I've mentioned elsewhere that my neighbor across the street has a mentally ill family member living with him. Most of the time we don't hear a peep out of him, but every couple of months or so we have an episode. A typical one: they have motion-sensor floodlights, and a neighbor walked past their house and made the lights come on, and "Mike" came out and yelled profanities at her for turning his lights on.
We've had a slight uptick in episodes lately. Two weeks ago, at about 9 PM we gradually realized there were flashing lights in the street. As we watched, a total of 3 cop cars, an ambulance and a fire truck all pulled in. This is a small cul-de-sac with 8 houses, so that pretty much filled up the street. With all of that, I kept expecting to see flames shooting out of the roof, or everyone rushing out with Mike on a gurney, but after 10 or 15 minutes, everyone just left.
A somewhat funny one was a few months ago, when 2 cop cars pulled up in front of the house. Two cops went to the front door. Pause for a few minutes. Cops go around back. Cops come back up front. Normal, sane relative ("Don") comes out on the porch and talks to the cops for a few minutes. Cops go inside. Cops coem back out with Mike in handcuffs. Cops, Mike and Don all stand around on the porch chitchatting, with Mike still in cuffs, nobody's body language looking the least bit tense, Mike's face is the only one visible and he's smiling. Cops take the cuffs off Mike and they leave.
And a creepy, annoying one from the other day: Our cable, internet and phone all went completely out one afternoon. Hugely annoying, plus DH works partly from home and can't link in to his office computer. Cable guy comes out the next morning and looks at the cable hookup at the street next to another neighbor's house...the cable company has had major issues with our street already, and they have some sort of weird jerry-rigged exterior box with the cable power hookup in it. It had been *cut with something sharp.* This neighbor is one that Mike has a special hostility toward, because she's pretty prickly and got loudly in his face once over his antics. Mike was outside working with a Weedeater the previous day. So while cable guy's there, a fourth neighbor comes out to tell him that Mike probably did it, and if he comes out of the house, cable guy should get in his truck. We never see Mike, but I call the cops and file a report.
Someone was telling me the other day that their street was like "Desperate Housewives," I told her that mine is more like "To Kill a Mockingbird."