The strangest, scariest, most dramatic thing that you've seen in your n'hood

[snowflake]

I thought I had lived in crazy neighborhood when I was younger, but apparently mine are run-of-the mill.

In one apartment (believe it or not, this was the "step up" apartment after I got a real job) I had a meth lab blow up down the street.  I mean BLOW UP.  As in there was a bang and I went out of my house and saw the flames a couple of blocks down.

Two years later there was a national manhunt for a guy who killed his girlfriend in the next block. That sounds dramatic, but he had been a drifter so there were cops in about five states who were looking for him.  The creepy thing was that there was a "For Rent" sign up before he was caught a week later!  I can't bring myself to repeat what happened, but lets just say it was probably messy.   I saw that sign for a month and just hoped it was for another apartment.

[magicdomino]

After reading these stories, I am so grateful to live in a quiet neighborhood (knock on Formica).  The scariest thing that I have seen was last year's derecho.  Now, I'm one of those idiots whose reaction to a tornado warning is to run outside and look for it.  What made the derecho so scary was the silence.  The clouds were so full of lightning that it was like a million strobe lights going off, but there was no thunder.  It wasn't until I looked up and saw lightning overhead, that I realized that the storm was here.

A minute or two after I got my hindquarters safely inside, the 70 mph winds crashed through, bringing with them the bright red and blue flashes of dying transformers and power lines. 

That got my respect.

[PastryGoddess]

After reading these stories, I am so grateful to live in a quiet neighborhood (knock on Formica).  The scariest thing that I have seen was last year's derecho.  Now, I'm one of those idiots whose reaction to a tornado warning is to run outside and look for it.  What made the derecho so scary was the silence.  The clouds were so full of lightning that it was like a million strobe lights going off, but there was no thunder.  It wasn't until I looked up and saw lightning overhead, that I realized that the storm was here.

A minute or two after I got my hindquarters safely inside, the 70 mph winds crashed through, bringing with them the bright red and blue flashes of dying transformers and power lines. 

That got my respect.

Derecho's are no joke. 2 years ago when a big one hit here, my mother's neighborhood looked like Godzilla and Mothra had been fighting over territory.  They were without power for almost a week...in July...in Central Maryland.

[Dazi]

Sometime earlier this year while I was in bed, I suddenly woke up.  I couldn't figure out what woke me as I am pretty used to the road noise, airplane noise, ambulances, etc., not to mention, I typically sleep with earplugs in. 

Then I realized I was seeing strobing blue and red lights through my curtains.  Cops were busting up a meth lab just down the street from me.



Once on my way to work, I saw a big naked guy get chased out of a house, off a second story balcony, by a husband returning home earlier than expected.  I later found out the husband stabbed the guy with a paring knife, but only got him in his fleshy rear-end. FTR, a paring knife doesn't actually do a lot of damage when you stab it into a very fat covered butt. It's definitely the oddest site I've ever seen at 7 am.

[KarenK]

I've got a one, but nothing too startling compared to some:

When we were kids, we lived in a very quiet suburban neighborhood. Some miscreant was trying to outrun the police and crashed his car into a ditch. He got out, and ran away.

A short time later, my mother hears someone in our garage. Thinking it was one of my older brother's friends, he sends my little brother, who was about 4 or so at the time, out to tell him to get out of the garage. DB goes out and stands in the driveway and yells, "My mom says to get out of our garage!"

The police show up shortly thereafter and drag the guy out, one cop on each arm and one on each leg, bleeding from an injury he got, I assume, in the car accident, and cursing out the cops at the top of his lungs.

[Mediancat]

After reading these stories, I am so grateful to live in a quiet neighborhood (knock on Formica).  The scariest thing that I have seen was last year's derecho.  Now, I'm one of those idiots whose reaction to a tornado warning is to run outside and look for it.  What made the derecho so scary was the silence.  The clouds were so full of lightning that it was like a million strobe lights going off, but there was no thunder.  It wasn't until I looked up and saw lightning overhead, that I realized that the storm was here.

A minute or two after I got my hindquarters safely inside, the 70 mph winds crashed through, bringing with them the bright red and blue flashes of dying transformers and power lines. 

That got my respect.

Derecho's are no joke. 2 years ago when a big one hit here, my mother's neighborhood looked like Godzilla and Mothra had been fighting over territory.  They were without power for almost a week...in July...in Central Maryland.

I remember that; we were without power for only two days, and it was darn near intolerable.

Rob

[misha412]

I used to live in a rougher neighborhood in Tampa, Florida.

One night, about midnight, I awoke to some guy pounding on my back door. My back door was behind a locked fence. No one should have been pounding on my back door.

I look out the window and this guy has blood on his face and is screaming for me to call 911. Which I was already doing. Within 4-5 minutes, I had a few cop cars in my front yard, sirens and light blazing. They take the guy away in an ambulance.

Come to find out, the guy had gotten into a fight with another guy, apparently over a girl. The other guy pulled a knife and cut him in a couple places, including the forehead. The injured guy took off running and ended up climbing over my fence. The original incident took place a couple blocks away.

*for the record, I did not open the door, but I did tell the guy to sit on the back steps and wait for the cops.

[LadyJaneinMD]

After reading these stories, I am so grateful to live in a quiet neighborhood (knock on Formica).  The scariest thing that I have seen was last year's derecho.  Now, I'm one of those idiots whose reaction to a tornado warning is to run outside and look for it.  What made the derecho so scary was the silence.  The clouds were so full of lightning that it was like a million strobe lights going off, but there was no thunder.  It wasn't until I looked up and saw lightning overhead, that I realized that the storm was here.

A minute or two after I got my hindquarters safely inside, the 70 mph winds crashed through, bringing with them the bright red and blue flashes of dying transformers and power lines. 

That got my respect.

I slept through it.  And when I woke up in the morning, my cable was out.  *grumble grumble*  So I headed out to do laundry, and found out that my apartment complex was right smack in the middle of Serious Devastation!!  I had no clue!  Power poles were just knocked over, buildings were smashed, most of the town was out of power.  It was the most amazing thing I ever saw.
One of my friends and her daughter came over to spend the night because it was too hot for them, but otherwise, we were quite comfortable. 
And I have a whole new respect for my apartment complex. We had power. 

[LadyClaire]

After reading these stories, I am so grateful to live in a quiet neighborhood (knock on Formica).  The scariest thing that I have seen was last year's derecho.  Now, I'm one of those idiots whose reaction to a tornado warning is to run outside and look for it.  What made the derecho so scary was the silence.  The clouds were so full of lightning that it was like a million strobe lights going off, but there was no thunder.  It wasn't until I looked up and saw lightning overhead, that I realized that the storm was here.

A minute or two after I got my hindquarters safely inside, the 70 mph winds crashed through, bringing with them the bright red and blue flashes of dying transformers and power lines. 

That got my respect.

We had one of those several years ago. It was incredible how much destruction it caused. Power lines and trees down everywhere. It tore roofs off of buildings and blew down billboards and signs and basically treated fences like they were made from toothpicks, which meant livestock got out everywhere. It was a mess. I think we were without power for nearly a week, if memory serves me correctly.

[baritone108]

There have been a few but this is the most recent.
Ariel Castro kidnapped three young women over a two year period and held them captive in his home for a decade.  The kidnappings took place in my neighborhood, the house where he hid them was just outside my neighborhood.  When they finally got out one of the women went to live with her sister 8 houses away from mine.  News crews from around the world took over the streets near her home for about 3 weeks.

[Punky B.]

I used to live in a bad part of town, so I have a few.

In the apartment complex we lived in, our downstairs neighbors were a military family.  Mother, two kids, and- we thought- the Dad.  Never heard much from then unless they were outside smoking and dropping ciggie butts all over the ground.  One night we were woken by a commotion and police sirens.  Peeking outside we could see a trail of blood running from under the stairs down the sidewalk.  Apparently her ACTUAL husband had returned from deployment, found Faux Dad sleeping in his bed, and stabbed the mother after punching up the walls.  She ran for help- leaving the two kids in the apartment. Kids were fine, Dad was arrested, Mom moved everyone out shortly after.

Another day my husband called me from the parking lot.  "You have GOT to come down here."  I wandered down and came face to very large, bristly face with a pig head sitting in the back of a pickup truck.  Someone in the complex had received a pig as a gift and dismembered it in the parking lot.  They took the good parts to the gazebo where they proceeded to cook it in a large metal drum, stirring it with a two by four.  When it was finished, everyone was invited to partake.  There was much rejoicing.

One morning I was heading out to go to work and found a large quantity of blood splashed on the ground at the beginning of the sidewalk.  It looked like someone had tossed it out of a bucket.  The trail led around the corner.  Being young and foolish I followed it, thinking someone might need help.  It lead into the laundry room.  I peeked in the doorway and the entire room was COVERED in blood.  All over the machines, the floor, the ceiling.  I backed out and went to work, and when I arrived I called the Management office.  "Oh, someone hurt themselves in the laundry room," she said.  "With a chainsaw?" I asked, but all she did was laugh.  I never did find out what the heck happened.

Then there was the day I walked into the parking lot and about 70% percent of the cars had all the windows broken and the tires slashed.  My car was spared, but there was a minefield of glass for the next couple of weeks since Management didn't want to clean it.  The tenants organized a clean-up and got rid of the worst of it.

There were less dramatic instances, but it was weirdness almost weekly.  I was glad when we moved.

[Outdoor Girl]

My neighbourhood is pretty quiet.  There are police cars regularly because of the juvenile delinquent* that lives(d?) across the road but we also have cops from our city plus cops from other nearby cities on our street so it tends to keep things pretty quiet.

Probably most exciting was when my neighbour (mother of the JD) woke for some reason, looked out and saw someone trying to hook the neighbour's boat up to his car.  She knew it wasn't neighbour so she grabbed her phone, dialled 911 while running outside to yell at them.  The driver took off, leaving the other guy standing there.  Who started to run after the car.  Car pulled over, guy jumped in and they took off.  Cops did show up but I don't know if anything came of it.  I slept through the whole thing.

I was going on a canoe trip once, with some friends.  We had 3 vehicles.  I told them we should make sure to take any loose stuff in the car and lock it all in the trunk so nothing was visible.  They kind of thought I was crazy because we were in the middle of nowhere but they did it.  When we got back after our trip, every vehicle that had visible items had their passenger or driver's side window smashed and stuff grabbed.  Anybody with nothing showing?  They left alone.  This was in the days before inside latches to open trunks.

*I'm not making assumptions, here.  I know he has spent some time in juvie.

[SamiHami]

A few years ago my DH took out the trash. I heard him call my name, so I walked out. He pointed out heavy smoke coming from the area near the entrance to our neighborhood. At first I thought the wooded area was on fire, only to learn upon closer inspection that it was a furniture store. It was the fiercest, angriest, most roaring fire I've ever seen. News crews gathered there and more fire trucks than I've ever seen in one place.

Nine firefighters died that night.

The lost where the store was is a small park/monument to those men. They think it started when an employee flicked a cigarette butt off the back loading area, but they are still not positive.

[cwm]

One from college. We had some big name band performing at our college's stadium, as it was the biggest venue in the area. I lived in an apartment two blocks off of campus at the time. I had to remember to take a piece of mail to work with me that afternoon because all of the roads would be blocked to my apartment complex to keep people from getting in and listening to the show for free. It was bizarre, they started setting up roadblocks in the afternoon. All of the campus traffic was seriously messed up, and some professors cancelled their afternoon classes so they didn't have to deal with the hassle of it all.

On my honeymoon I was in a hotel in Toronto with my now ex. We heard the fire alarm go off, and then apparently the hotel had a PA system and started making announcements. Would floors 5-11 please evacuate the building, please avoid the elevators. Everyone above floor 11 or below floor 5, please remain in your rooms. Fire engines and the whole shebang came up and we had five engines parked right outside the hotel. Wife and I were on floor 3 and our window looked down an alley that went out to the main street where the entrance was. We still have no idea what happened.

[peach2play]

I have some doozies, but I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica so keep that in mind.  I lived in, at the time, the only middle class neighborhood in the whole city and it was right across the gully from a shanty town straight out of a feed the children commercial.  My dad worked for a relief organization that helped bring in supplies to areas in the Caribbean that had been hit by natural disasters.  Jamaica had been hit by a really big hurricane and we were picking up supplies from a warehouse and taking them to be distributed elsewhere.  A mob had formed in front of the warehouse trying to get past the guards and ransack the place (these were not hungry people who had been without food for a week, they were looking to loot the supplies and sell them for profit).  The military was doing a good job of keeping them at bay, but they surrounded our van and broke out the back window as we were leaving.  Two guards with M16s came running and cleared the area around our van so we could leave.

One night, my dad was gone overnight.  We had bars on the windows and all the doors and both the back door, the front door and the porch had locking gates.  We heard a noise from the front of the house, then a dog barking and snarling and yelping.  We found the front door and the porch door both had their locks broken the next morning.  The only thing that saved us was we had befriended a stray dog who lived in the neighborhood, feeding and taking care of it.  He attacked whoever was breaking into the house, sustaining a very ugly wound in the process.  Without him, mom and I probably wouldn't be here. 

We also saw a mob wielding machetes chase a man up the hill.  You do not mess with the big mama's on the island and there was a whole lot of them chasing this guy.  Not really sure what happened but he never did come back down that hill.