couldn’t make out of the screaming match was mutual or if she was at his mercy. Because I know I’ve had some fights with my mother in the past that were mutual, not elder abuse at all. (Not that my mother’s an elder yet, but family can bring out the worst in people. It’s a loose example.) There’s a line between having a fight with someone older than you, and verbally assaulting someone who doesn’t have the faculties to fend you off. I’m not sure which this is.
I also don’t know if he’s really taking advantage of her, or if he contributes to the house. My guess is no because he’s always home, but again, I don’t know. They’re my first impressions, and they’re not good ones. I’d like to know a bit more first before I call. I’m sort of in that same conundrum as Quakergirl and the maybe-child abuser above.
Seeing the comments on that part of the thread have tilted me toward calling just in case though…
brendapie July 15, 2011, 8:09 pm
We don’t really have many complaints with our current neighbors except for on street parking. The house across the street has at least 10 cars attributed to them that I’ve personally counted and it makes parking on the street practically impossible. Their house has no driveway either so they park their cars on their front yard, which holds maybe three cars. It honestly looks like a giant tetris puzzle with all their cars crammed in wherever they can fit them.
In the 3 or 4 years since they have moved here, we have gradually accepted that on-street parking is not a given and not something we can depend on anymore. Luckily we have a driveway which I suppose really is a luxury but our neighbors love to park across it too. The house next door has been under construction and now up for sale for the past 2 years and our neighbors realized they could park across the two driveways for that house since no one lives there. Only issue with this is that our driveway runs parallel to one of those driveways and the combined curb ramp is the perfect size for a car to park in.
I just hate dealing with this and giving dirty looks and asking them to move has not resolved anything. If they move, they park there once again after we enter or leave our driveway. I’ve turned into that old lady peering through the blinds anytime I hear a car motor running outside the house.
I suppose this is less than a headache than my previous next door neighbors. Let’s just say, seeing two FBI trucks and about 10 police cars come rushing down the street in unision and blocking off the street on both ends was a sight to be seen.
applescruff July 15, 2011, 8:12 pm
Loud bass. There’s absolutely no reason why the bass needs to be that loud! You know how they don’t let aquariums or water beds into a lot of apartments? I think they should have a similar rule for subwoofers. I currently live in a cute little duplex, but am moving soon to a much more expensive area, so it’s back to a giant complex for me. I’m really hoping I get good neighbors!
Anna July 15, 2011, 8:21 pm
Oh God! I think I may win for worst neighbor problems. I live in basically a duplex behind my landlord’s house out in the country, and we have been through 3 sets of neighbors in the time we’ve been here. The first neighbors ran laundry pretty much 24/7 which was really annoying to hear all the time and also used up a lot of the water that we had to share for both apartments. Then, we tried to be friends and hang out with them and she ended up stealing a bunch of my favorite CD’s.
After those neighbors moved out, a friend of my landlord’s son moved in. At first, he was cool and we got along well. Then, he started smoking crack and moved a crackhead girl and her two kids in with him. The landlord’s son also smokes crack, so they would be down in the garage smoking and the fumes are coming up into my apartment all the time (not a good smell and also makes you feel lightheaded even as a secondhand effect.) Last December, while my boyfriend and I were both at work, our apartment was broken into and our AR-15 rifle worth approximately $1000 was stolen. We are positive it was the landlord’s son and that crackhead neighbor who did it but were unable to prove it. Luckily we have renter’s insurance so at least we were able to get reimbursed for it.
So this past April the crackhead was kicked out of the apartment…and now the landlord’s son and his wife have moved in. Can you guess what they both love to smoke? Yep. So now we have crack fumes coming up through the vents again and are very worried about more of our stuff disappearing.
We were planning to move into a house this summer but then my boyfriend’s parents announced that they are moving to NC this fall so we put our house-buying plans on hold until we figure out where we want to live.
Kate July 15, 2011, 8:39 pm
wow.
MsBorgia July 16, 2011, 2:15 am
“Say crack again.” “CRACK.”
MissDre July 15, 2011, 8:48 pm
I constantly hear my neighbours upstairs…. they play guitar all the time and I hear it. They play weird music all the time and I hear it. They walk around all night and I wake up to the floor creaking. I’ve never complained because it’s just not my nature. And other than waking up to the creaking at night, it doesn’t bother me all that much.
BUT they have come down and knocked on my door TWICE to tell me to keep it down, when I was playing music in the middle of the day. 98% of the time I don’t play music, or the tv, or anything. I’m pretty much quiet as a mouse since I prefer to spend my time reading. And with all the noise THEY make, they actually come down to my door to complain?
So I told them, I’ll turn it down, but keep in mind I listen to your guitar on a daily basis and it sounds like it’s right in my living room.
Another thing is, they are always having parties on the communal lawn. I don’t really care, but they are SO weird. They dress up in strange costumes, with feather boas and tutus or they get nearly naked and paint themselves… they look they are having a lot of fun so, whatever. To each their own. I just think they are really really odd people.
Nadine July 16, 2011, 5:25 am
I had terrible upstairs neighbours a few years ago. As far as I could tell, their favourite activity was to run around in clogs all night before moving all the furniture around. One night they had a party (there were six people just living there, and they constantly had people around) and decided that having a SKIPPING contest at one am was a great plan. I called and sent them txt messages to remind them that I was trying to sleep underneath their hardwood floors but they hung up on me as soon as they answered.
There was also a communal lawn, but it was really more ours because our part of the house had a glass front that opened up onto it, so anyone sitting their could see right into our space. Whenever we used it, they would hang out on their balcony, making awkward remarks to my friends, and flicking cigarette ends down onto our courtyard.
We finally moved out after they told us they had no intention of being sensitive to us, as they ‘paid more rent than us’. Um, what??! How did they know what we paid? Why is that relevant!
Elizabeth July 15, 2011, 10:27 pm
I moved into a new place about a month ago and a couple of days ago, I woke up to the sound of the mom next door yelling ‘GET UP!!’ and the kid crying ‘nooooo!!!’ this must have gone on repeating for at least 10 min before i got up, put in my earplugs and went back to sleep. I refer to her as ‘scary mommy’ now.
MsBorgia July 16, 2011, 2:14 am
This isn’t even comparable to most of the horror stories here, but…
I live in a building of studio apartments; it’s pretty much a dorm and everyone’s circuit is shared with the person on the other side of their wall. One day, in winter, right before finals, my fuse blew. I asked the neighbor if he was running any high-power appliances and he goes, “Yeah, I have my space heater on pretty much all the time.” Mind you, this was the only circuit I had available to cook with, so the fuse couldn’t handle his heater and my hot plate.
When I told him that I was going to try to reset the fuse, he said, “Yeah, don’t worry about it, I’m used to not having any power.”
Oh really. That’s very nice for you, Mr “I’m going to monopolize the entire circuit instead of turning up my damn thermostat”, but I had finals and major papers due and I needed the internet!!
Not a major deal, but his total lack of regard or concern for what I might need electricity for pissed me off. He also takes two hour showers and sucks up all the hot water.
TaraMonster July 16, 2011, 2:45 am
Ah, Wendy, I’m with you on the inner city living, but honestly, it’s like I’m immune to the noise. I lived near the WTC in Manhattan for awhile and it was so quiet all the time, it was like I wasn’t in the city. The silent neighborhood in the Financial District kind of bothered me! But that’s partly why we moved- there’s no neighborhood there. I lived in Yonkers before that and the music at 2am, the car alarms, and the parties was worse than anything else I’ve ever experienced.
Now my boyfriend and I live on the Lower East Side. It’s a serious night life spot. They actually passed a law that won’t allow any more bars to open here because there are more bars on the LES than in any other part of Manhattan! I’m up late writing and someone was just yelling in the street. I can hear tons of traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge too- it’s one block from my apt. The only reason I noticed the noise at all is because I’m reading this. Lol. It’s kind of par for the course.
But even with my noise immunity I would never live in Midtown West/Hell’s Kitchen where you lived, Wendy. The volume in that neighborhood can make even the most seasoned NYer twitch! Plus the tourist traffic would drive me INSANE. Living by the WTC, that was my biggest complaint. I just wanted to walk to the subway ONCE without someone shoving some bigoted sign about how a mosque would mean death to us all in my face. More than once I completely lost my shit at these non-NYers going berserk in my neighborhood. Are you the one who lives near the proposed mosque? NO! Go be mad about something in your own town. Jeez!
TaraMonster July 16, 2011, 2:58 am
All these stories are terrible! Let me lighten the mood. In college our rooms were separated by paper thin walls. My bf and I could always hear the girl in the single beside me having wild sex with her bf. One night he was using some colorful language that led up to this: “this is gettin dry as shit, throw some water on that!!” It was so gross, but so absurd, we couldn’t stop laughing. Nasty!
TaraMonster July 16, 2011, 3:05 am
Alright, LAST comment. I need to go to bed. I’m clearly not being productive and writing my novel.
Have some Natalie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbsw2yH2NEo
Emsz July 16, 2011, 7:12 am
I used to love my neighbourhood. Within the last few years though a few houses on my block have been sold to people with little kids. Normally, I like little kids, but it’s like these kids aren’t parented at ALL sometimes.
We live in terraced housing, and you can often hear the neighbour kids stomping up and down the stairs, and running back an forth on their floors.
Two houses down there’s two little boys that play in their yard all the time, and the oldest just won’t listen to his parents. Let me tell you, after hearing ‘Billy THIS IS THE LAST WARNING’ five times, I’m about ready to go tell them that maybe the kids would listen if they actually FOLLOWED THROUGH. Maybe two summer ago it was really hot, and the kids were up early. They were already shrieking like little maniacs by 7 am. ON A SATURDAY.
Plus, the kids from two houses down go into our yard without asking and take apples, hazelnuts and other stuff we have growing in our yard. My mother is most annoyed by that.
Honestly, I totally get that kids should be able to play in their yards and stuff, but it gets a little annoying that I can’t have my window open when it’s really hot, because they are SHRIEKING so loud.
Quakergirl July 16, 2011, 1:26 pm
Sometimes I think people with kids honestly forget what it was like to not have utter pandemonium erupt every morning at 6am and don’t realize it’s extremely disruptive. They may think their kids are being good when they sleep til 6:15 and only make the noise of a small circus, as opposed to the sonic boom they normally create. It’s actually really frustrating because they’re like “oh, they were only playing a little soccer for 10 or 15 minutes,” and I’m like “yes, but I live below your hardwood floored living room/soccer stadium in this poorly-insulated apartment building and it was 7:30 on a Sunday morning.” To which they reply, “well, next week we’ll tell them not to start til 8.” ::facepalm::
Painted_lady July 17, 2011, 2:34 pm
I just don’t get people who think crazy noise is ever something you should force on those who live around you. I get that kids get crazy – I work with them. But you take them to the park or to a friend’s house with a backyard where they can burn off energy, or you use these moments to teach them the delicate art of consideration for others. Otherwise they turn into adults like my next-door neighbor’s daughter, who, when I asked her if she would stop honking her horn as she parked her car a mere three feet from my kitchen window, asked when exactly I needed her not to do that. I wanted to scream at her, “WHEN????? WHEN IS IT EVER, EVER, EVER OKAY TO HONK THREE FEET OUTSIDE A PERSON’S WINDOW??????” It never even occurred to me people who make that kind of noise wouldn’t be completely mortified when they’re made aware what a disruption it is to others. Yeesh.
Addie Pray July 16, 2011, 8:44 pm
Your street with terraced housing and apples and hazelnuts in the yards sounds adorable. Sigh.
MsMisery July 18, 2011, 12:00 pm
The guy that lives behind me seems to have his outdoor sound system trained directly at my house. I can hear not only his music, but his living room TV, his telephone ringing, and his doorbell. And we have really long backyards- there’s no reason I have to listen to his wife’s shitty disco when she’s gardening. They also have one of those gigantic trampolines (which I’ve come to believe should be outlawed)… they have it ALLLLL THE WAY back at the lot line, so we get to listen to their kids squeal and thrash. >__<
Betty Boop July 16, 2011, 10:23 am
My roommate was chatting with our 95 year old downstairs neighbor when, out of nowhere, the neighbor leaned in and, sotto voce, said “I can hear what you do in your bedroom at 2 in the morning” and then went back to the normal conversation. It creeped my roommate out for a bit but I though it was hilarious. At that point we had both been single the entire time we lived here and there was NOTHING going on in the bedrooms at 2 in the morning.
The is an actual neighborhood war going on with the lady who lives behind my building. Her house is on the corner of a street and an alley and she gardens both sides of the streets obsessively. She has a little garden truck that she likes to leave parked overnight in the alley right next to the no parking sign about 4 feet from the curb. Lately she’s been leaving tree trimmings and fencing in the middle of the alley for cars to run over. I’ve taken to throwing out anything that blocks to ally just for safety’s sake, and a touch of spite. She’s fancies herself a free spirit and, apparently, the rules don’t apply to her. My favorite WTF moment ever is when she spent the afternoon setting up a sound system in her backyard, doing sound checks and such to make sure everything was ready for her half an hour concert that evening. Where she only covered Cher songs during a photo shoot. It was too funny!
haggith July 16, 2011, 11:41 am
1. childhood apartment: i lived with my family on the first floor of a four storey apartment building for the first twelve years of my life. the first floor apartments were the best because they had a small yard and were generally bigger than the others. my neighbors on the second and third floor wanted desperately to get ours so they did everything they could to have us move: loud music, peeking on our window when walking down the hall, throwing food, garbage, etc on our small yard from their windows and even leaving witchcraft artifacts at our door. my parents owned that apartment (and they knew it) so when we decided to move to a bigger house they got angrier when we rented it out. they have done the same with every tenant we’ve had till now.
2. family house 2: the neighbors on the corner!!! they had parties at least 3 times a week and they normally took the parties outside with lot of strangers. they would leave empty bottles everywhere and even shit on the street. i’d work late so every time i went back home they would be there, inviting me to join them (i would never spoke to them and i didn’t know them) and would verbally harass not only me and my other neighbors but anyone who would dare to walk by. i don’t know how many times we (my family, my other neighbors) called the police… they would come, talk to them and leave. i wished i had a bazooka and get rid of them!
3. my current house. i think my neighbors have a coke/pot lab on the second floor (this is just a suspicion, not sure but there is something fishy about that house)… and there had been one shooting with the police involved so far in the six months i’ve been living here and someone was shot in that house. the street was closed when my husband and i drove back home.
ele4phant July 16, 2011, 7:23 pm
Whoa, when I first read about house #3 I initially got the impression you were actually living in the same building with this people!
Temperance July 16, 2011, 12:53 pm
My current landlord and building are amazing. I live in one of the Philadelphia suburbs, and the town is very “young” and has a lot going on.
There is one apartment on my floor (an efficiency) that seems to attract the worst people. The first girl who lived there was awesome; sweet, polite and fun to hang out with. She moved out, but we’re still friends. The next person who moved in is a severely mentally ill woman from town who has extreme behavior issues; she was evicted from her last place because she developed a habit of screaming and hitting the walls at 3:00 AM. She lasted for 2 weeks before my landlord booted her. Her sister, who pays her bills and whatnot, lied on the application about previous evictions and purposely didn’t let my LL meet her until the lease signing. She had a habit of locking herself out because she couldn’t understand that she needed a key to get INTO the building AND into her apartment, and she couldn’t figure out how the dumpster worked. She would hit my window, the doors, and kick the shit out of the building until someone let her in … at all hours of the night. We never did. This woman needed way more care than she was getting, but she moved in during law school finals, so I was not happy. She’s also fairly nasty and screamed at all of us, and her sister, who obviously didn’t want her to live in the family home, went around calling all of us and the landlord names for complaining.
The guys who live there now and moved in after that are awful, a cross between Jersey Shore and Malibu’s Most Wanted. The dude is apparently 19 or 20, his dad pays his rent, and he has a friend living with him. It’s an EFFICIENCY. They throw parties constantly throughout the week, and their friends are disgusting, smoking indoors and throwing litter all over the nice, manicured lot. I’m in a smoke-free bulding. There were so many complaints about them in the first weekend that my LL and his DAD laid the smack down …. now their friends drive up in pickup trucks and they party in the parking lot. Sigh.
jessicaxmx July 16, 2011, 5:20 pm
My neighbors were douche bags that would throw their trash in my yard so I gladly gave my nephew permission to take his shit in a bag and light it on fire in their front porch. It was epic, and on video. Never left trash in our fucking yard again.
Leyahn July 16, 2011, 7:04 pm
Years ago I lived in a downstairs unit of a four-plex. Same floor plans for all apartments meant that the couple above me had their bed directly above mine. We were all young, and they were obviously very much attracted to each other. I could hear every time the headboard hit the wall, load groans and occaisional “Oh Gods”, and the very best – the feet hitting the floor and padding across the apartment to the bathroom when all was said and done…oh, and the flush as the condom swirled away.
Unfortunately, I learned their habits and would just retreat to the living room at the front of the apartment to watch TV whilst they trysted upstairs.
But they subscribed to great magazines and didn’t mind that I read them before they did.
Sarah July 17, 2011, 8:34 am
Ugh, we had an old lady for an upstairs neighbor two places ago (she was very frail and a poet). She assumed we were married (strike 1. Don’t be like that. But it’s not a dealbreaker given her advanced age).Then, within the first week we moved in, we had the windows open and we were cleaning on a Saturday afternoon around 2 PM. I put the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on around medium volume (early 60s music + 80s music = best for cleaning), and she actually came downstairs to ask us to keep it down. In the middle of the day. On a weekend. No.
From then on it was completely over between us, but she still liked my boyfriend. She would come and knock on our door at random times asking him to come up and change a lightbulb for her. Since he’s a good person, he would do it, even if we were eating dinner or watching TV or something. But once she asked him to come up to test her tap water. Her issue was that when she ran the tap and filled a glass of water, the water would have very small bubbles in it and she thought this meant there was something wrong with it. Apparently she had never before closely looked at a glass of water fresh from the tap in her 90 years: THEY ALL HAVE LITTLE BUBBLES. IF YOU WAIT 5 MINUTES THEY WILL GO AWAY. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. So he tried to explain this to her (again, gently, since he’s a good person) and she literally would not buy it and believed that there was something wrong with her water.
Pales in comparison to the crack smoking and the “My name is Luka” stories above, but for serious, there was nothing wrong with your tap. Leave us alone.
plasticepoxy July 18, 2011, 12:14 pm
Sounds like she was really lonely.
Rachel July 17, 2011, 9:14 am
The last house I lived in was in a small HOA that largely consisted of older people who had owned their homes for 20-30 years. They were really nosy and seemed to spend a lot of time spying on my roommate and I in order to find things to complain about. The most annoying part was that they wouldn’t just come talk to us about it – they would email our landlord who then had to forward the complaint along to us, whether or not it was a valid complaint, which just made us look bad. When I got a dog they complained about me letting him outside off leash (which is a totally reasonable complaint), but also implied strongly that I wasn’t cleaning up after him – which I *always* do. Then, after a really snowy winter, they decided that it was not the gigantic pile of snow that sat on the front lawn all winter, but MY dog’s urine, that was killing a spot of grass. Which, even if it weren’t for the snow thing, would have been ridiculous because it’s not like I was the only one with a dog whose front door opened to that lawn. So I had to spend the rest of the time that I lived there (luckily only 4-5 months) taking my dog up the street to pee where they couldn’t see. Never going to live in an HOA again.
Laurel July 17, 2011, 11:15 pm
Geez I don’t get the thumbs down. Hater’s gonna hate.
J July 17, 2011, 1:41 pm
Luckily I’ve lived in houses with lawns, driveways and garages most of my life, except dfr a 3 month period where my husband and I moved in with my MIL (the house we ived ina had been burgled, doors destroyed, we stayed with her until we bought a new house). After that experience I vowed to neer live in an apartment again. The lady directly over us seemed to take great pleasure in moving her furniture around at anytime of the night, the best was the neighbour whos bedroom shared a wall with ours, the amount of times I got woken up by passionate screams of “OH YES, OH MY GOD OH MY GOD YES!!!”, the likes of which I only thought existed in porn. The best part was when I actually met her live in bf who was not the guy that I had seen leaving her apartment after one of those screaming sessions!!!
Addie Pray July 17, 2011, 2:42 pm
I’m in a No Strings Attached relationship with my neighbor… when this ends dramatically, I will write into Wendy, and you can all yell at me.
AnitaBath July 18, 2011, 12:27 am
Yell? I so prefer burning at the stake.
SpaceySteph July 17, 2011, 5:00 pm
My neighborhood is fairly quiet, so I don’t have much to complain about. One day I left to go grocery shopping though and at my next door neighbor’s house was a woman (in probably her late 30s) sitting in her Lexus yelling at the top of her lungs to a young male that I think is her son. The woman doesn’t live in my neighbor’s house, they’re an older couple and I think this is their daughter.
I came back about and hour later and she was still (I assume) sitting in the car, with the car still running, still yelling at the kid. Nobody had moved from the spot they were in when I left except that now the woman who actually lives in the house was out there yelling too. I quietly gathered my groceries and went inside, I don’t know how long they were out there shouting for. It was weird. Not the first loud disagreement in front of that house, but definitely the longest. Just goes to show that no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy class.
SpaceySteph July 17, 2011, 5:05 pm
In light of above comments and abuse concerns, I want to clarify that the “kid” is probably early 20s, not like a young child.
AnitaBath July 17, 2011, 8:21 pm
I grew up in a quaint little historic town where everyone knows everyone. It’s pretty common for domestic pets to roam a few yards away, and no one usually cares because everyone knows who the owner is.
Growing up, there was a nature/animal store about two houses behind us. The supposed animal lover set out baited traps to capture cats that he would send to a kill shelter. When I was about nine or ten, he caught our cat twice, both times when she had a collar and once when she still had the stitches in from being spayed. After the first time, my dad went and politely asked him if he would refrain from capturing our pet and sending her off to get killed, because he has three kids who are really attached to her. The second time, I don’t think my dad was as nice.
So then the asshole moves away, and we have about seven or eight years of bliss (he was just kind of weird anyway). Then my sister finds a stray kitten in a friend’s field, and we bring it home to try and find a home for it. The kitten accidentally escaped the house without us noticing, and we looked for it for a day with no luck. About a day later, we ask our neighbors if they had seen it, and they said that they had given it to a friend of theirs, who just happened to be the same guy who always trapped our cat back in the day. I called the guy and left a message.
When he called back, I have honestly never had anyone talk down to me in such a way or be such a douche to me in my entire life. I was nineteen at the time, and explained to him that we were actually trying to find a home for the cat, and if he had found one then that was awesome because my mom wasn’t too thrilled about another cat anyway, and I just wanted to make sure that the cat was safe and wasn’t at the pound. The man said, “Oh…I’m not talking to the PARENT of the house? Well, I think we should let the ADULTS make the decision, and if your mother wants to contact me then that’s fine, but in the mean time…” He was on this total power trip and was just being a huge ass. He was saying that it was illegal for us to let a cat outdoors in our county (Umm…I live in podunk Indiana and half of the county is made up of corn fields..) and he wasn’t going to give it back to us and he wasn’t going to tell us what happened to it or where it was.
I was beyond pissed off. But then we found a lost sign for the kitten, called the owners, and told them the details about where their cat was. We told them that, if they wanted to see their cat, they had to lie about whether or not it would EVER be let outside. They ended up being really thankful and it made me feel good. But I still hate that guy.
If anyone remembers titsmagee from over at TF, it turns out that that guy used to go to her church and send her birthday cards and offer to babysit her in a really creepy way. Creeping douche.
MsMisery July 18, 2011, 11:42 am
My neighbors have two dogs that bark ALL. THE. TIME. And these neighbors have a 6 ft privacy fence, so the dogs can’t always see cars, people, the mailman, whatever. They just bark. They bark at airplanes, each other, squirrels, literally anything. The owners just let them bark forever and ever. I’ve listened to them bark for 40 minutes at a go. And it isn’t their fault they aren’t trained and have shitty owners. I swear to god the owners must sleep in shifts, too, because these dogs are out all the time. Eleven pm, 2 am, 4 am… Back when *I* had a dog, I let her out once before I went to bed, then she came in and we went to sleep. She wasn’t in and out all night long. Grrr. I feel like David Berkowitz some nights. SHUT THAT DAWG UPPPPP!!!!
G July 18, 2011, 12:26 pm
I lived in a really bad neighborhood with an ex. We lived next door to a pimp and a prostitute (not just a suspicion- 100% confirmed). Once I was pulling up to our place and the prostitute (Casey) was standing outside. She was so stoned out of her mind, she didn’t recognize my car and thought I was pulling over to pick her up. She tried to get in my car. I got so freaked out, I just hit the gas, drove around the block, and called my then-boyfriend to come outside to walk me in.
We also watched the place in front of us have a crazy fire one night. There were some “questions” being raised… seemed pretty obvious that it was arson.
I am very thankful to now live in a quiet rural neighborhood!
va-in-ny July 18, 2011, 12:42 pm
There is a girl in my apartment building that refuses to have her bed bug problem taken care of. I know bed bug extermination is a very time consuming, very expensive process, but the bugs in her apartment infultrate the walls and come into the other apartments by whatever means they can. Currently, I’m in a battle with my management company basically saying, “FIX IT OR EVICT HER!” because exterminating the other apartments has not helped the problem. What’s gross is that while I see one bug every now and then, I can only imagine what her apartment is like.
4C, get it together!
misslisa July 18, 2011, 4:34 pm
Reading all these comments reminds me of why I made one of my best decisions ever: Living in a retirement community. The minimum age to live here is 40; I moved in 2 days before my 40th birthday. Now, after seven glorious years of peace, I’ve almost forgotten how horrific it was living “on the outside,” where I experienced damn near everything y’all have written about here, plus some even worse stuff.
I feel inspired to create one of those “It Gets Better” clips: “I know it’s rough now, kids, with the awful crackhead neighbors waking you up daily, but it gets better – someday you’ll get to live in quiet serenity with golf-cart driving old folks. Cause you’ll be one too :)”