We live on a perfectly nice street in a perfectly nice neighborhood. Our street is racially diverse, and we have some wonderful neighbors. We all mow our lawns, chat across our fences, and plan block parties and block rummage sales. There is only one thing keeping it from being a new, modern Norman Rockwell setting. One thing ruining my life. And that one thing is yelling outside my window right now (at 10:13 pm!!!).
We call them the Clampetts.
The Clampetts know no bounds. They know no curfew. They stay outside, in the street, hooting and hollering until 2:30 in the morning. And that's just the kids! God alone knows where their parents are all night! Or all day, for that matter.
They have 4 kids, 15, 14, 13, and 9. I shall get to them in a moment.
These people (the parents) both work. They are not well off, but then neither are we. When we moved here 4 years ago, they seemed nice enough. Maybe not the brightest of our neighbors, but they were at least nice.
Then they started borrowing things. Our phone, for example. They would knock on the door up to 24 times a day (I counted once!) to borrow the phone. At first I didn't mind, but then they started RECEIVING calls at our house. I'd answer my own phone to hear, "Can you run next door and get Mrs. Clampett?". Dh finally put an end to it when, one day, he called me on his lunch break only to get a Clampett telling him to call back later because they were on a long distance call. He snapped and hung a sign on our door that said, "Phone out of order!"
Then there was the time their energy got shut off for non-payment. Mr. Clampett came over and asked if he could run an extension cord from our house to theirs for a couple days. It was a hot summer, and they needed a fan at night. We were struggling to pay our own energy bill, but I overruled dh and said, "Why of course you can! Those poor kids shouldn't sweat at night."
Oh, the domestic brawls that ensued! Dh said I was just encouraging them. Didn't I remember the phone thing? My stance was that we're Christians, we should act like it; one day we might need their help; we need to be good neighbors; all that jazz. Plus their youngest daughter is my daughter's friend. How could we say no?
As promised, their energy was restored and life went on.
Then 2 years ago, my daughter came in from getting her hair styled by the Clampetts' oldest daughter, with the worst case of headlice I have ever seen. We bought RID. We treated our entire house. We won the battle. We THOUGHT. Then dd got lice again. We treated her again. Treated the house again. It recurred over and over, on and off, from July until March! My kids are homeschooled. The chances of them getting lice from 2 different sources are slim. Especially when one known source lives next door, and readily admits that they can't get rid of their kids' lice. At the end of March, their kids' school called the Health Department. I don't know what happened, but apparently the lice problem got solved. In all, we paid out over $600 in various lice products to treat our house and family, including my parents who, I'm mortified to say, got lice too when dd went up for a visit. I hope I never have to deal with anything like that again.
Which leads to our current problems.
We have a pool. It's an Intex pool, which means it's from Walmart. As I said, we are not rich. We bought this pool last August, when it was marked down for the end of the season. It's a 13 ft, 4 ft deep pool, and we love it.
When I was growing up, my best friend had a pool. My mother always told me NEVER to ask to use the pool. "It's rude", she said. "Don't make him feel like he HAS to invite you, or you won't have a friend anymore", she said.
The Clampetts have never heard my mother give this speech. Their youngest daughter spends every waking moment asking if she can go in our pool. I spend every waking moment telling her no. I'm mean, you say? Let me tell you about Monday. Monday, last week, was the first day this year our pool was ready to swim in. DD6 and ds7 got all ready to go, suits and sunscreen, when there was a knock at the door. It was little Miss Clampett. She spied dd's swimsuit and said, "Y'all going swimming?" (Here's your sign.) "Can I go too?", she asked. "Yes you may, if your mom says it's ok", I say, having NO CLUE that her mother isn't home!
She comes back and asks if her cousin can swim too. I say yes, since the cousin is at least closer in age to dd (dd is 6, Miss Clampett is 9). I go about gathering some laundry to hang outside, as well as a book, a blanket, and my 3 yr old, and head out back.
In my pool are the Clampett's kids--ALL 4 of them!-- and the cousin. My kids are on their swingset, moping because the pool is too crowded. The oldest girl is wearing a white bikini, which is completely see-through, thank you very much, and my ds7 is ogling her like she isn't the same girl who pushes him around (literally) when he plays outside.
I kick them all out of the pool, muttering something about how our homeowner's insurance doesn't cover neighbor kids in our pool, and send them on their way. Rather than use the gate, they drip through the house and out the front door. I am LIVID at this point.
Master Clampett, age 13, notices we have a Wii. The Wii was a gift to my kids from my nephew's wealthy dad. Even THEY aren't allowed to play with it without supervision, because we can't afford to replace the darn thing. Yet this kid who is not mine, and is too old to even be considered a friend of my ds7, asks, "Can I play your Wii?"
Are there no boundaries?
Of course I said no. But he must have had his eyes peeled, because the next day he knocked at the door and said, "My mom wants to know if I can use your computer. It's an emergency." I said, "What emergency?" His answer, I swear on my life, was, "She needs to print out a coupon."
I said, "Is it a coupon for kidney dialysis? Because if not, it's not a emergency."
Then I thought, How the heck does his mom even know we HAVE a computer? She's never been in our house. Apparently, the kids went home and told the whole family the contents of our kitchen and living room. Great. Now I have to worry about break-ins, too, because they have some pretty unsavory people hanging out at their house at night.
I'm about fed up here.
Now, with summer vacation, these kids are outside till between 1 am and 3 am, screaming at each other and playing basketball. When they go in, they blare music for the rest of the night.
Saturday night I let the kids sleep on the couch and watch a movie. At 2:30 am, (I was watching a movie upstairs), I heard someone at the window. I look out, and there's little Miss Clampett, calling my dd and tapping on the glass, asking if dd could come outside. I screamed at her to go home, then fumed to myself through the rest of my movie.
I would feel sorry for the kids if they weren't so offensive. I was actually thinking of inviting little Miss Clampett to go with us to the zoo and stuff this summer, but she annoys me to death. Not to mention that if you do them favors, they start to feel entitled. Usually I have more sympathy, but I'm mad right now.
I've left out a lot here, like their 8 dogs that run around snarling at people, and the fact that their house is falling apart (and is the apparent source of a rat problem the other neighbors keep telling us about. I don't notice it because we have cats.).
Their neighbor on the other side of them, Shirley, calls the cops on them literally every night, every summer. The police don't even respond anymore. When we moved here, I thought Shirley was a busybody. Now I think maybe I'll bake her a cake. Poor woman has put up with those people longer than we have, and I don't know how.
Our neighbors across the street are moving. I feel bad because they're a nice elderly couple, but the wife says she just can't take the noise anymore at night. It keeps her up.
So my question is this: do we have any way to get these people out? Can we sign a petition or something? I know Shirley has called the landlord many times, but nothing came of it. I'm almost ready to move over this, and that's saying a lot because I love our house and the rest of the neighborhood. I don't want to live anywhere else. Help!
ETA: The Clampetts are the only rental house on our street, if that makes a difference to your advice....
We call them the Clampetts.
The Clampetts know no bounds. They know no curfew. They stay outside, in the street, hooting and hollering until 2:30 in the morning. And that's just the kids! God alone knows where their parents are all night! Or all day, for that matter.
They have 4 kids, 15, 14, 13, and 9. I shall get to them in a moment.
These people (the parents) both work. They are not well off, but then neither are we. When we moved here 4 years ago, they seemed nice enough. Maybe not the brightest of our neighbors, but they were at least nice.
Then they started borrowing things. Our phone, for example. They would knock on the door up to 24 times a day (I counted once!) to borrow the phone. At first I didn't mind, but then they started RECEIVING calls at our house. I'd answer my own phone to hear, "Can you run next door and get Mrs. Clampett?". Dh finally put an end to it when, one day, he called me on his lunch break only to get a Clampett telling him to call back later because they were on a long distance call. He snapped and hung a sign on our door that said, "Phone out of order!"
Then there was the time their energy got shut off for non-payment. Mr. Clampett came over and asked if he could run an extension cord from our house to theirs for a couple days. It was a hot summer, and they needed a fan at night. We were struggling to pay our own energy bill, but I overruled dh and said, "Why of course you can! Those poor kids shouldn't sweat at night."
Oh, the domestic brawls that ensued! Dh said I was just encouraging them. Didn't I remember the phone thing? My stance was that we're Christians, we should act like it; one day we might need their help; we need to be good neighbors; all that jazz. Plus their youngest daughter is my daughter's friend. How could we say no?
As promised, their energy was restored and life went on.
Then 2 years ago, my daughter came in from getting her hair styled by the Clampetts' oldest daughter, with the worst case of headlice I have ever seen. We bought RID. We treated our entire house. We won the battle. We THOUGHT. Then dd got lice again. We treated her again. Treated the house again. It recurred over and over, on and off, from July until March! My kids are homeschooled. The chances of them getting lice from 2 different sources are slim. Especially when one known source lives next door, and readily admits that they can't get rid of their kids' lice. At the end of March, their kids' school called the Health Department. I don't know what happened, but apparently the lice problem got solved. In all, we paid out over $600 in various lice products to treat our house and family, including my parents who, I'm mortified to say, got lice too when dd went up for a visit. I hope I never have to deal with anything like that again.
Which leads to our current problems.
We have a pool. It's an Intex pool, which means it's from Walmart. As I said, we are not rich. We bought this pool last August, when it was marked down for the end of the season. It's a 13 ft, 4 ft deep pool, and we love it.
When I was growing up, my best friend had a pool. My mother always told me NEVER to ask to use the pool. "It's rude", she said. "Don't make him feel like he HAS to invite you, or you won't have a friend anymore", she said.
The Clampetts have never heard my mother give this speech. Their youngest daughter spends every waking moment asking if she can go in our pool. I spend every waking moment telling her no. I'm mean, you say? Let me tell you about Monday. Monday, last week, was the first day this year our pool was ready to swim in. DD6 and ds7 got all ready to go, suits and sunscreen, when there was a knock at the door. It was little Miss Clampett. She spied dd's swimsuit and said, "Y'all going swimming?" (Here's your sign.) "Can I go too?", she asked. "Yes you may, if your mom says it's ok", I say, having NO CLUE that her mother isn't home!
She comes back and asks if her cousin can swim too. I say yes, since the cousin is at least closer in age to dd (dd is 6, Miss Clampett is 9). I go about gathering some laundry to hang outside, as well as a book, a blanket, and my 3 yr old, and head out back.
In my pool are the Clampett's kids--ALL 4 of them!-- and the cousin. My kids are on their swingset, moping because the pool is too crowded. The oldest girl is wearing a white bikini, which is completely see-through, thank you very much, and my ds7 is ogling her like she isn't the same girl who pushes him around (literally) when he plays outside.
I kick them all out of the pool, muttering something about how our homeowner's insurance doesn't cover neighbor kids in our pool, and send them on their way. Rather than use the gate, they drip through the house and out the front door. I am LIVID at this point.
Master Clampett, age 13, notices we have a Wii. The Wii was a gift to my kids from my nephew's wealthy dad. Even THEY aren't allowed to play with it without supervision, because we can't afford to replace the darn thing. Yet this kid who is not mine, and is too old to even be considered a friend of my ds7, asks, "Can I play your Wii?"
Are there no boundaries?
Of course I said no. But he must have had his eyes peeled, because the next day he knocked at the door and said, "My mom wants to know if I can use your computer. It's an emergency." I said, "What emergency?" His answer, I swear on my life, was, "She needs to print out a coupon."
I said, "Is it a coupon for kidney dialysis? Because if not, it's not a emergency."
Then I thought, How the heck does his mom even know we HAVE a computer? She's never been in our house. Apparently, the kids went home and told the whole family the contents of our kitchen and living room. Great. Now I have to worry about break-ins, too, because they have some pretty unsavory people hanging out at their house at night.
I'm about fed up here.
Now, with summer vacation, these kids are outside till between 1 am and 3 am, screaming at each other and playing basketball. When they go in, they blare music for the rest of the night.
Saturday night I let the kids sleep on the couch and watch a movie. At 2:30 am, (I was watching a movie upstairs), I heard someone at the window. I look out, and there's little Miss Clampett, calling my dd and tapping on the glass, asking if dd could come outside. I screamed at her to go home, then fumed to myself through the rest of my movie.
I would feel sorry for the kids if they weren't so offensive. I was actually thinking of inviting little Miss Clampett to go with us to the zoo and stuff this summer, but she annoys me to death. Not to mention that if you do them favors, they start to feel entitled. Usually I have more sympathy, but I'm mad right now.
I've left out a lot here, like their 8 dogs that run around snarling at people, and the fact that their house is falling apart (and is the apparent source of a rat problem the other neighbors keep telling us about. I don't notice it because we have cats.).
Their neighbor on the other side of them, Shirley, calls the cops on them literally every night, every summer. The police don't even respond anymore. When we moved here, I thought Shirley was a busybody. Now I think maybe I'll bake her a cake. Poor woman has put up with those people longer than we have, and I don't know how.
Our neighbors across the street are moving. I feel bad because they're a nice elderly couple, but the wife says she just can't take the noise anymore at night. It keeps her up.
So my question is this: do we have any way to get these people out? Can we sign a petition or something? I know Shirley has called the landlord many times, but nothing came of it. I'm almost ready to move over this, and that's saying a lot because I love our house and the rest of the neighborhood. I don't want to live anywhere else. Help!
ETA: The Clampetts are the only rental house on our street, if that makes a difference to your advice....
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