Nutty Neighbors

[Red Diabla]

Some would call my husband and I "nutty neighbors" because we own Harley-Davidsons with modified exhaust systems. Yep, loud pipes. However, we try to not be obnoxious when we're out and about on the motorcycles, and the local kids in the neighborhood are fascinated. In the eleven years we've had the bikes, we've only gotten one complaint about the noise, and we adjusted accordingly and all has been good as far as I know.

We have two neighbors that cause us varying levels of grief. The next-door neighbors have high-strung dogs that bark at everything and nothing allllll day, every day. It's horrible if we're home sick and can't get any sleep unless we take some type of heavy medication to knock us out or else the damn barking keeps us awake.

These neighbors have also kept their dogs out until very late at night or let the dogs out very early in the morning. Of course the beasts start barking and wake me up. There have been a couple of times where I've gotten woken up around 2 in the morning and would put on a robe, stomp over to the neighbor's house, and knock repeatedly on the door. They wouldn't answer the door(can't say I blame them for that), but they learned after I did that around three times that it's really incredibly rude to leave the dogs outside that late at night.

Then the dogs would start barking around 6:30am as soon as they're let outside. JEEEZ. The routine would be: they'd bark, I'd get woken up, I'd have to calm myself down because I don't want to start screaming at these people, the dogs would continue to bark, and I'd end up losing almost 2 hours of sleep every day as a result. Finally, I stomped over to the neighbor's house in my bathrobe and knocked on the door. This time, the neighborlady answered and immediately started apologizing. I had to explain that 6:30am is way too early to be having the dog bark, and letting it happen repeatedly was not acceptable. Then I said that if it happened again, I'd be coming back over expecting her to fix me breakfast. So far that approach has worked!

The other annoying neighbor is a hillbilly of such epic proportions I started a blog about his adventures. You can read about the Entropy Project aka Redneck Theater to your heart's content. Most people are amused with the blog. I say it's because they don't have to live with it, so it's much funnier that way.

RD

 

[Diamondback]

It is interesting to read how violent tendencies and reactions lie just beneth the surface over expected interactions between neighbors.

That's partly because there's still a bit of that old cavedweller in all of us, albeit to varying degrees. And when you factor in a predisposition to tribalism...

An old Arab saying describes it best:
"Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, me and my cousin against the world."
It's one of the worse parts of being human, but it's always been part of us, and unless we see that miraculous "spiritual recrudescence" Mac always talked about always will be. Also...

"It is in your nature to destroy yourselves."--Model 101, Series 800 (the Terminator, to the layman)

 

[jamespowers]

My peach tree was next to the fence when I moved in. I always thought of it as free peaches for the neighbors. But you're right in that many people don't consider the mature size of a tree, or its possible annoyances, when they plant it.

Whooooooaaaaa there! Fruit trees are exempt from the equation. Plant a fruit tree next to my fence anytime. I love my neighbor's apple tree.
Its the other neighbor's crap trees that just drop leaves and shade my fruit trees that I have a problem with. :rage:

 

[Lincsong]

If they planted the tree right up against the fence then they should expect to get grief over it being planted there. Its a matter of manners and being a good neighbor who doesn't encroach on your neighbor's property. There is no difference between that and squatters to me.:rage:
I just hedge the tree right up to the fence---unless I just happen to have some Round Up handy.

Matter of manners? How in the hell does a tree limb 13 feet above the groun encroach? More like someone being anal retentive, as though you're going to sit your butt up against the fence all day and look at a branch 13 feet above the ground.:eusa_booh :fing28:

 

[Lincsong]

Re-reading this thread reminds me of how very lucky I am!

Our next-door neighbors, an Osteopathic physician with a charming wife and three children, are absolute joys! We live in an old established neighborhood, and so both have yards full of elderly shade trees, which occasionally drop branches. He takes care of those that fall in his yard, and we take care of those that fall in ours. Across the street lives a wonderful lady in her nineties, who brings us flowers form her garden. IN winter we shovel her walks.

After our recent carriage house fire, a group of the neighbor men pitched in and helped us salvage the remaining contents of the building. None would accept remuneration.

We are truly blessed!

I'm glad there are still pockets of sanity and people with manners left.:eusa_clap

 

[Viola]

Current neighbors are really nice. An elderly woman I'm very fond of on one side who was BORN in her house, (she's 80+, bless her heart) who is a huge boon as far as knowing about the development of the neighborhood and even our house, what additions were made when, and so on. Other neighbors on the block all range from nice to pleasant to just sort of around, but not in a bad way. Worst you could say for any of them is "they're old and boring" but I LIKE old and boring, I was BORN, as my mother says, old and boring. lol

Before that we lived in a different neighborhood between coke dealers, who were the "nice" neighbors in that they were friendly at least, and some truly scary psychos who made the tail end of my childhood, uh, memorable?

I like boring.

 

[FinalVestige79]

Some would call my husband and I "nutty neighbors" because we own Harley-Davidsons with modified exhaust systems. Yep, loud pipes. However, we try to not be obnoxious when we're out and about on the motorcycles, and the local kids in the neighborhood are fascinated. In the eleven years we've had the bikes, we've only gotten one complaint about the noise, and we adjusted accordingly and all has been good as far as I know.

We have two neighbors that cause us varying levels of grief. The next-door neighbors have high-strung dogs that bark at everything and nothing allllll day, every day. It's horrible if we're home sick and can't get any sleep unless we take some type of heavy medication to knock us out or else the damn barking keeps us awake.

These neighbors have also kept their dogs out until very late at night or let the dogs out very early in the morning. Of course the beasts start barking and wake me up. There have been a couple of times where I've gotten woken up around 2 in the morning and would put on a robe, stomp over to the neighbor's house, and knock repeatedly on the door. They wouldn't answer the door(can't say I blame them for that), but they learned after I did that around three times that it's really incredibly rude to leave the dogs outside that late at night.

Then the dogs would start barking around 6:30am as soon as they're let outside. JEEEZ. The routine would be: they'd bark, I'd get woken up, I'd have to calm myself down because I don't want to start screaming at these people, the dogs would continue to bark, and I'd end up losing almost 2 hours of sleep every day as a result. Finally, I stomped over to the neighbor's house in my bathrobe and knocked on the door. This time, the neighborlady answered and immediately started apologizing. I had to explain that 6:30am is way too early to be having the dog bark, and letting it happen repeatedly was not acceptable. Then I said that if it happened again, I'd be coming back over expecting her to fix me breakfast. So far that approach has worked!

The other annoying neighbor is a hillbilly of such epic proportions I started a blog about his adventures. You can read about the Entropy Project aka Redneck Theater to your heart's content. Most people are amused with the blog. I say it's because they don't have to live with it, so it's much funnier that way.

RD

THAT IS AWESOME!!!!! lol Your Redneck neighbor reminds me of my neighbor Earl. Besides the drug dealer part...this guy makes earl look like he could do no wrong!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

We're often considered the nutty neighbors. We live in an area that was historically very 'redneck'. We've been in this area as a family since 1958.

My dad is a land developer, and has developed an area closer to the city of Portage proper. The original part where my family lived is about a mile down the road and is called Blackhawk Park, closer to us is Blackhawk Hills, and then the part my dad has developed is April Meadows (after my mom) Well, April Meadows is kinda ritzier I guess you'd say and it gets more redneck the father down you go, ending with Blackhawk Park which is still dirt roads and shacks on stilts. And we're more Blackhawk Park folk than anything yet.

We live in a beautiful 3200 square foot home on the highest hill that we just built, it sits on 35 acres with a 5 acre pond, and we have beautiful company cars, and classic vehicles, and motorcycles. People always thought we were kinda upper-crust types when we moved into the area, and then they meet us.....

We shoot guns off our back deck, fly a confederate flag in our front yard, my folks have tattoos. My brother and sister are Twins. Their names are Robert Lee and Dixie. Now, they think we're just a bunch of Hillbillies. It doesn't help either that I drive a Station Wagon with a REDNECK sticker across the windshield, confederate flag stickers, an illegal immigrant hunting permit, bomber plane pinup girls, and a CB Radio. People call us the Beverly Hillbillies because we won the lottery and invested and came up on the winning end, but never gave up those ways.

 

[ortega76]

I used to live in apartment above the loudest lesbian couple in the world. They would scream and fight all night- slam doors, swear, the whole nine yards. They played techno music at 2AM. They smoked ALOT of pot. They threw these barbeques where they invited only members of the GLBT community. We ended up having about 3 or 4 friends in common and they never invited me down because I wasn't GLBT.

I was student and working full-time so I pulled my share of late nights. One night around 11, they pounded on my door and asked me to stop baking cookies because the smell was making one of them sick. The cookies were the kind you cut from a "log" of dough and oatmeal raisin. They didn't burn. My neighbor across the hall came over to split some with me.

Another time, I had my girlfriend over for movies and dinner (at 7pm on a Friday) and they pounded on my floor/their ceiling because one of them was hungover from partying and any noise was "horrible".

ugh.

 

[Lillemor]

I just had a rant on another forum about my neighborhood situation. We had openess, friendliness, helpfullness and tolerance when we first moved here but it's changed over the past few years. The lack of communication and community feel is what's causing tension and conflicts and some drama queens just love to report neighbors who's properties don't live up to their "perfect" uniform ideal of what the neighborhood should look like.

We were their last target, they won, it cost us a fortune even only a small number of people had a complaint. The rest of our neighbors and that's the majority I hate that we're all supposed to be so boring an uniform. I refuse to show my usual polite side to these busy bodies and just completely ignore them. I like quirky but friendly people.

We have leaves and pollen falling on our roof and property from surrounding properties. We haven't reported them to the county/council but maybe we should've. We've planted what we thougth were bushes near a neighbor but upon realizing they're trees we're going to move them to be considerate so that our flowers, leaves and berries don't fall on her property.

Btw. our kids don't play on the street, I try to keep their noise level down when they're out playing and make them pick up their toys because our property is open and people can see it so I don't leave a mess but I will fight for our right (which it should be) to have more freedoms with what we do with our property and on our property.

What happened to taking a quiet, civil talk to your neighbors about any griefs?! Some people really get a kick out of involing the authorities in any dispute. I wish they'd get a life or move to a more "exclusive" neighborhood. I hope they all win the lottery. Rant over!

Oh and some idiot left an anonymous, poorly written letter in our mailbox on Thursday complaining about something and only left a first name and e-mail address but can't be bothered to answer our e-mail. Hub even bothered to walk around the neighborhood and try to find out who the idiot is. Of course it's no one.

 

[Dr Doran]

It doesn't help either that I drive a Station Wagon with a REDNECK sticker across the windshield, confederate flag stickers, an illegal immigrant hunting permit,

An "illegal immigrant hunting permit."

Hmmm.

I wonder if anyone will post a "hick hunting permit."

What an unfortunate situation that could be ...

 

[Paisley]

On the subject of hunting, I think you should have to eat what you kill. Cheers!

 

[Roger]

Oh lord, I remember this thread. What a loser that guy was. Walked around in these two sizes too small sweats with his gut hanging out. Thought he was a real ladies man.

 

[DBLIII]

On the subject of barking dogs -- there's no excuse for that. Twenty plus years of raising dogs and nine at home now and there is only barking if there is a reason (like a vehicle pulling into the driveway). That is a training issue.

We don't hear from our neighbors, but they are not really close, the nearest is probably 1,000 yards away. And, I wouldn't expect to have them stop by. I work in the firearms industry, so about once a month we test guns at the house. We do call our closest neighbor to check that timing is ok and/or that it is convenient for her (once in a while she will come over and watch). Big magnum rifles can be really loud and there's no reason to startle her. So, I suppose we are the "weird" neighbors and everybody else is normal.
It probably didn't help that when we moved in, my wife parked her Cadillac Hearse in the front yard for three days....

 

[jamespowers]

Matter of manners? How in the hell does a tree limb 13 feet above the groun encroach? More like someone being anal retentive, as though you're going to sit your butt up against the fence all day and look at a branch 13 feet above the ground.:eusa_booh :fing28:

It still cast shade on the yard where other plants grow--interfering with their daily sunlight. I am not sure what "13 feet above the groun is though."
Try growing tomatoes in the shade if you mean above the "ground." Not to mention the extra leaves that fall on your side that you get to rake up. Then to make matters worse al the stupid seedlings that pop up all over the yard due to the proliferation of seeds the damned trees drop. Sure no problem. It isn't hurting a thing. :eusa_doh: :rage:
That is a hypothetical though as there are no branches 13 feet above the ground. There are no branches near the fence.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

our neighbor is...well, he doesn't exactly have all his ducks swimming in the same pond...

we had a little problem with him a couple weeks ago and haven't seen him since...

 

[Marc Chevalier]

we had a little problem with him a couple weeks ago and haven't seen him since...

[huh] Maybe he's lying dead in his house? It happened to a guy that lived next to my friend. Sniff at the door.

.

 

[jamespowers]

our neighbor is...well, he doesn't exactly have all his ducks swimming in the same pond...

we had a little problem with him a couple weeks ago and haven't seen him since...

He might have indeed assumed room temperature. Reminds me of a case where a man was dead for two years in an apartment before he was found. The TV was on all that time and he likely would never have been found had his rent not bounced. Every bill he had was automatically paid from his checking account---which was replenished every month via a retirement. [huh]

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Yep. And here's a sad article about ANOTHER case like the one Jamespowers cited: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...earth-can-a-woman-lie-dead-for-two-years.html


.

 

[jamespowers]

Yep. And here's a sad article about ANOTHER case like the one Jamespowers cited: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...earth-can-a-woman-lie-dead-for-two-years.html


.

Great. I want to know what brand of TV that is so I can go buy one. Two years without failing or burning the appartment down.