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Neighbors

2000 Archive

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2003 Archive


I have a couple living below me who seem to be clueless. They demand that the driveway shared by our two apartments be kept clear of all vehicles at all times except for ours and theirs. No visitor is safe from an inquisition if they park there. This is not even our driveway; it's available to us through another kind neighbor! Nevertheless, Mr. X belligerently guards it, day and night. I had an overnight out-of town guest and was awakened VERY early by Mrs. X pounding on my door, demanding to know if I had company!

Even worse, two or three times daily, I am subjected to calls of 45 min to well over an hour EACH, apropos of absolutely NOTHING...the husband tells long winded stories over and over...and over. Efforts to escape gracefully are ignored. I tried letting my answering machine field the calls, only to hear loud commands to "pick up! I know you're home! I can hear you moving around! " *sigh*

Neighbors 1126-03


Hi again, This one happened about 12 years ago. I'd almost forgotten about it until reading other's stories here.

I was 19, first time away from home, first real job, in a city half a country away from home. One of those learn-to-look-after-yourself-or-starve deals. One of the best experiences of my life. Adelaide, incidentally, is the only city in the world - and I've lived across both hemispheres since then - I was ever sad to leave. When I first arrived, I was initially staying with an old school friend of my mother's and her family. That lasted until shortly after the weekend when I had very politely declined an invitation to attend their church. (I'm not a Christian, though I strongly respect other's right to choose a faith if it makes them happy and doesn't make others miserable).

A few day later I was less than politely asked to speed up my search for an apartment after a big lecture on how they (husband and wife) had been orphans and had never got all the lucky breaks I had. Now, I - as they knew - was a single-parent welfare child whose father had completely cut contact and stated a preference for jail to paying support - not that the government ever did what they should have. I had a poor but good childhood. Likely they were worse-off still, but it wasn't my fault - I wasn't even born then. All my lucky breaks came from my mother's positive attitude to education and her willingness to half kill herself to ensure her children didn't end up in her situation. The whole whinge was essentially about how my grandmother had loaned me a few thousand dollars to buy a car which I needed to get the job. These people had a very nice house, presumably because they worked hard all their lives, and two beautiful children. I didn't get what their problem was. I eventually had to conclude that my lack of Faith was the problem. They also cut communications with my mother after that. Presumably because she had failed to raise me to their standards.

Presumptions are usually wrong, btw.

As a result, I got the first cheap apartment that came up, despite it being in a very bad area. I ended up in a second floor flat of a quad-set of 2-story apartment blocks laid out perpendicular to the road, with tarmac for parking between (the layout is important, bear with me).

First thing that happened, about two days after moving in, my car was broken into and the fancy stereo was stolen. I hope they sold it on to Jack the Ripper's grandson because it had come free with the car and didn't work at all (and as an electronics technician, I had been unable to fix it). I had to replace a side window, which was a pain. At least they broke one of the small rear windows. Oh, they got 20 cents from the ashtray. The police knew who it was - my across-the-tarmac neighbors, but also knew from experience there was not much point in even questioning them. A girl who moved in a few months later had her car done in exactly the same way a few days after moving in. I stuck a note under her wiper advising her of my incident report number and advising her to tell the police it was likely related. She stuck a thank you under my wiper (we never actually met face to face).

Here comes the good bit. One night I was woken by noises on my front balcony. I was alone for the first time in my life and having night-terror dreams about poltergeists, then burglars sneaking into my apartment, so I crept into the living room to investigate. Someone was on my front balcony! Now this balcony was not connected to the ground by stairs or anything. Then I noticed a small hole in the door. Exactly where a peephole would be and the same size. My lights were off, but the street lighting from outside was coming through the hole. This hole shouldn't be there. I was still waking up from troubled sleep and did one of those things that you only know is really really stupid in hindsight. The visitor had noisily scrambled off the balcony, and I went up to the door and LOOKED THROUGH THE HOLE.

I saw, on the second-floor balcony directly across from me, the bunch of drug-addicts that lived there had a rather fancy compound bow and one was lining it up with my door for another shot. I stepped away from the door. THUNK. Considering how stoned they sounded, he was a very good shot. Good enough that if I had looked through that hole 20 seconds later, I would have at the very least lost a chunk of my face. I don't believe this was anything personal. My door was just directly across from theirs and a convenient target. Someone scrambled back onto the balcony and the arrow was pulled out of the door again (hollow-ply doors, if you hadn't already guessed).

I had no phone since I'm not very social and had no local friends outside of work. I had a good acquaintanceship with one of the couples downstairs who I had met taking out the rubbish and in the car park on numerous occasions. Luckily the stairs were on the other side of my building. I left out the back door and went down to theirs. It was after dark and he was hesitant to open the back door for me (which I didn't grudge him, the area being as it was) and wanted to know why I didn't go around to the front. "Because they're shooting arrows about," I replied. I heard him go to the front and open his door. He said something loud and jovial to the other building and quickly shut the door. I heard him swear and then he opened his back door for me.

Since he was there with his wife and toddler and we didn't know each other except in passing, and he was obviously still hesitant about letting me into his home, I solved the issue by refusing to come in and just asked that he phone the police for me. Give my name if he liked. I returned to my apartment, locked my back door and stayed well clear of the windows.

The police duly arrived, confiscated the bow and arrested a few people, to release them on bail shortly afterwards and took statements from myself and other witnesses. No reprisals came, though I was very worried. Particularly for the downstairs couple, as the man had actually been seen by the offenders shortly before the police arrived so it wasn't a leap of intellect to assume he had called them. My lights had never gone on the whole time, so there was no indication my apartment had been inhabited that evening. I was never called to testify in court, though I had volunteered to do so when giving my statement. Apparently the offender died of an overdose a few weeks later, and you should have heard the screaming abuse the poor ambulance people had to put up with when they came!

I've lived in many places since then. I've had great neighbors and bad. I've had 3-hour late-night screaming matches from one neighbor concerned that another has a woman in his apartment. I've had international students screaming and throwing each others' luggage from 5th floor windows over who slept with whose boyfriend. I've had people dancing on the roof of my (very old) car so I had to pop it back into shape the next morning with my feet pushing from the inside. I've had to chase off a middle-aged man in a foreign country trying to teach his young sons/nephews how to steal my bicycle*. I've had shopping trollies loaded with drunk pre-teens careering into my mother's street-parked car while she visited me. But whatever happens with my neighbors. I try to keep some perspective by asking myself, "But are they shooting arrows into my front door?!!"

Neighborly Regards.

*I had been welding across the college parking-lot and was covered in soot, in heavy overalls and swinging a 23-inch shifting spanner - boy did that fat git run! He actually came back a few days later and complained to my employer that the 'foreigner had tried to beat him'. My employer asked him why the foreigner would try to do that and he declined to comment. When my employer got the full story from me, he - and soon most of the university - had a good laugh for weeks. Although I did chase him, I deliberately never caught up to him and let him get away. I knew I couldn't really beat him, but I put the fear of Mao into him and hopefully his young charges (to whom I gave a deliberate wide birth to let them run off the other way) will think twice before going into a life of crime.

Neighbors 0815-03


I can't quite decide if my neighbors are rude or just plain stupid. I live in a 3-story apartment on the 2nd floor, which means I have neighbors upstairs. They have absolutely no consideration for others in the building at all, but living directly below them I bear the brunt of their stupidity.

One day I went into my bathroom (directly below theirs), and I noticed a little water on the tiles which was odd since I hadn't used the shower in several hours. After a couple of weeks of this strange dribble, I noticed that one of the tiles was loose and that a few flakes of paint had started coming down, so I called the maintenance office. They went upstairs to check the pipes and found that the lady (and I use the term loosely) of the house had a water jet device that hung on the side of the bath. She had been filling the bath up totally and then switching this on causing her bathroom floor to flood practically every day. This overflow was not only dribbling down my tiles but inside the wall too meaning I had to have a maintenance guy in for two days basically taking down my wall and rebuilding and tiling it. They warned her about it and she said she would only use it with the tub half full so it wouldn't flood.

All was fine for a few weeks till it started leaking again. This time the leak formed across the ceiling instead of at the edge and it was dripping right over our toilet, less than handy should anyone wish to use the facilities! I went upstairs to ask them to shut off their water while my husband called the office, but they would not answer the door. The maintenance guy came round and went up to tell them to do it. They answered the door this time, both soaking wet and flushed.

When he checked the bathroom, he found the shower curtain pulled all the way back and not surprisingly the floor was flooded again. He told them to try not to flood it in future, then came down to tell us it was sorted out and they weren't likely to be having sex in there again in the near future. Well, at least not until the next night, when the water was coming down so fast I thought the ceiling was going to collapse.

Of course, this is just her major crime. She is also a major league stomper. I have actually had pencils and things fall off my desk when she walks around because the building shakes so much. Her daughter is also a stomper, only she usually runs around and jumps off of furniture, I usually can't hear my TV or whatever during the summer months when she is off school, and it's virtually impossible to carry on a conversation. She and her friends also have this game they play of running up and down the corridors slamming the fire doors, which makes all the other doors rattle like someone is trying to get in. Last but not least, she thinks she is totally superior to everyone else in the building and she will quite merrily brush past other people collecting their mail if she wants to do it. More than once I have seen her almost knock down other people's kids as she brushes past; she's rather large, but she never apologizes.

Neighbors 0821-03


I spent five years in college, but I only want to remember the last three... Since I have always been a quiet person, and kind of shy, some people tend to dislike me right away because they don't find we have anything in common. After a while, I can be considered by them friendly and nice, but that doesn't happen always... I shared an apartment with 5 girls during my freshman year in college. At 18, I just didn't have a clue of what it was to live with complete strangers, which drove me to commit some mistakes, I confess. My roommates would not forgive things like that I forgot to wash my cereal bowl a couple of times, or that I was used to going to bed at 8PM when I got a headache or was simply tired. They were very into styling their hair, applying makeup and wearing the latest fashion trends, while I was a simple kid and took a loooong time to bloom, so I was happy with my simple, cheap, clean clothes and messy hair. Their looks didn't bother me at all, but I couldn't hold a conversation about manicures because I got my first one at 24. OK, we were not friends, and we didn't have to. But... Besides feeling ostracized, here are some little things that made me confirm that it was not just lack of friendship:

  • Every Thursday night, they would spend at least an hour getting ready to go to the club and bars. I don't drink alcohol, so I did not expect their invitation nor did I want to go. However, once they were about to cross the threshold, marinated with perfume, they would look at me and ask, "Do you want to come with us?" That would have been nice if I wasn't in front of the TV with my pajamas on the whole time.
  • My roommate would open the bedroom door suddenly and would be loud although she knew I was in bed. She would open the door even in front of guests so they could see me sleeping (that used to wake me up, as you note)
  • My roommate would bring a study partner to the bedroom, although we lived in a big apartment with furniture and tables out of the tiny bedroom. The partner would say, "No, your roommate is sleeping, let's go somewhere else", but my roommate would say, "nah, it's OK; let's study here"
  • They would be upset because I kinda preferred to study during the day and sleep during the night, while they felt extremely necessary to spend nights awake in order to pass a class. They felt I did not study enough. My grades were better or the same as theirs; so I did study enough... during daylight.
  • They celebrated a surprise birthday party for one of our roommates (who was my only friend there) in the apartment we SHARED, and did not invite me or asked for my approval (I would have approved). My birthday was about the same day, but of course I didn't expect anything.
  • Finally, they started to complain about our apartment, and decided to search for another one. Since they could not find an apartment as cheap as the current one with the same amount of bedrooms, one of them suggested that I look for an apartment for myself - just in case - because I was not going to fit in the two-bedroom apartment they were planning to get for themselves. Well, at the time I couldn't afford a place for myself, so I started to look for a place with a vacancy for a roommate, since I KNEW I was going to be homeless by the end of the month. They looked surprised when I told them that I was going to move; I had taken their suggestion really fast.

The kicker is that they didn't move after all, but stayed an entire year after I left. That was for good, since I moved in with three strangers who treated me with more respect, and, although were also into makeup and fashion, did not try to make me feel out of place. I gained their friendship, and although all of us would commit mistakes every once in a while, I never felt like that I would be homeless any time soon. I was not just like a "guest" in danger of losing her place but part of the people that lived there. By the way, they eventually - and patiently - convinced me to appreciate myself a little more, and dress in more than just plain clean clothes!

Neighbors 0903-03


A bastion of neighbor EHell is military housing. May little issues stem from the fact that these neighborhoods are built to house as many as possible, so doors are very close to each other and you share a lot of walls. You learn to blow off the little things partly due to this, but mostly due to the fact there will be much larger issues to drive you nuts. Even then...our unit had to have been CURSED!

Neighbor #1: Large woman who didn't have much time for anything but Internet. Even feeding, clothing, bathing, or watching her own children (CPS would be called, investigate, keep her under watch for a couple of months when she would clean up her act, and then start all over again once they left her alone). Ran around in a bathrobe with nothing on underneath. We got a show on a few occasions. She couldn't even be bothered to roll the garbage can out to the curb every Monday, so when her can filled up, she just used whomever's had room, and then she would leave the bags for the raccoons. I spent countless hours on the phone to the housing office trying to keep US from getting cited for HER mess. Even though she couldn't take care of her kids, she though it would be a grand idea to get a DOG! Let said dog use my yard as its bathroom, and becoming indignant when I, at 8-1/2 months pregnant with a deployed husband, asked her to clean it up so the kid I had hired to mow it for me could take care of business. She griped to the neighbors for weeks about that one. Dog got out and jumped on our neighbor's 18-month-old, knocking her down onto concrete. Neighbors got upset, and went to call the police (They had had it about as much as I had with that dog getting out). She tears off in her car, flags down a police officer and tells him that we all want to kill her and she is afraid. Police officer could barely contain his laughter as he politely asked me if I was going to kill my neighbor. Her kids would get lice, and she would sit on the porch and clean them up, a porch we had to pass through on our way to our upstairs unit. Finally, one night, after hearing said dog bark for three hours straight, I went down to ask her to rein him in. Front door was wide open, dog was going nuts, and the place looked ransacked, so I called the police. They came, tied up the dog, searched the house and determined that the mess was their living conditions. Clothes strewn all over the house, dog feces and urine everywhere, including ON THE KIDS' BEDS!, bags of garbage piled up, a least a week's worth of dishes in the sink and on the counter. They waited around a while to see if the lady would come home, but then they left, but kept circling to see if she arrived. About two hours later she returned, and within 5 minutes, the whole shebang of officials were there. They had to bring her husband home from a deployment so they wouldn't yank the kids, and he threw her out, but not before he found out that she had him 20K in debt. I asked a housing manager one time off the record why nothing was ever done, and they said that they didn't want to subject the town to those people, so they kept it in house. Nice.

Neighbor #2: Upstairs neighbor (we shared a wall). Young couple, rarely home. Would show up for a couple of hours on Friday night with 30 of their best friends, be loud for about 2 hours, and leave before 10 or 11 to go out...no big deal, really. What was a big deal was the night when we looked out to see police, fire, ambulance, HAZMAT and US Marshals swarming all over our front deck (which we shared). My husband about had a heart attack when he turned the corner on his way home from work to see all of this activity in front of our house. They made him show a ton of ID before they would let him even go into his own home. Later, we found that they had entered the unit to do maintenance and found felony level drug stuff. Guess not on the level of EH, because at least they were POLITE about it.

Neighbor #3: Retired Marine and his Navy wife. He liked the bottle to the point that we would have to call the police every time he left since he was A) weaving or B) actually driving off whilst chugging away. They caught him a few times, but I guess, as far as he was concerned once you bust your DUI cherry, what's one more, eh? Wife gets busted on board her ship for stealing, and is confined, so hubby decides this is the perfect time to bring hookers back to their home. I'd be taking my preschooler to class, and some skanked-out chick would prance right on outside in push-up bra and thong (yes THONG). In case, you think I am stuck up, I actually did get my suspicions confirmed when the SHERIFF stopped by to chat me up about him. The 7-year-old son came over regularly to sell me toys of his (wonder whatever prompted him to do that). He was eventually banned from housing, and she was kicked out of the service.

Neighbor #4. Baby Momma was in Navy, so she gets housing for her and the baby, and moves Baby Daddy in. Technically, a violation of the rules, but I didn't care a whit as long as they were cool. Well, Momma would go out to sea, ship baby off to her mother, and Baby Daddy would par-tay. Bass music so loud that I literally would feel my heart skip a beat. Friends hanging out drinking on the deck and m-f'ing every other word (I had 2 small kids at this time). One of his friends actually took out a support stanchion in the carport, which the guy initially told us he didn't know who did it (might it be the white car with the scratch marks and dent with green paint on it FROM the stanchion) and didn't bother to call maintenance.

We FINALLY got orders out of there, and I swear that I will NEVER EVER live in housing again. You'd think that with a housing office and it being military, that there would be stricter rules and more options for beleaguered neighbors, but you would be WRONG. There is so much red tape in evicting someone from there, that it is just easier for them to pat the complainers on the head and do nothing at all.

Neighbors 0911-03


I think this story exemplifies why my wife and I will not be very friendly with our neighbors anytime soon. Some people are just going to be like ships passing in the night.

We live in a semi-attached house in a nice, quiet suburb. The family that has the other side of the house has lived there two years longer than us, I think. The adults are older than us and have three early-teenage kids ("tweens"). We don't interact much but it's not because of any sort of problem in the past. I guess it's just a "hi" and "how are you" relationship -- we don't have each other's phone numbers or house keys, etc. Other residents on the block have advised us, however, that the aforementioned kids have been a bad influence on other local kids -- lots of swearing, rampant alcohol use, very loud music, reckless driving, etc.

One week my wife and I noticed that the adults had been gone from the house for six or seven days straight. It was obvious since both of their vehicles, which are usually parked next to ours, were gone the whole time. I even happened to see the family leave in both of their cars when I was arriving home after shopping one evening with my two-year old child, because I remember one of the parents yelling "Just get in the f---ing the car!" to one of their kids (all are approximately junior high school-age). Yeah, that's just what my two-year old and the other young elementary school-age kids playing outdoors need to hear from an adult . . .

Anyway, over the next week it was obvious the house seemed to be or was unoccupied. (I was stuck in my house recuperating from an injury on doctor's orders, and was also responsible for watching my child as my wife was working.) There was no noise originating at any time from the house - one teenager routinely plays the stereo loudly, the garage door also makes a noticeable grinding noise - and neither car was seen on the street at any time. Also, no lights were ever switched 'on' during the nighttime hours.

After about six days of the "disappearance," the word spreads that our state will be hit with some very serious storms from a hurricane. My wife and I are concerned, trying to be decent neighbors, because it is obvious that numerous windows are open all over the house. Also, the neighbors' pet cat appeared to be stuck wandering outside during all of the days. (We could not take in the cat for its own well-being since we have a large dog as our own pet.)

My wife peeked into their mailbox near their section of sidewalk and saw what appeared to be at least a week's worth of mail. We then called the local sheriff's office and inquired if they knew if the family was on vacation or trip and left a contact phone number. (A police "vacation notice" is common in our area.) A deputy checked and did not find any vacation notice for the family and said, understandably, that he could not really do anything else at this time.

As my wife and I were trying to decide what, if anything, we could do lo and behold one of the neighbor kids appears on the block, apparently (but not necessarily) arriving home from school. My wife expresses to the kid that we were very concerned about the safety of their property - not to mention pet cat - with the pending storms and all, but that we were glad to see them at home. The kid gave a weird look and said to my wife "we've been in and out all week" - and outright lie! - and then went inside the house with no further conversation to us.

I know it's not our place to expect a "thank you" or hope to think they would care like we do, but we were a little bummed out. My wife says she never wants to be nice to the family again. I joked we should contact the youth protection agencies and report that the parents left one or more of the kids home alone all week without any sort of parental supervision.

Post Script - it has been nine days and counting and the parents still have not reappeared at home.

Neighbors 0920-03


After reading the latest EHell update, I felt compelled to share my "Neighbors From Hell" story.

My FH and I bought a small "fixer-upper" home on a quiet street, nice neighborhood...a lot of older homes, and most of the people who lived there had been there for quite awhile. Our neighbors were very, very nice, and everyone seemed to get along quite nicely. A little background...I was working third shift in a local factory, and my FH was working first shift. This is important, as you will soon see.

ENTER--the across-the-street neighbors. We'll call them Jake and Ronda. They lived in one of the few houses-turned-into-apartments on the street, and they lived in the lower part. Jake was in his late 30's and Ronda was about ten years older. And it really isn't so much one thing, just lots of little things that annoyed us. I arrived home one morning (around 8am) to find Jake outside on the street ( that house didn't have a driveway, so they parked on the street) "working" on his pick-up. Now, Jake's elevator didn't always go to the top, if you catch my drift....so I didn't think much of this. Until about a half hour later, when I hear the most awful racket...Jake was outside, with headphones on, truck in park, GUNNING HIS ENGINE, and singing country music at the top of his lungs! I very politely walk over and ask him to keep it down, as I was trying to get some sleep. He said he was sorry, and I thought that was that. Nope, this kept going off and on all that summer.

Then there was the usage of my telephone. Ronda would come over from time to time to ask to use our telephone. Now, this in itself isn't bad, just annoying.

Ronda would sometimes go off of her medication, and someone in the neighborhood would call the cops because you could hear the sound of glass breaking and body parts ( Jake's) being flung against walls. ( Did I mention that Ronda is twice Jake's size?)

On numerous occasions, Jake would enlist my husband's help in fixing his car(s) that would not start, lights broken, etc. My husband, being a nice guy, wound up spending a lot of money fixing up cars he didn't even own.

They were big trash-day people. They Looooooooooved to go through people's trash. (They were friends with another family, another submission in itself, who lived up the road a bit--that family would have a yard sale one a month, rain-shine-or snow. You could set your clock by 'em.) I killed a microwave one time (yes I put metal in it--don't ask) and the next month I notice that it has arrived at---yes you guessed it--the monthly garage sale.

I thought they had moved away, because we hadn't seen them in quite a long time, when my husband passed away suddenly. Everyone in the neighborhood was shocked and all did very gracious neighborly things--offered to watch the house, keep the dogs, sent over food etc. When all of a sudden, up shows Jake and Ronda---upon hearing the bad news, and then promptly asking for possession of my husband's tools.

Neighbors 0925-03


This is kind of a long story but well worth the effort!! Here is a little background: My husband and I bought a home in a suburb of our bustling town. We love our neighborhood and our neighbors; they are all very friendly, and we get along with most of them. It is very common to invite our neighbors to our home for BBQ and such and of course they reciprocate. After living here for three years we had met and became close with all of the neighbors except for one, the NEIGHBOR FROM HELL!!! From conversations with other neighbors I learned that she was not well liked but could never really decipher why and I chalked most of the rumblings up to miscommunication . Until this past summer.

It all started innocently enough: her dogs using the restroom in our yard , her dogs tearing into our trash, our flowers being dug up by her dogs, etc. Neither my husband or myself said anything to her because we felt that these things were unintentional. But then slowly we noticed the dog situation becoming worse (numerous piles of dog feces in our yard, some of our garden ornaments were ripped to shreds, and we had been completely unable to put our trash out at all due to them tearing it open). Now at this point I should interject that this neighbor owned 4 dogs to our knowledge but I had noticed 3 rather large dogs in the neighborhood that I assumed were strays due to their appearance (filthy, matted fur). I did not want to believe that my neighbor would allow her dogs to terrorize our home and belongings so I willed myself to believe that the strays were the culprits of these newest actions and I called the Dog Warden.

When the Dog Warden came to make a report and I pointed out the 3 dogs that I assumed were doing the damage, he informed me that these were not stray dogs but that they belonged to my neighbor as well (that brings her dog count up to 7 for those who are keeping track) and he knew this because him and his wife were good friends with her. Such good friends in fact that he called her at work and told her I had made a complaint and he was going to place her dogs inside her home for her. He did this and informed me that he would talk with her and make sure that the dogs were kept chained or housed at all times. I was pleased with this and thanked him.

For the next two weeks, their dogs were kept in her house, and my husband and I cleaned our yard up and were quite certain the issue was resolved. How silly of us. She had a 12X12 pen built in her backyard into which she placed 5 of the 7 dogs. The pen was so small that the animals barely had room to move, and they barked day and night as well as fought constantly. On top of that, she made daily trips to clean the dog feces out of then pen, which is great except that instead of disposing of it she threw it into a pile about 2 feet from our house, and let me tell you the smell of dog poop on a 90 degree day wafting towards you is very unpleasant!! When I attempted to be neighborly and discuss that the dogs were a nuisance because of the constant barking and the overpowering stench, she berated me for calling the Dog Warden and said that it was my fault because I had forced her to resort to this.

I realized that she was unreasonable and left hoping the situation would cure itself. In a way it did; she managed to keep the dogs under control and we were happy. But after a period of about three or so weeks we began to notice the problems again, but were unable to determine how it happened since we had not noticed the dogs out running free at all. Then one evening after we returned from a late night movie we noticed all 7 dogs roaming in our yard, and she was home. We were pretty sure this was no accident but we waited to say anything because of the hour. The next day when I spoke with her about it she assured me her dogs had not been out at all, and I was a troublemaker. Since I knew this to be false, I waited until that evening and I watched her dog pen. Sure enough, at about 10:30 pm she walked out of her house and opened up the pen to let her dogs run free, into my yard !!!!! The next day I went to confront her again and I noted the torn up flowers and hedges we had planted only a week before and I was livid!!! I very nicely told her I knew what she was up to and if it continued I was calling the sheriff. She called me a b*tch and said I was exaggerating the problems that her baby dogs would never do that.

Over the course of the next month it went from her keeping the dogs in a few days to letting them run a few days. I called the Dog Warden each time they were loose, and he came out but basically did nothing to her. I called the sheriff and he came out twice but in the end nothing came of that either.

It came to a head one evening when I went out and her 2 biggest dogs were on my porch and they chased me into my car barking and growling at me. When I came home, I called the sheriff again and he came out to speak with both of us but since they had not physically hurt me they could do nothing and he suggested I try the County Commissioner.

So, that is where we are at now, I have been to city council meetings (they can do nothing as I am not in the city limits), I have circulated petitions (signed by almost all of the neighbors), and I continue to call the Dog Warden and Sheriff weekly, but apparently her dogs have more rights than I do. Go Figure!!!!!

Neighbors 1013-03

Sounds like a case of "Good Old Boy" politics to me.  I think I would load the dogs in the car and take them to the Animal Control facility or SPCA pound in another county or city. 


When I moved into my neighborhood, I met a woman named Cindi, and we became good friends and spent a lot of time together. We would cook dinner and invite her over, she would make drinks and invite us over, my husband would fix things around the house for her. Once we even went to court with her after a mutual neighbor threatened her (she was often threatened by neighbors).

The time finally came for my hubby and I to buy a house, and she was our agent. A year or so after we bought our home (a block away from hers), she decided to buy the house next door to us. I was so excited at the prospect of having her as our neighbor, we would be so much closer!

She knew that my husband is a slob and a packrat as she had been to our house so often, yet she chose to buy the house next door. My hubby had more junk than usual in the backyard as he was doing some home improvement to our house. She told the neighbors that we were harboring rats (a lie) and called the Health Department on us. After the investigation I chose to go forward with our friendship despite the fact that Cindi began making derogatory statements towards my husband. I could tell she was an unhappy person without many close friends.

She then began to watch my husband every time he left the house and take pictures of him. Her behavior became more and more bizarre. She began to complain about the way we kept our yard, and so we put up an eight-foot fence so that she would no longer have to look at it. She then complained about the type of landscaping we chose for the front yard, where we put our garbage cans and composter, and the color of our hose and how to better hide it as she didn't like it. She would call the police on my husband as she felt he was too noisy (the police never found him in the wrong) and would tell them that she was afraid of my husband.

Finally I broke off the friendship for which she blamed my husband. She was just getting far too erratic in her behavior. She would complain about us to the other neighbors and ask them to call the police on us (for what I do not know). She began parking so close to my car that I couldn't get into the trunk. I had to ask her not to call my home anymore as she would call and hang up. She killed my plants. She still watches my husband whenever he does something outside. The neighbors have told me that she will go onto our property (even though I have asked her not to) and take pictures. Last week I overheard her telling neighbors that my husband is an alcoholic who beats me; Lord only knows what other malicious lies she's spread.

Neighbors 1014-03


I have had a steady stream of weird roommates and odd neighbors. My husband and I now live in our own house, and are in neighbor heaven!

My first college roommate was great until she started taking drugs. Naive southern girl that I am, I didn't notice until someone pointed it out. She didn't know anyone, and I had many friends at school, so I tried to integrate her into the group. It went great at first and we had lots of fun together, until she started telling my childhood best friends that I was spreading rumors about them. After that first Christmas vacation, I came back engaged. She was furious for some reason and told me that I had totally changed and was now "too good" to be her friend and she wouldn't talk to me anymore. Then she arranged a conference with our resident advisor to get me kicked out of the room. I, apparently, was messy (true), backstabbing, (no), had my boyfriend in the room every night (hello, he went to school 100 miles away!), made threats to her (what!), and interrupted her phone conversations (once I came into the room and found her fairly passed out on the bed with the phone to her ear. Both I and the girl on the other end of the line were yelling her name to get her to wake up out of whatever stupor she was in). I said nothing, except that I would be happy to move, and spent the next 5 months a much happier person.

I moved into my own studio apartment the next year. I shared a stair landing with another studio, occupied by a girl who seemed quite nice until her boyfriend moved in. He was the quintessential "sh**kicker". For some reason, he seemed to dislike me. Every time he came up the stairs, he would kick my wall and door, even in the middle of the night. The wall between both apartments was in the sleeping areas. In what I can only assume were "intimate moments", he would bark loudly and scream things like "how does that sound!" When they had parties, they would gather next to the wall and scream into my apartment until all hours. It got to where I felt like I was sneaking out of my apartment. Luckily, they were soon kicked out. Then of course the mutually abusive couple moved in!

After I was married, my husband and I lived upstairs in a typical cheap college apartment. Our neighbor downstairs, who we'll call "Bud", seemed like a nice guy when he moved in with his girlfriend. They were both straight out of AA and starting a new life. Well, Bud's new life lasted about two weeks. He fell off the wagon; she left and took everything, including the only driver's license between them, with her. Bud's apartment was devoid of electricity. He said it had been in her name and asked us if he could run an extension cord from our outlet for a day while he got it turned back on. We said OK, but after 4 days my husband had to go repossess it, as Bud apparently was relying on us to be the free electric company. My husband had a very old, very beat up sports car at the time, not much but it got him around. Bud decided he wanted said car, and offered to buy it. My husband said it wasn't for sale. Bud called the apartment management and reported that we had a dead car in the parking lot, against the rules. We had to prove the thing ran so we could keep it there. Shortly after that Bud, lacking a driver's license, started tooling around town in an extremely loud adult tricycle fitted with a lawnmower engine.

Last , thankfully, was the duplex on the military base. Our duplex neighbor's driveway faced into our bedroom window (a wonder of military architecture). He would arrive from work at 4:00 am, headlights blazing, heavy metal music playing full blast. They threw parties almost every night when he was home, until quite late, when both husband and I had to get up excruciatingly early for work. So on a military base, you call the MP's to take care of this stuff, right? Well, this guy was an MP, and so were his party guests. So much for peace and quiet.

Neighbors 1014-03


I live in a rural residential neighborhood zoned for agricultural farmland. Everyone here down our road owns 5 to 10 acres of land. Everything was nice and peaceful here, until my next door neighbor quit his job two years ago and decided to open his auto-body business out on his driveway next to our house to make his extra buck on the side. Since we live at the end of a cul-de-sac down a half-mile dirt road, he thought nobody else in the neighborhood would mind the constant revving of engines, grinders to strip paint, and cutting metal machinery noise that was so loud, that it became unlawful. His childish excuses to do this are, "We were here first," "My wife likes the extra money on the side," "Nobody can hear the noise at the top of the road," and "You and your husband are building a house." Mind you, this guy has two children and is married. My husband works on our house maybe 1 or 2 days on the weekend if he gets the time since we own a legal remodeling business, and my husband is out working for clients. Therefore, I guess this jackass next door thought since my husband is building a house which people do on their property (home improvement) he thought he could bring his profession here to our neighborhood. 

Well, after two years of his crap and abuse, I had enough! There is one thing to wrench on vehicles but constantly rev the crap out of them all day long is rude. In addition, that grinding noise rip-roaring though my house made me uncomfortable in my home. My husband told this bully that the noise annoyed me but he continued until we put a stop to it. Now he is in deep shit with the environmentalists and government. He broke zoning laws and municipal code. I believe some people should not have access to machinery because they do not know how to operate it properly. So all your wannabe Jesse James and the Monster Garage think you can open up shop in a residential neighborhood, think again. For crying out loud, take the junk to a shop where it belongs! And to think the moron did this in his last neighborhood. Why in the hell would he think anyone of his neighbors here would want to listen to that crap? I have hearing damage from those grinders and constant revving of engines. What a jerk!

Neighbors 1020-03


My husband and I are planning to build a house. We bought a lot in a private upscale neighborhood. One afternoon we went by the lot and were walking in front of it, trying to decide how best to put a house there, when an old man came ambling down from the monstrous (and ugly) house next door. He introduced himself as Mr. Smith and asked if he could help us; my husband pleasantly told him we had purchased the property. Mr. Smith immediately asked for our telephone number, so he could call us in case "something" happened to the lot. We were flabbergasted, but my husband managed to turn down the man’s request gracefully. (Besides, what could "happen" to a lot? If there was a fire, we would have fewer trees and less undergrowth to worry about clearing; and as for claim jumpers, well, they aren’t exactly common in this day and age.)

Then Mr. Smith proceeded to tell us everything about everybody on the entire street — divorces, lawsuits, suicides, you name it. He took great pains to point out that our neighbors across the street were of a different race than we are (which we already knew, having met the couple) "but they’re really nice anyway." He also told us another neighbor had built a pool, "but they’ve only been swimming in it twice!" At this point I was positive about what Mr. Smith does in his spare time, and I bluntly said we had another appointment. As we took our leave, I said to my husband between clenched teeth, "Don’t you ever, ever give that man our phone number! And if I catch that old geezer spying on us, I’m going to flash him!" Mr. Smith’s house is for sale, and I pray to God he’s out of there before we finish building. If he isn’t, I’m sure I’ll have more stories for your site. 

Neighbors 1021-03


I was tired of living with female roommates. Always borrowing my stuff, always wanting to go everywhere I go, and the b*tchiness! I was so happy when my best guy friend wanted to live with me. We decided to split the chores stereotypically female/male. I do grocery shopping, and most cleaning. He does trash and lawn care. Not only did I do all the indoor chores, I also ended up doing the trash and the lawn care, or it wouldn't have gotten done. Plus I worked full time and he played video games all day. 

The worst day of that year, I almost had a heart attack. I came home from work and he wasn't home. I hadn't been there the night before. I made a habit of staying at friend's houses because he was such a slob, and he had his drunk friends over all the time. This day, I walked in and beer cans covered the kitchen counter, there must have been 200. Dirty laundry was on my stove! Why would it be on the stove? I don't know. I couldn't find any of my dishes until I looked under the sink. There they were dirty, piled up amongst mouse droppings and mouse traps! I didn't even know that we had mice! I went to the bathroom and there was puke in the bathtub! I ran out of the house crying. I called up my roommate and said that I had enough, I was moving out. He begged me to stay and promised nothing like that would ever happen again, he would totally clean the entire house, and he would do whatever I said from then on. We finished the year lease without too much trouble. We are still friends and we get along much better now that we live by ourselves. I do get irked though, when I visit his place, it is very clean.

Neighbors 1113-03


Page Last Updated May 15, 2007