Neighbors

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Jan-Jun 2004 Archive

Well, I have some absolutely wonderful neighbors. On one side of my house. I won't even call the others trailer park trash because there are some nice folks who live in trailer parks. The couple we bought our house from threw a party so we could meet most of the neighbors. I should have known something was up when the woman next door was NOT invited. Background on her: She has, I think , 6 children by I don't know how many fathers. None of her older kids come to visit, and she has one boy at home now with 'problems' either from her age when she got pregnant , her drug use, or something. I have called my family pediatrician because I firmly believe he is being abused. Not just mentally and emotionally, but perhaps sexually. He tried to French kiss a neighbor. When she told him that was wrong, he told her that is how his mommy kisses. He knows words that I promise you I did not know what they meant until high school. He also wanted to "stomp" on a baby squirrel. When we told him that would be bad, he asked if he could kick it. 

Anyway, about my crazy neighbor. She came over one day with a dirty (like menstrual blood) quilt.  She proceeds to say that she would have never sold this piece of trash for even $500.00  before, but she has some financial problems and would we buy this for our CHILDREN! I was floored. Thankfully, my husband had changed jobs, so we told her financially it wasn't a good time. 

We have lived next door to her for 6 years now. She has brought our mail over when it has been in her box. She does not remember our names. I would remember her name, if I knew which one was right. She has told us 3 different names, so far. When she wants something she screams "Hey, hey, hey you!' over the fence until we see what it is she wants now. The other day she screamed she needed a stamp for an emergency. Okay. It was 7:30 on a Saturday night. I told her the post office is closed. The only way to get something postmarked then was to drive downtown, where she could easily purchase a stamp. She said, " I know. That is why it is an emergency, and I need it now." I did not know how to respond. Simple logic that normal people would use, is wasted on her. My other neighbors are tolerable, I guess. I have another neighbor who insists on mowing his grass at 6-6:30 in the MORNING, 2 or 3 times a week. Another one put targets up on the fence that separates our homes and shot at it, missing and hitting a window in my house. They were  very upset with us when we called the police over that. Go figure. Anyway, we are moving! I have wised up. This time I checked out all the neighbors.

Neighbors0925-04

My husband and I were invited to a high school graduation party for the daughter of a new neighbor.  The invitation was casually given to my husband verbally as he was taking the trash out.  It was something to the effect that, "We are having a graduation party for our daughter on such and such date and you are invited".  We never heard anything else about it.  There was no written invitation, no indication about the time of the party, whether it was a backyard BBQ or a sit-down dinner.  

On the day of the party I told my husband that the invitation was meaningless without any further details, and I felt that it was extremely bad etiquette on the part of the party-givers not to contact their prospective guests with more details.  We were put in the position of going to their door and asking what time the party was, what type of party it was, etc.  I refused to do this.  I told my husband that the message I got was that they really didn't want to invite us, and were trying to cover their asses so that when we drove by on the day of the party they could say something like, "Why didn't you come?"  I would have much preferred not to be "invited" to this party, rather than getting this bad etiquette invitation.

Neighbors0814-04

My friends neighbor, Mr. X is a neat freak.  This would not be totally unusual except he is a neat freak about his yard.  Mr. X cut down all his trees on his yard for a reason.  My friends yard has many trees.  When fall comes and the branches and leaves fall from the trees anything that falls on Mr. X's yard they are quickly raked back into my friends yard.  This is raked into my friends yard regardless if the leaves are blown from any of the other 500+ trees in the whole neighborhood.  I guess Mr. X does not feel like separating them.

To Mr. X's horror they started construction across the street on a huge apartment complex that was built on a site of an old, old drive- in movie theatre. During the construction it was very dusty and dirty at times.  Mr. X madly swept up the dirt and dust that settled in his yard, stomped across the street and angrily dropped it at the feet of the construction workers. 

Needless to say Mr. X is not married and has no kids and God always blesses him with something to worry about in the fall.

Neighbors0824-04

I have this neighbor who I will call Cindy who had a daughter who was in the same class as my daughter. We also both worked in our children's classroom at class parties, so we saw each other regularly. Cindy became pregnant (this being her fourth) and would always complain how hard it was getting her child up in the morning to make the school bus (I drove my children to and from school everyday, which she knew) how she had morning sickness most of the time, etc. Well at one of the class parties, she told me again of how hard it was for her doing just about everything and added that her child was having a hard time on the school bus and that some neighborhood girls were picking on her. Well being that I am a mother of four myself I felt bad for her daughter and for Cindy having such a hard time during this pregnancy. So I offered to take her daughter to school every morning for the rest of the school year which had four months to go. 

Things did not go smoothly. Her daughter was often late coming to the car when we arrived in the morning and at least three times, she didn't come out at all even after knocking on the door. On those occasions, I would call her house on my cell to find out that the family had slept in. Now, keep in mind, I have two children of my own to get to school, as well as hers, along with getting my toddler up and ready to go for the ride,  which made my schedule a little tighter. Their tardiness added to my morning stress which I already had. To top it off, it became a ritual for  her daughter to ridicule my car, which is a late model mini-van, by complaining that my car was "sooooo messy" and that she hated the seat covers, which her mother would chime in as she buckled, "Gosh, my car isn't this bad!". They would then take their time saying their goodbyes, while the clock was ticking. 

NOW the cherry on top, as they say. On the last day of the school year I had tons of stuff to do. I had been elected head party coordinator for my other child's class as well as the three other rooms.  That meant I was to plan a party for 80 children. So I definitely had my hands full that day. So I called her in advance to let her know that I was sorry, but I was unable to take her daughter to school. I would have no room in my car for her child along with my children and all the party supplies. TO MY SURPRISE (IMAGINE MY MOUTH HANGING OPEN AT THIS POINT) she had the audacity to say the following: "Oh my G**, This is just freakin' great I can't believe you are going to do this to me, of all days. I have a pre-natal appointment, and I have tons of stuff to do!!" I was floored. I told her I was sorry and hung up. From then on, I vowed that I would never allow myself to be stepped on again. 

Just recently we began the new school year, and thank goodness our children are not in the same room. While talking to her the other day, she began again with the "how hard its been" routine. She spoke of how hard it was for her to get her child up and off to school, as the new baby wants to eat and sleep just at the time when she needs to get her daughter to school.  I have now noticed that is how she operates. She does not want to come out and ask for help as she might become indebted to me or something, so she merely plays on my sympathy and kindness hoping I will volunteer. NOT AGAIN, SISTER!!

Neighbors0904-04

My husband and I were invited to have a spaghetti dinner with our neighbors.  I was not at home at the time an the invitation was extended in person to my husband.  He called me to ask if I wanted to go, I said yes, told him what time I would be getting home so that they could plan accordingly. My husband neglected to mention to them that I was a vegetarian, so upon arriving, I of course found that they had prepared a meat sauce.  They were very gracious and accommodated my needs without an eye blink.  The sauce that was prepared, in addition to having meat had capers, which my husband is not fond of, to my horror he says “Oooo, I hate capers.” I was in shock, but tried to hide it.  The we sat down at the table and began to eat the meal and the subject turned to the dog.  This is the moment that my husband felt the apparently irresistible urge to regale us with a story of his last encounter with dog poop.  Nice.  I waited until we got home to address these issues and he completely and flatly denied that he had  done anything wrong. When I pointed out that his faux pas and that it reflects badly on me,  he added insult to injury and told me that was not the case, people did not judge me by his actions.  Please tell me that I am not crazy!

Neighbors1103-04

My husband and I live in a one bedroom apartment, on the top floor of a two story apartment building. Currently, we live in between two bad neighbors. One one side, there is a family of 4 or 5 people (in a one bedroom!) Two adults, a few kids (I can't tell if they have neighbor kids over all of the time or if they are their own kids.)

These people love to play movies at top volume; it's sometimes so loud that I can't keep a train of thought going to save my life. This is extra bad for me and my hubby as we are both full-time students. Sometimes the dialog or score of the movie they are watching is loud enough that I can tell what movie it is - through my walls.

Another thing that really ticks me off is when their kids (I presume, anyway) kick/bang on the connecting wall between our apartments. I can't tell exactly what it is, but it sure happens a lot! Sometimes the banging causes things hanging on the wall to shake and even makes my husband's desk shake (it's right up against the wall).

The little boy that lives there is a real pill. It seems to me that he has never seen an ounce of discipline a day of his short life. He runs up and down the upstairs corridor, stomping all the way, screaming the whole time. This goes on while mom talks to friends on her cell. She halfheartedly tries to rein him in, but to no avail. I felt kind of bad for her until I discovered her secret to making him shut up - rewarding him with ice cream. Yes, that's right, once little "Billy" starts screaming his head off, mom orders dad/big sister/whoever is hanging out with her to get an ice cream for him. I am convinced that this has only made him brattier.

What burns me up worst of all is that they have woken me up at 8:00 am by walking by my window, talking full volume. Now, this would be forgivable in almost all cases, but this lady likes to dawdle with her brat while he does his morning march by my window, stomping and screaming the whole way. She'll stop to fuss with him for a good solid 2 minutes, right outside my window. He'll start screaming some more and even tap on our window to get our cats to come and say "hi". All the while, mom's not telling him to behave or to stop. No lecture about how people are sleeping only a mere 4 feet away. Nope. Just, "Aww, sweety, come on...it's ok. I will give you a treat in the car!" Grr.

The neighbor on the other side is just a single guy with a bass. He can play it well, but he likes to play along with a song he's listening to...really loudly. This isn't so much a bad thing as it is a minor annoyance. The only problem we've ever had was once he played his music until 1:30 am, which is about my bedtime. A quick bump on the wall and there has never been a problem since. He actually seems kind of nice. So I retract my previous statement about how he was a bad neighbor. He is actually a saint compared to the family on the other side.

Thanks for letting me vent to someone other than my poor husband!

Neighbors1202-04

A few years ago a friend of mine "Pigpen" bought a house. She has amazing luck and a tendency to rely heavily on the goodwill of others. (Often acting like it's her due and only giving perfunctory thank yous.) So in her typical, 'friends are there to do things for you' manner we were asked to help her move and prepare her house for being moved. This meant long hours painting, running to the paint store, cleaning, refurbishing, etc. My boyfriend and I did the lion share of this work, with her and other friends of MINE joining in every so often.

Now Pigpen is a big girl and not known for being overly clean or active. Or, as she would put it, her physical inability to be active. She "couldn't" lift boxes, or stand for long, or walk for long or anything. (Amazing how quickly she can lift when it's free though). So when we agreed to move her we knew that we would be doing all the lifting and carrying. All I asked was that she was packed and that she clean up after her animals. (She lets them do their business in her house.)

Since she was trying to save money (we were all pretty poor, but getting by) she didn't rent a truck. But she was only moving a short distance so we all brought trucks, cars, station wagons and figured we would hop it over.

The day of the move we arrive with empty cars and ready to go. We enter the old house and find it FILTHY. Nothing was packed, there didn't seem to even be any boxes, the kitchen was covered in dirty dishes and worst of she hadn't even cleaned up the animals. Feces were everywhere, the place smelled of urine, when you touched something like the couch it was warm and didn't spring back immediately. I even found some used feminine products while packing! Gross!!

Friends I had pressured to come help the day go faster were horrified, as was I! Thinking quickly I told the others to back the cars into easy loading position and I dove in. I pulled outside anything that didn't need to be packed or came essentially pre-packed. Chest of drawers just had their drawers removed with stuff in it and were put in the car, coffee tables, couches, whatever. Since furniture is big I was able to fill up the vehicles without needing to really pack anything - or have anyone else enter. I sent them to the clean house to unpack and took advantage of that time to gear of for wave two.

I spent that afternoon loading the dishwasher while putting stuff outside for the movers. Mind you she didn't get any boxes, so I used what I found lying around and then got creative. Since she wasn't packed we moved everything we could "as is". For instance we unhooked all the VCRs etc, but moved the entertainment unit with them still in it! I was careful to make sure everything survived the move, but since it was in a cushy car for a few miles and then in it's new home, we didn't really unpack/repack much.

Since we had already been at her new place painting and all we had a decent idea where we wanted things and the movers put the furniture into their new places. Boxes we unpacked so we could reuse them. While I'm sure everything wasn't in the perfect place the lion share was in place or close proximity.

Still she was appalled that we hadn't cleared the whole weekend. She thought she didn't need many boxes since we were going to move a room at a time fully setting it up (including hanging pictures) before we moved the next one - no matter how long it took! She knew were we were leaving town the next day!!! I told her we were leaving and we had one day to help. Whatever we didn't do that day she did on her own. Grudgingly she "allowed" us to move everything, but felt "betrayed" by this.

In about 4-5 moves everything clears out. The movers (who only entered for the couch, the desk, and the bed; later I was told they were very grateful that I queued everything outside) were amazed at my transformation. In an effort to not have the landlord utterly sue her (a lost cause considering how trashed this place was) I cleaned and vacuumed, it was all packed and the last of the dishes were cleaned and being placed in a reused box yet again. While I was doing all this what was Pigpen doing? Reading!! Every now and then she packed a box but she spent almost the whole day reading.

When she went over to her new, almost entirely unpacked house she was unhappy since the last load wasn't unpacked, pictures weren't hung, and everything wasn't just so. She cried wondering how she could be expected to do all this work alone!

It was late though, and we were exhausted and gross. And grossed out!

To top the cake, the next day however I took my car to jiffy lube before we hit the road. It was taking longer than they said it would and I had to run into work before leaving. I asked Pigpen if I could borrow her car since mine was still in the shop and I just needed to go to work and right back (a few miles). I had driven her car before.

After using my car and all my friends cars back and forth THE DAY BEFORE and despite that I entirely spearheaded moving her and cleaning her old place while she read she said to me, and I quote: "I guess that's okay but I'm going to have to charge you gas money."

I borrowed someone else's car. To this day she wonders why our friendship is strained. I know she was short on money, but next time she'll be more broke when she's forced to hire movers to pack and move her.

But with her luck she'll have a new batch of friends to do it, or her daddy will hire them. Apparently she never was sued by the landlord even though the entire house really was ruined.

Amazing.

Neighbors1120-04

So my best friend/roommate, Jessica, had been seeing this guy, TC, for about a month when she started talking about marrying him. Putting aside my own reservations as to how much a 19-year-old without a high school diploma knows about making a marriage work, I did say I wasn't really comfortable having him move in with us as he'd never said so much as two sentences to me in passing; thus, we'd be parting ways after her marriage. She agreed that would be for the best and said it would be at least six months before that became an issue.

The next week I went out of town to visit my family for a few days. When I got home, she greeted me with "Hi, we got married and he moved in and I want you to sign so he can be on our lease." I refused, as that makes my credit vulnerable to him and again, I DON'T KNOW HIM, but said I would be happy to sign OFF the lease and find new living arrangements as we had previously agreed. She refused to allow me off the lease, saying she was afraid I'd just up and leave with no notice, leaving them liable for the full rent. (We'd been friends for years and she knew that of the two of us, I was the more reliable and responsible one.) I said I would sign myself off the lease and leave the copy at the office, begin looking for a new place to live and once found, give her sufficient notice of my moving; that way, she could sign me off a day or two before my scheduled move. Ridiculous, but she was comfortable with this.

TWO DAYS LATER I got a paper slipped under the door that she had signed me off the lease and they were transferring apartments in four days...which meant, since I was not welcome to move to the new apartment with them and I was no longer a legal resident of that apartment, I had to find someplace else to live. In four days. Did I mention I'd already paid my rent through the whole month, which we were only one week into?

Luckily, a coworker took pity on me and offered me temporary lodging while I found new housing, as we had moved to the area very recently and I had no other friends or family within 600 miles. On top of the stress of moving at the last hour when I thought I was going to end up on the street, I discovered after unpacking that she'd stolen a good portion of my kitchen items (dishes, pans and flatware) and very quickly realized she'd also screwed me out of some money tied up in joint gym memberships and rental movie accounts. If that's not poor manners, I don't know what is!!

Moral of the story: Even when you think you know them, your friends could be closet White Trash. I made an honest effort to do right by this friend of many years and was totally trampled instead. Remind your etiquette brides that when planning your wedding, it's proper not to screw over your friends in the process!

Neighbors1118-04

I suppose just plain tacky is where this would belong.   I met "Jackie" last year, my freshman year of college. She lived across the hall.  We became friends and we discovered that our hometowns were right next to each other.  Since freshmen and sophomores are not allowed to bring cars, our parents would have to pick us up for holidays.  We decided since we lived so close we would carpool for Thanksgiving break.  We planned to leave on Wednesday since that was the last day of classes. I then found out my Wednesday classes were canceled, but Jackie's were not, so we still had to leave on Wednesday. I was upset because I wanted to leave earlier, but I understood, because it was a carpool and we had to leave when it was convenient for everyone.  Her mom was driving us back after thanksgiving.  He mom complained the whole drive there (2 hours) about how much of a pain it was for her to drive us back. Needless to say, I felt very uncomfortable.  After this point, my mom just said she'd rather drive us there

and back since it seemed so inconvenient for Jackie's mom.   Things went fine with this arrangement until spring break.  I wanted to leave on Wednesday.  Jackie then proceeded to inform me that she couldn't leave until Thursday because she had classes. I found this to be very rude, since we were giving her a ride and she was not contributing gas money or anything, but I agreed.  Then she ended up skipping all her classes on Thursday anyways. 

After spring quarter I paid extra money so I could bring my car and park it off campus.  There were some important weekends I needed to go home for.  The first one that came up was Easter.  Since it was only a weekend, I wanted to leave as early as possible so I could spend more time at home.  My class on Friday ended at 9 am, so I planned to leave then. Jackie wanted a ride home for Easter too, but she informed me her classes weren't over until 5pm. So I waited, because I didn't want her to be angry with me.  The next weekend we went home was mother's day.  This time I kindly asked her if she could skip her last class so that we could leave earlier. She agreed, but acted as if she was doing me a huge favor by missing it, even though I was the one giving her a free ride. 

She then trapped me into driving her to a concert an hour away. She asked about 2 months in advance what I was doing on a certain date. I of course said nothing because I don't plan ahead 2 months. She then asked if I could drive her to said concert. Of course I couldn't make up an excuse because she'd already asked if I was doing anything.  When it was about two weeks before the concert I realized the last day of one of my classes was at the time I was supposed to drive her to the concert.  She didn't seemed fazed at all, and seemed to think I was obligated to bring her anyways.

Right now I'm dealing with this upcoming Thanksgiving drive.  I want to leave on Tuesday, but she cannot leave until Wednesday.  She has already informed me that I have an obligation to give her a ride. I think for once though I'm leaving when I want to leave.

Neighbors1118-04