Neighbors-from-Hell

I live in a large development of nearly identical homes. All of the homes are duplexes; connected to one-another on one side. My particular unit lies on the outside of a curve in the road. My lot is pie-shaped. I have less than 50 feet of street frontage; my back property line measures over 300 feet. The back third of my property is wooded.

For the first few years I lived here it was really nice. I was fortunate to have a quiet couple in the unit I was attached to; a nice single woman lived next door on the other side. I had a good relationship with her; we'd talk often, I liked her a lot. She was a teacher who had taken an administrative position with her district. She then put the house up for sale and moved on. I hated to see her go and that's when things changed.

Much to my chagrin, the 'neighbors-from-hell' moved in. I am not sure exactly how many kids they have but I know they have too many for that small house. I have never been introduced to any of them; yet I know many of their names. There's Bobby, Bradley, Cassandra...aka 'Cassy,' and more. I am familiar with these names as they are screamed routinely from the front yard to the back. I refer to them collectively as 'the LOUD family.' Given the size of the brood, whenever the weather is nice they are all outside. My days of enjoying the songbirds in the woods had evaporated overnight. I knew early-on that I wanted no contact with these people. I joked with my friends that it was clear to me their previous home had wheels on it. Even funnier, as I learned later, my suspicions were correct. They had, indeed, moved here from a trailer park.

I have had three unfortunate contacts with these people.

When they first moved in they had older kids living with them as well as the toddlers. They home-schooled these children; a frightening thought, for sure. It became quickly apparent there wasn't a whole lot of 'schooling' going on. The kids were most often playing outside. Their front yard has no trees; mine has two large trees. Where did the kids like to play? In front of my house in the shade. I would come home from work and find them congregated at the end of my driveway. They were leaning against my mailbox to the point that it fell down. I would find snack wrappers and soda containers littering my yard. Funny how when I would confront them about it I was told the offending youth had gone home.

I was getting real fed up with it. One day I decided to do something about it. I pulled in the driveway after they scattered. I parked and removed a beach chair from the rear of my truck. I planted the chair at the end of the driveway and began talking on the phone. I had hoped they would move along as they wouldn't want to hang out with me there. ' N-f-H Dad' came out and saw what was going on. Instead of encouraging the kids to play in front of their house; where they belonged, he surveyed the situation; looked at them and said, 'Don't let him intimidate you by sitting there like that. You can do anything you want to as long as you stay on the sidewalk.' The kids then began to taunt me as I thought what a *******! I was pissed.

I considered my options and tried to think of something the kids would NOT like. The first choice was classical music. I pulled my small boom-box from the rear of my truck and tuned it to the local NPR station. That seemed to work; the crowd dispersed. I left it on and out at the end of the driveway and went into the house. I was so angry I went down in my basement wondering what kind of music I thought 'dad' would dislike. That was easy. Rap music. I put one of my stereo speakers out on my patio and tuned my digital cable box to the un-interrupted rap station. Now I had rap playing in the backyard and classical out front. Some time later there was a knock on my door. They had called the police.

It was about 7PM when I greeted the two officers at my door. The policewoman did all of the talking. She asked, 'Is that your music I hear playing?' I said, 'Yes.' She said, 'We were called by your next door neighbors in response to a noise complaint; could you please turn it down?' I said, 'Yes.' I looked at her and said, 'Please tell them this used to be a nice place to live until they moved in. They show a complete disregard for their neighbors.' She told me she would. She then left to go talk to them. The policeman went back to his cruiser. He remembered me from helping me when my truck blew up at busy intersection one day. He told me outside the presence of his partner that they really couldn't force me to turn the volume down until 11 PM. I still complied with the request.

The 'chutzpah' of the 'LOUD family' to call the police with a complaint against me for noise. Unbelievable. Obviously, they were born-and-raised in Lancaster County. Ugh.

Before I got the car I have now, I was driving an Isuzu Amigo. The vehicle had a soft-top over the back half. Over the many years I had it the top had stretched to the point it wouldn't clip across the back; there were gaps. The neighbors-from-hell not only introduced noise into the neighborhood; they introduced feral cats, too. One of their cats figured out how to slip between the gaps in my truck-roof and would often be sleeping in my truck. The first few times it scared the crap out of me as I would turn the key, start the engine and hear it scurrying to jump out before I pulled away. The fear then turned to frustration; just another aspect of the detriment these people have caused to the neighborhood.

One morning as I got in my truck the cat again scurried away. Ugh. I set about my half-hour morning commute. About half-way into the trip I heard a muted noise coming from the back of the truck. I turned down the radio and listened. Again, I heard the same muted noise. I got to work and punched in. I returned to my truck. I pulled open the back of the roof and inspected the bed of the truck. My worst fears had been realized. The cat had kittens in the bed of my truck.

I went in to my boss and apprised him of the situation. He said, 'Well, the humane thing to do is get the kittens back to the mother.' I agreed. I had to take a half-vacation day to accommodate the needs of the newborn kittens. I drove home to confront the neighbor with the situation.

I pulled into my driveway and immediately went over. I asked him if he had a gray cat that runs through the neighborhood. He said they did. I told him his cat had kittens in the back of my truck. He laughed and took the kittens. I told him I wasn't happy as they cost me a half-vacation day. I said, 'I almost feel like I should be compensated somehow.' Three of his younger children were present when he snapped, 'I'm not giving you a f*cking thing for the kittens.' Again, I knew these were people I wanted nothing to do with.

In the intervening years I have done my best to ignore them. I have allowed the 'border area' of my side yard to 'grow-up' as any barrier to their inconsideration is a good thing to me. I have joked with friends that now during the summer I don't have to see them; too bad I can still hear them. The noise was the source of today's confrontation.

Last night was a nice night here in the northeast; a good 'sleeping night' for this time of summer. No need for the air-conditioning; an open window would do just fine. At 7:03 this morning I awoke to the sound of a weed-whacker. My property line with the neighbors-from-hell in front of the house is less than 50 feet from my bedroom window. He was working right there! At 7:05 I slammed the window shut. I'm sorry to say; he didn't stop, nor was the noise abated inside my bedroom. At 7:13 I got out of bed. I slipped on some shorts. At 7:15 I confronted him through the brush of my side yard. I waited until he stopped for a moment and said, 'Do you really think it's appropriate to be doing that at 7 in the morning?' He said, 'I gotta get it done.' I asked, 'Do you know what the noise ordinance says?' He replied, 'no.' I said, 'It says, '8 AM....Asshole.'' I turned and walked back into the house; slammed the door behind me. The noise stopped but the adrenaline had kicked in. There was no way I was going back to bed. I really did want to sleep in.

It's frustrating to live next door to the Neighbors-from-Hell.
I hope everyone else's neighbors are more considerate than mine.
It really does suck living next-door to them.
Ugh.