Nutty Neighbors

[LizzieMaine]

Well, this is something new. I'm driving home from work last nite about 10pm and as I turn into my street I see a tall, thin figure in a long black cape and hood peering into the window of a duplex two houses down from where I iive. Not something you see every night of the week, even in my neighborhood, but I figured, well, Halloween's coming and he's probably giving his girlfriend a scare or something. So I didn't call the police.

This morning, I come out the back door to head to work, and I see two footprints on my metal cellar door that definitely aren't mine, since I don't wear size 12 Converse sneakers. My best guess is that Mr. Reaper paid me a visit in the night as well. Just another reason to have a deadbolt on the door.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

A couple of years ago, we were watching TV about 1 a.m. and someone tried to open our front door, which was thankfully locked. Called 911. Come to find out it was the drunk friend of a neighbor who'd come to the wrong house. This wasn't the first time this drunk guy had bothered one of his host's neighbors - one found him passed out on the steps. Not a bright idea to do this where a lot of people have CCW's licenses, guns, and who could legally shoot him for coming into their homes uninvited.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, I wake up this morning, on the first day off I've had in a month, to find a backhoe sitting in my neighbor's yard -- the lot directly abutting the west side of my house. Earlier this year, they clearcut all the trees in that yard, and now construction is about to begin on the new parking lot they're installing to service their unlicensed AirBNB operation, which parking lot I'll get to enjoy in all its glory every time I look out the kitchen window as I do my dishes.

There really isn't any recourse for me legally -- the city has appointed a committee to study AirBNB's impact on neighborhoods and make recommendations, but my neighbor is on that committe, and the mayor, who I believe also runs an AirBNB, has stacked it with those in sympathy with her view. So any complaints I make will be flushed away like a tourist's spilled Coolatta.

But that doesn't mean I can't make my own house and yard -- which their guests will see in all its glory from their rooms -- as aggressively and as obnoxiously downscale as possible. The grass will be cut only if I feel like it, which will be seldom,the leaves will be raked only if I feel like it, which will be never, the giant anthill will thrive unchecked, the weeds will flourish, the dying poplar tree will continue to shed sticks and twigs at every windstorm, and I will continue to toss crusts and trimmings out back for the pleasure of the raccoons and skunks. And my holey faded underwear will flap in the breeze from the clothesline on every sunny afternoon. Enjoy your view!

 

[GHT]

And my holey faded underwear will flap in the breeze from the clothesline on every sunny afternoon. Enjoy your view!

Lizzie, for goodness sake, what have I told you about flashing your (not so) smalls?

 

[Lean'n'mean]

But that doesn't mean I can't make my own house and yard -- which their guests will see in all its glory from their rooms -- as aggressively and as obnoxiously downscale as possible. The grass will be cut only if I feel like it, which will be seldom,the leaves will be raked only if I feel like it, which will be never, the giant anthill will thrive unchecked, the weeds will flourish, the dying poplar tree will continue to shed sticks and twigs at every windstorm, and I will continue to toss crusts and trimmings out back for the pleasure of the raccoons and skunks. And my holey faded underwear will flap in the breeze from the clothesline on every sunny afternoon. Enjoy your view!

Overlooking a safari park sounds like a good selling point to me.

 

[Zombie_61]

For several years people in our neighborhood quietly referred to the house directly south of ours as "the crack house" simply because some of it's occupants looked somewhat "shady". On more than one occasion I witnessed late-night activities in front of the house that led me to believe there actually was some drug dealing going on, but other than that the people who lived there kept to themselves and didn't cause any problems in the neighborhood.

One Sunday afternoon four or five years ago we were watching TV when we heard some noises outside, so I looked and saw at least 10 police cars, a fire engine, and two ambulances filling our street. The police cars were deliberately positioned, and most of the officers had their guns drawn and pointed at the crack house. The noise we heard was a Sheriff's helicopter overhead issuing orders to the occupants of the house to come out one-by-one, which they did and were subsequently taken into custody for questioning. We later found out a Sheriff's officer had tracked a stolen car to the house and arrived to find one of it's occupants washing the car in the alley behind the house, and another occupant washing another stolen car. Some of the people living there returned later that evening, others did not; I assume they were incarcerated. The house has been quiet ever since, so they're either in prison or they learned from their previous mistakes. Either way, I really don't care as long as their nonsense doesn't affect anyone else.

 

[tonyb]

Well, I wake up this morning, on the first day off I've had in a month, to find a backhoe sitting in my neighbor's yard -- the lot directly abutting the west side of my house. Earlier this year, they clearcut all the trees in that yard, and now construction is about to begin on the new parking lot they're installing to service their unlicensed AirBNB operation, which parking lot I'll get to enjoy in all its glory every time I look out the kitchen window as I do my dishes.

There really isn't any recourse for me legally -- the city has appointed a committee to study AirBNB's impact on neighborhoods and make recommendations, but my neighbor is on that committe, and the mayor, who I believe also runs an AirBNB, has stacked it with those in sympathy with her view. So any complaints I make will be flushed away like a tourist's spilled Coolatta.

But that doesn't mean I can't make my own house and yard -- which their guests will see in all its glory from their rooms -- as aggressively and as obnoxiously downscale as possible. The grass will be cut only if I feel like it, which will be seldom,the leaves will be raked only if I feel like it, which will be never, the giant anthill will thrive unchecked, the weeds will flourish, the dying poplar tree will continue to shed sticks and twigs at every windstorm, and I will continue to toss crusts and trimmings out back for the pleasure of the raccoons and skunks. And my holey faded underwear will flap in the breeze from the clothesline on every sunny afternoon. Enjoy your view!

Like it or not, short-term rentals are here to stay, pretty much everywhere they aren’t forbidden by covenants.

Especially in tourist towns, such as yours, the revenue is just too good to pass up, for the property owners, their agents, and, not least, the government agencies that tax the activity.

A person of my close acquaintance, who resides in a resort town, got into the game early, like more than 20 years ago. Made a fortune. Sold the business to a far larger international operation that would be coming into her territory whether she sold or not. Now she draws an income (and a health insurance plan) from the guys who bought her out.

Most of the property owners there use agencies such as hers to manage what had been “second homes” or “recreational” properties. (Again, it’s a resort town.)

What’s allowed there wouldn’t fly where I live, which is an almost generic suburban subdivision built out in the 1970s, all ranch houses and split-levels, one not a whole lot unlike the one next to it. Hardly a tourist destination. Short-term rentals are allowed, but only one per property, which must also be the property owner’s primary residence. Additionally, there can be no outward indication that the accessory dwelling unit is a short-term rental (meaning no signs, essentially), and that taxes are paid to the state and county (4.25 percent) and to the city (8 percent). And yes, they enforce. I believe I’m now paying more in lodger’s taxes than in regular property taxes. And I pay federal and state taxes on the income the short-term rental generates. Accounting for it all can be a greater PITA than operating the business itself. That’s why I pay a CPA, seeing how it’s not my only business and how I have little interest in learning about tax codes and how they might affect me.

The concern that property owners would turn entire apartment buildings into hotels aren’t entirely unfounded. Such has happened in some locales, and, as was feared, it has had an inflationary effect on regular rental prices. But local governments have enacted ordinances to address such potential negative impacts, as has been done here.

When we moved here, three years ago, the light-rail line and the adjacent parking garage, less than half a mile away from where I sit at present, hadn’t been built yet. Two parcels right by the rail line, one 15 acres, the other a little over five, were still open land. Now one 450 unit complex is complete and the other, with 350 units, ain’t far behind. People gotta live somewhere, and I’d rather new housing go where infrastructure is already in place. I’m cool with the changing character of this district, but that opinion isn’t shared by all the neighbors.

From all outward appearances, ours is still a single-family neighborhood, with houses made for households of five or six people and two or three or four cars. (Everyone has a two-car garage and a driveway wide enough for two cars parked side by side.) Household sizes have shrunk some in the 40-plus years these houses have been here. Many now contain accessory dwelling units. Even with that, I'd wager there are still fewer people living in this single-family neighborhood than there were 40 years ago.

 

[MikeBravo]

Well, I wake up this morning, on the first day off I've had in a month, to find a backhoe sitting in my neighbor's yard -- the lot directly abutting the west side of my house. Earlier this year, they clearcut all the trees in that yard, and now construction is about to begin on the new parking lot they're installing to service their unlicensed AirBNB operation, which parking lot I'll get to enjoy in all its glory every time I look out the kitchen window as I do my dishes.

There really isn't any recourse for me legally -- the city has appointed a committee to study AirBNB's impact on neighborhoods and make recommendations, but my neighbor is on that committe, and the mayor, who I believe also runs an AirBNB, has stacked it with those in sympathy with her view. So any complaints I make will be flushed away like a tourist's spilled Coolatta.

But that doesn't mean I can't make my own house and yard -- which their guests will see in all its glory from their rooms -- as aggressively and as obnoxiously downscale as possible. The grass will be cut only if I feel like it, which will be seldom,the leaves will be raked only if I feel like it, which will be never, the giant anthill will thrive unchecked, the weeds will flourish, the dying poplar tree will continue to shed sticks and twigs at every windstorm, and I will continue to toss crusts and trimmings out back for the pleasure of the raccoons and skunks. And my holey faded underwear will flap in the breeze from the clothesline on every sunny afternoon. Enjoy your view!

Civil disobedience. I like it, and Gandhi would be proud.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The excavator is out there swinging right now. The property line is eighteen inches from the side of my house.

The short-term-rental racket has created a serious housing shortage here, and one of the issues being considered by the city is banning non-owner-occupied short-term rentals. My neighbor is the opposite problem -- there are a lot of big old Victorian-type houses in town with eight or ten or twelve rooms that just beg to have those rooms rented out to tourists. It's pretty hard for those operations not to turn into hotels -- oh, pahdon me, B&Bs -- but neighborhoods such as mine are not zoned to allow such use. Short-terming is basically an end run around the laws designed to protect neighborhoods from unsafe levels of traffic, annoying levels of noise (such as a backhoe operating a foot and a half from your bed at 7 am), and similar impediments.

As I said, I don't have any confidence at all in what the city is going to do about this. The fix, as it always is here, is in. The bourgies and the gentrifiers run the show here, and the rest of us are soaking in it.

 

[tonyb]

The excavator is out there swinging right now. The property line is eighteen inches from the side of my house.

The short-term-rental racket has created a serious housing shortage here, and one of the issues being considered by the city is banning non-owner-occupied short-term rentals. My neighbor is the opposite problem -- there are a lot of big old Victorian-type houses in town with eight or ten or twelve rooms that just beg to have those rooms rented out to tourists. It's pretty hard for those operations not to turn into hotels -- oh, pahdon me, B&Bs -- but neighborhoods such as mine are not zoned to allow such use. Short-terming is basically an end run around the laws designed to protect neighborhoods from unsafe levels of traffic, annoying levels of noise (such as a backhoe operating a foot and a half from your bed at 7 am), and similar impediments.

As I said, I don't have any confidence at all in what the city is going to do about this. The fix, as it always is here, is in. The bourgies and the gentrifiers run the show here, and the rest of us are soaking in it.

I’ll admit to a bit of confusion here.

I take it your neighborhood isn’t one of those with grand old Victorians turning one by one into what are essentially hotels, but rather a considerably more modest district of what had been (and still is?) working-class housing. If so, an ordinance much like the one in effect here (and in many other jurisdictions) would go quite some distance to mitigating the unfavorable effects on the neighbors. As best I can tell, the only downside of my short-term rental and others in the neighborhood would be in the objector’s head. I’ve yet to directly hear such gripes anyway, and I’ve been at it a couple years now. Like almost all short-term rentals, parties and “events” are not allowed. Off-street parking is provided. Hell, I’m usually unaware of the renters’ presence myself, so it’s hard to see how it hurts the guy across the street.

As to gentrification ...

Rising housing costs here and in other places I’ve resided in recent years (Seattle and environs) have far outstripped regular people’s incomes, such that two full-time paychecks are required to maintain a modest (to be generous) household. And even then too many hard-working people are digging through the couch cushions at the end of the month. It stinks, and it isn’t sustainable.

What makes me wanna holla are the neighborhood “saviors” (generally relatively recent arrivals) who fail to see their contribution to the gentrification they process to deplore. I can’t count the number of times daily I heard newcomers to my old Central and Southeast Seattle neighborhoods prattle on about how they “treasure the diversity” of the district. Those ’hoods are now a whole lot less “diverse” than they were before those self-satisfied, self-congratulatory types moved on. But hey! They have artisan bakeries! And brew pubs! And galleries!

 

[LizzieMaine]

My neighborhood is mostly ltitle working-class houses built in the late 19th/early 20th century, but the house next to me is the outlier -- a big, sprawling 10-room thing which I think was built during the Civil War era as a farmhouse when most of the rest of the street was undeveloped. The lot between my house and this big house was empty -- it was the side yard of the 10 room house -- but it's now being churned up into a parking lot, the edge of which will be less than three feet from my house. Not cool.

The problem with short-terms here is that there are no regulations governing them at all -- the philosophy is "It's Dough -- Let's Go, and devil take the hindmost." Residential zoning in this city explicitly prohibits "businesses," which includes Bed and Breakfast joints, but AirBnB type deals are not considered "businesses" under local law, so there's basically no limit at all on what can be done with them, and on what is being done with them.

There's been quite a bit of local pushback from operators of B&Bs and hotels in town, who argue -- quite correctly -- that they're being undercut by unlicensed wildcat operators who are running B&Bs in everything but name -- and the controversy has been framed, unfortunately, as "B&B operators vs. The Little Guy." That's not it at all. There's an increasing number of real-estate speculators buying up small houses in neighborhoods like mine and turning them into short-term rentals, which reduces an already limited local housing pool for the people who actually live here, and drives local rentals to intolerable levels. You can't rent a house or apartment here that isn't crawling with rats for less than a grand a month -- which is far beyond the means of most working-class people here unless they have a side-hustle dealing heroin.

There have been efforts to restrict non-owner-occupied short term rentals, but the so-called "Sharing" Economy crowd got up in arms over that, leading to the current committee that's "studying solutions." As noted before, there is no working-class/neighborhood representation on this committee, and none was sought when it was formed --just AirBNBers and hotel/B&B operators, with the alignment stacked by the mayor in favor of the AirBNB crowd. So any chance that anything equitable will be accomplished would seem unlikely.

The excavator seems to be done for the day, and it looks like it might have churned up some bones or something while digging. Probably from a horse or a mule or a cow, but it would serve them right if it was a forgotten cursed graveyard that will unleash unspeakable evil on those who disturbed it.

 

[tonyb]

I’m still a bit unclear on what is happening in your little slice of Heaven.

Is that massive old place next door set to be a bed-and-breakfast, which, going by what you’ve mentioned so far, would be regulated (or not permitted by existing ordinance in your residential district anyway?), or a more free-form sort of unregulated short-term crash pad geared toward tourists on a tight budget? Or is it that the property owners are playing a semantic game, changing what they call their operation to fit local code but changing only that?

I gotta shake my head at any suggestion that a short-term rental isn’t a “business.” Of course it’s a business, and as such ought be required to play by rules materially similar to those imposed on other lodging businesses.

Within a quarter mile or so of that nearby light-rail station I alluded to earlier are a half dozen or more motels and hotels. (Freeway access is also quite nearby, and although we are 20 miles from the airport, it’s only a 20-minute drive, seeing how it’s limited-access highway every inch of the way, once you’re on the entrance ramp.) Two Extended Stay America hotels are within a couple hundred yards of each other. This morning I drove a couple blocks out of my way to check out progress on yet another hotel under construction. If short-term rentals such as mine are having a negative impact on the hotel trade, there’s little sign of it here.

I certainly understand how people who have lived in a small community all their lives, people whose families go back generations in that town, would recoil at seeing speculators buying up residential properties and essentially turning them into hotels, and in so doing driving up the cost of housing to a point unaffordable to most of the folks who actually live there. But that’s always the temptation when a local economy that was once based on agriculture or fishing or manufacturing or mining or whatever is now largely dependent on tourism. It’s one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-fors, because you just might get it, right where it hurts.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They're planning to run it strictly as an AirBNB -- they have been, in fact, for about a year now. People coming and going at all hours of the day and night, cars parked in the street (a very narrow side street at that.) The obliteration of their side yard in favor of a paved parking lot is their way of addressing complaints about the cars.

Of course it's a business, but until we dispose of the legal fiction that renting a room in your house to tourists is the same thing as letting your Cousin Larry stay the night, this kind of stuff will keep on. The "sharing economy" is the biggest fraud there is, and it's being used to thumb the nose at legal zoning regulations.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Well, I wake up this morning, on the first day off I've had in a month, to find a backhoe sitting in my neighbor's yard -- the lot directly abutting the west side of my house. Earlier this year, they clearcut all the trees in that yard, and now construction is about to begin on the new parking lot they're installing to service their unlicensed AirBNB operation, which parking lot I'll get to enjoy in all its glory every time I look out the kitchen window as I do my dishes.

There really isn't any recourse for me legally -- the city has appointed a committee to study AirBNB's impact on neighborhoods and make recommendations, but my neighbor is on that committe, and the mayor, who I believe also runs an AirBNB, has stacked it with those in sympathy with her view. So any complaints I make will be flushed away like a tourist's spilled Coolatta.

But that doesn't mean I can't make my own house and yard -- which their guests will see in all its glory from their rooms -- as aggressively and as obnoxiously downscale as possible. The grass will be cut only if I feel like it, which will be seldom,the leaves will be raked only if I feel like it, which will be never, the giant anthill will thrive unchecked, the weeds will flourish, the dying poplar tree will continue to shed sticks and twigs at every windstorm, and I will continue to toss crusts and trimmings out back for the pleasure of the raccoons and skunks. And my holey faded underwear will flap in the breeze from the clothesline on every sunny afternoon. Enjoy your view!

A remedy comes to mind based upon something which I read years ago.

The owners of an old Victorian in Minneapolis were approached with a waiver for their signature as to photographing the exterior. College instructor types, they didn't read the fine print: they presumed that it was for a documentary or such.

Turns out that it was for the Mary Tyler Moore show, and their house was supposed to be where Mary Richards (lead character) had her apartment. Before long, they had people banging on the door at all hours, and some even entering their house (without knocking and asking) expecting to meet the show cast. Drove the poor yuppies nearly mad.

So, in 1973, catching wind that the television company was planning exterior reshoots, they hung up a huge banner over their porch reading, "IMPEACH NIXON !!" and placed a gas station metal "Clean Restrooms Inside" sign in the front yard in an attempt to prevent further filming.


Told a friend of mine about it at the time. He said that if it was his house, the banner would have read, "Mary Tyler Moore Sucks Farts Out Of Dead Chickens!" Ah, those wild & witty engineering major types..

 

[GHT]

AirB&B was a new one on me. B&B is well known on our side of the pond, so I took the air prefix to mean booking a B&B on line, or over the phone. What you have described is endemic here too. Companies that try every trick in the book to side step a law. Classic case here was that of Uber trying to muscle in on the famous London Taxi trade. They picked a fight with a very assertive opposition, added to that, London cabbies are well known for their knowledge of the capital, their helpfulness, their spirited goodwill, they raise thousands of pounds for charity, as well as taking under-privileged kids on days out.

Something like the AirB&B that Lizzie describes would soon be sorted out over here, one way or another, by a test case in court. And let me tell you, any public servant, like the mayor, who might be seen to be feathering their nest from a dubious activity would soon face, both the ire of the courts and the electorate.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've thought about hanging out a hammer-and-sickle flag and a sign reading LIQUIDATE THE BOURGEOISIE, but I'd be unemployed and possibly dead before nightfall.

Meanwhile, now they've got one of those big hydraulic soil-packing machines out there POUND POUND POUNDING, and every blow that hits I can feel the vibration in my floors and am waiting for things to start falling off the walls. A peaceful, relaxing afternoon off.

 

[GHT]

^^^^ Did you know that soil compactors run on a diesel engine? Did you know that diesel and sugar react together badly? Did you know that it's not wise to get sugar in the fuel tank of a diesel engine?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I understand that dropping a couple of Baby Ruth bars down the fuel tank can create hours of fun for some poor mechanic.

 

[GHT]

I understand that dropping a couple of Baby Ruth bars down the fuel tank can create hours of fun for some poor mechanic.

I couldn't possibly comment on that.