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

[Piratelvr1121]

Ah yes, hurriquake indeed.  We were planning to go to Assateague over Labor Day weekend and we had Irene the week prior and following but to our luck, Labor Day weekend the weather was great. 

[Softly Spoken]

I remember this first one because it involved us directly:

My father was mowing the front lawn and had stopped to chat with a man walking down the street. My mother was watching them both out the front window. The next thing I knew, she was screaming my father's name and running out the door. I ran to the window and saw my dad go to the ground with the man. The stranger had had a heart attack while talking to my father and my dad managed to catch him as he went down. My mother called 911 and the man was okay (as far as I recall, I was very young at the time).

Each of the 5 members of my family who live(d) on this block has been responsible for summoning at least one ambulance to our house for one reason or another.

We also live down the street from an intersection that should be a four-way stop, but only has a yield sign for one of the streets - and nobody yields. This pretty much guarantees at least one car accident a month. I've seen way too many T-bones occur while just sitting and looking out my living room window.

The weirdest incident I can recall is when a man tried to steal my brother's lawn chair off his front porch. My brother heard the noise and went outside to see his chair gone. He walked out to the sidewalk and saw a man walking away with it up the street. He yelled and the guy dropped the chair and ran - then he saw my brother wasn't chasing him and finished his escape at walking pace. My brother didn't really care about the cheap chair, but he was astounded by the audacity (early morning, front porch etc.) He said if he ever gets a decent chair, it's either getting a lock and chain or he's taking it inside with him every night...

There are three things that happened that I consider dramatic i.e. exciting/unusual (at least to this quiet neighborhood girl) and they all involve crows.
1) A baby crow that couldn't fly fell down in the alley. I got to have it perch on my arm. Mom and Dad crow were not happy, but Baby made it's way back up eventually.
2) A crow got electrocuted on our transformer (had to look up what the metal cylinder on our alley utility pole is called ) and everyone's electricity went out. The city had to send someone to fix it, and to remove the crow. Hope it wasn't the one that sat on my arm. 
3) Every evening flocks of crows fly over our neighborhood on their way to...wherever they all sleep at night I can't remember. They often fly very low during this nightly migration, and if you stand outside you can hear the rustle of their wings as they pass overhead. Just a tiny bit awe inspiring and eerie-beautiful IMHO. 

[Julian]

3) Every evening flocks of crows fly over our neighborhood on their way to...wherever they all sleep at night I can't remember. They often fly very low during this nightly migration, and if you stand outside you can hear the rustle of their wings as they pass overhead. Just a tiny bit awe inspiring and eerie-beautiful IMHO. 

When I lived in the semi-tropical north, we got the flocking fruit bats (flying foxes) and roost trees of native parrots in the early evening.  The bats were amazing to watch, but don't leave anything on the clothes line if you live in a fruit-growing area.  The parrots - well, they're beautiful to watch but they are noisy!

Once, I was lying in bed one night reading, and the lights kept flickering.  I went out to see what was going on.  One of the overhead power lines was sparking vigorously where the line ran through a tree's branches.  Cue emergency electrical company and fire truck attending.  Turned out the local possums used the power line to cross the street, and their claws had frayed the insulation enough that during the mildly windy evening, the tree and the wire were causing shorts.

Another night, different house, there were some very strange noises for our quiet neighbourhood - lights and sirens, revving engines, brakes squealing, and a thump.  Somebody had stolen a car and been chased by the police into my estate, which had a low speed limit, lots of speed bumps and chicanes etc.  They'd ditched the car coming down my street and left it running and rolling down hill, where it veered off the road two houses down and crashed into a tree.  Fortunately nobody got hurt, and I never did find out if they caught the thief.

When I was a kid we lived on a corner block on a sweeping, badly cambered bend.  We had many incidents of vehicles coming off the bend and ending up on the grassy verge in front of the house.  The worst though, was when I was about 7 or so.  A car came off and ended up driving through our front fence, missing the front of the house by feet.  We kids were all in the front of the house at the time, watching TV.  And we often played in the front garden. 

[VorFemme]

We lived on a dead end road about three houses long in Kentucky.

I heard a car with a racing engine make a fast (squealing tires) turn onto the street and race down the street - to get to the mound of dirt in front of three trees at the end of it (where it might have looked like it went downhill and to the side to get to another street - but didn't - never had, never would, too steep & too deep of a ditch there).  Somehow they managed to make a turn without crashing and raced up the road to the side street across from our house.

Which went uphill to a cul de sac with a round about at the end of it....the name was Something or Other Court, if I recall. 

They came racing back down again and went through the stop sign at the foot of the court, made a squealing left turn, and went to the stop sign (one yard/one house down the road) and ran the stop sign, making a right turn to get out of the road.....

All the while going at least double the speed limit - based on the noise of the engine, how long the black marks from the squealing tires were, and the speed with which they entered & left the little side street & court - there were maybe ten houses total on both streets.....

I still wonder where they were going in such a hurry....and how we had so many people doing that - without any of them plowing into the large (three stories tall) trees at the end of the short street or anyone's car around the cul de sac.....there were few small children in the area (my preschooler and visiting grandkids was about it - most of the people had been living there twenty-five or thirty years by then).

[cwm]

There are three things that happened that I consider dramatic i.e. exciting/unusual (at least to this quiet neighborhood girl) and they all involve crows.
1) A baby crow that couldn't fly fell down in the alley. I got to have it perch on my arm. Mom and Dad crow were not happy, but Baby made it's way back up eventually.
2) A crow got electrocuted on our transformer (had to look up what the metal cylinder on our alley utility pole is called ) and everyone's electricity went out. The city had to send someone to fix it, and to remove the crow. Hope it wasn't the one that sat on my arm. 
3) Every evening flocks of crows fly over our neighborhood on their way to...wherever they all sleep at night I can't remember. They often fly very low during this nightly migration, and if you stand outside you can hear the rustle of their wings as they pass overhead. Just a tiny bit awe inspiring and eerie-beautiful IMHO. 

Your crows remind me of some of the stories from my old house.

We always had birds get in the chimney. Every year. We'd replace the screening up there, and they'd still get in. Okay, not a problem, usually they ended up in the basement where natural selection would take care of them (they'd flail around so much down there they'd run into something hard, headfirst).

One time we went on vacation for two weeks. When we came back, somehow the birds had managed to get up the staircase and through the tiny crack at the bottom of the basement door, then gone for the windows in the kitchen. We came home to two dead birds in our kitchen sink.

In happier news, there was a robin who made it into our fireplace one day. Dad got all of us out of the living room and sat down quietly. Every ten minutes or so he'd inch closer to the fireplace and wait until the bird calmed down. Eventually he got the door open and picked the bird up in a towel before taking it outside to let it go.

We also had a fountain/tiny pond in front of our picture window. Birds loved it, they'd drink and such from it. Squirrels would do the same. One day a bird flew into the window and stunned himself, and fell into the water.

I, being the only person home at the time, ran outside and gently fished him out with the pole and net. He was perfectly calm. I actually carried him inside to get a few microfiber towels and gently spread his wings and patted him dry as well as I could before sitting him on top of our window mount A/C unit. He had a few false starts where he tried to fly and was still a bit wet, but every time, I'd go outside and pick him up and put him back gently on the A/C to keep him away from the neighborhood cat. And every time he was just as calm as could be about the whole situation. Let me pick him up, dry his wings, didn't even seem to care.

[gramma dishes]

^^^  Sounds like he was hoping you would adopt him!   

[Outdoor Girl]

A flock of crows is called a 'murder'.  I just think that is so cool.

My ex-supervisor from hell had a squirrel story:  She and her husband had company over and they started a fire in their fireplace and closed the glass doors.  While they were all conversing, a poor squirrel dropped down into the fire.  Her first instinct was to open the doors and let it out but her husband said, 'Are you crazy?  His tail is already on fire.  If we let him out, the whole house is going to be on fire!'  Needless to say, it put a bit of a damper on the evening.

And finally, some advice for stunned birds:  If a bird hits your window and is just stunned, hold them gently in your cupped hands, keeping them nice and warm, until they start to recover.  When they start to move around in your hands, place them in a nice sunny spot to let them finish recovering and they'll fly off.  Top of the barbecue is a great spot - nice and warm with the black.

[RegionMom]

re: rare as a blizzard in Atlanta.

"Up to the knees in '93" was my college spring break-

power went out, everything shut down.  Fist place to open was Waffle House, to serve the electricians and first responders.  A friend of mine got rescued by a four wheeler, and then got to help at said Waffle House.  When not helping there, she got on the roof of "her" restaurant and kept a look-out for looters. 
(small town north of Atlanta)

Me?  I was out-of-state, visiting a boyfriend, now DH.  Got to stay a few days extra! 

No buses, planes or autos for several days- it can happen, but rarely!

[Figgie]

Our current neighbors appear to believe that the six foot privacy fence around their backyard renders their entire backyard invisible to the neighbors on either side.  Unfortunately, our foundations are high and you can see into the backyard from all of the windows that face it.

The reason this is unfortunate, is because she likes to dance around naked in the backyard.  And he likes to use the backyard as his personal toilet.  Two sights that I would like to be able to scrub from my brain. 

But our former neighbors were worse.  She was having an affair with another neighbor down the block.  Their bedroom window was right next to our dining room windows.  Which meant my spouse and I got to see what happened when the husband of the affair having woman showed up unexpectedly.

The bedroom window flew open and the screen was shoved out, followed by the guy she was having the affair with.  He was naked and trying desperately to put on a pair of underwear, but could only get one leg through the opening.  This was because the angry husband followed him out through the window and was beating at him with either a tennis or badminton racquet. 

So the guy with the underwear over one leg was trying to run while holding up the underwear and he was screaming like a little girl while kind of hop running.  This all happened so fast that my spouse and I stood there stunned as the husband and underwear guy moved along from between the houses and out onto the front sidewalk.

If I were a better person, I wouldn't have moved to the living room to see what was happening.    But we both did and watched as the hopping, one leg through his underwear guy continued to try and get away from the guy with the racket who was taking swats at him. 

Underwear guy was fast enough that most of the swats were landing on his shoulders and rear end.  Angry husband was overweight and out of shape and so finally stopped chasing him.  Underwear guy then disappeared into his own home (he only lived down the block).

In retrospect, we should have probably called the police, but it was so incredibly bizarre and happened so fast that it never crossed our minds until it was all over.  There was a divorce and underwear guy and the wife of the guy with the badminton or tennis racquet ended up married to each other and moved out of the neighborhood.

And that was probably the most exciting/bizarre thing that ever happened in our neighborhood!

[magicdomino]

Yep, I'd say that qualifies as pretty bizarre.   

[Amara]

Oh, that is hilarious! And I wouldn't have been "a better person" either. 

[VorFemme]

Well - if you don't see the entire sequence of events - how could you possibly believe that it was happening?

Sheesh.....

[dawnfire]

it sounds like something out of a bad comedy   

[PastryGoddess]

last night 2 blocks from my house there were a ton of emergency vehicles on the main street.  Apparently there was an explosion in someones basement and gasoline got into the sewer.

They evacuated everyone from the area.

[Outdoor Girl]

The bedroom window flew open and the screen was shoved out, followed by the guy she was having the affair with.  He was naked and trying desperately to put on a pair of underwear, but could only get one leg through the opening.  This was because the angry husband followed him out through the window and was beating at him with either a tennis or badminton racquet. 

So the guy with the underwear over one leg was trying to run while holding up the underwear and he was screaming like a little girl while kind of hop running.  This all happened so fast that my spouse and I stood there stunned as the husband and underwear guy moved along from between the houses and out onto the front sidewalk.

If I were a better person, I wouldn't have moved to the living room to see what was happening.    But we both did and watched as the hopping, one leg through his underwear guy continued to try and get away from the guy with the racket who was taking swats at him.

If the frame and shaft of the racket was quite thin, it was a badminton racquet.  If it was thicker, it was a tennis racquet.   

And I do have to say that I don't think I'd have been the better person, either.  In fact, I think I'd have been laughing like a loon.