Who has bad neighbors?

[arabookworm]

we went to egypt for a month and my grandma stayed at our house while we were gone. our lawn was really steep so she couldn't mow it and the person who was supposed to come over to help with that never showed, so our neighbor called the borough to complain about our long grass.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I live on a cu-de-sac in the suburbs. I currently back up to undeveloped land. My closest neighbors are fine with the chickens, and regularly get eggs. I've lived here almost sixteen years now. During that time, most of the homes on the cul-de-sac have had a single owner, or have been sold in the last year. So, all long term neighbors except for the one house that is on the fourth owners in less than 10 years. That is where the nasty neighbor comes in.....

But first a little history on the house, because I think something weird is going on with it. It is on a small lot, 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths. Every family that has owned it has been a couple with one male child. The first three owners were strangely similar; all three women had long blond hair, the first two had sons exactly the same age, the men had harleys and drove jeeps, and two of the couples moved because of marital problems. The current couple have one small boy, but she is not blond....

So she has complained to the HOA about kids playing on the street, dogs running loose, and me keeping chickens. All of which are true, but are not HOA issues. She has never approached anyone about any of these situations. When her child plays outside she sits in her driveway so none of the other children will come on her driveway or in her yard. She does daycare out of her home, but hates kids. Because we are on a circle, all the kids come here to play. She has told my children they cannot play ball in the street. We had words, lots of angry, nasty words. Then she decided to write the HOA....she complained about my children playing outside unsupervised. They are eight and twelve. She has made it very clear, but never said, that children are not welcome on her yard. She has thrown away toys left on the STREET in front of her home. A brand new scooter in one case. I have walked bikes, scooters, balls, skate boards and many other things to about every house on this street. It takes one minute, and it gets it out of my yard. So no one is allowed in her yard, but she cut limbs from her immediate neighbor's tree. Yes the limb was hanging over the the fence, but she cut at least six feet over the property line, and totally mutilated the tree. They also had to come onto the other person's lot to remove the debris.

She has complained about a child practicing soccer in his own yard, because her son had already gone to bed and the soccer player was making noise.

She complains that the teenagers are outside after nine at night, making noise. I can't hear them in my house.

She has complained about my chickens, I live on the other side of the cul-de-sac from her. But she has taken free eggs.

Every child is afraid to cross her lawn. I've had to tell my children that if her son is out, they need to tell me so I can be outside while they play. I also have told my kids that they not allowed to retrieve any ball from her lawn. Even if they are playing with her kid, they can't go into her yard.

My neighbors can be too casual about their dogs, but the dogs are never out without their owners. She calls animal control, instead of talking to her neighbors.

She accused all the other neighbors on the street of driving all the previous owners of her home out because of our bad attitudes. We were mean, so they left.

I think that her main issue is that she is seriously unhappy. She does daycare at home, but ends up not leaving her house for literally days on end. She is home from Monday morning to Friday morning. She doesn't even take her child to and from school, someone else does. I think she is miserable, and makes everyone around her unhappy. I feel for her child and husband.

 

[BellLisamo]

We have a neighbor who lives NE of us, who loves to call the county on us everytime he hears us pounding a nail... he's a real jerk. The county has been out several times to find out if we were building without a permit. Never been fined, but it's still a big deal.

He also called because there was a horse trailer parked in the front of our driveway, and he said it was blocking his view... ummmm since when can he decide what he can see? It's on our property. I cant stand the guy.

other that that jerk, my neighbors to the left of us, is only 500 feet away, and we are good friends with them. my geese/guineas/chickens and all go visit at some point. he just laughs when they freak out when they see him.

he even gave me all his chicken wire for free.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
It sounds like this person is trying to take your property by adverse possession. You need to get and keep him off, or else provide permission for him to use your land (which destroys an adverse possession claim). In some states adverse possession takes many years, but in a few it is as few as 3 years (I think that is California). Since he admittted that he shot your horses and threatened to kill them, you need to pursue a claim against him on your own if you cannot get the authorities to address the situation. Did you talk to the County Prosecutor? I suggest that you fence your land and put up No Trespassing signs, and regularly go to and use that property, even if only for a nice hike. If you choose to give him permission to use it, make sure to send that permission via certified mail, receipt requested, and include statements on what he may/may not do, and that you are in no way allowing him exclusive use of the land, that you retain full use of the land while giving him permission to use it. You may want to run the exact phrasing by a lawyer first to make sure that you are adequately protecting your land ownership.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
I guess I have to disagree with you about your first "bad" neighbor, Bleenie, because I had a neighbor who had peacocks also who were always "exploring"...well, his peacocks came over here repeatedly even after he was warned by animal control (who would do nothing else about them, because roaming poultry apparently weren't in their "job description"), but suffice it to say they were a HUGE nuisance here. They got into my barn, made a huge mess (did you know peacocks can turn over a galvanized can full of horse feed? I do!) spooked my horses and left their droppings all over my horsey stuff and my hay in my building. So while you might think they are cute "pets", on someone else's side of the fence they might be qualifying as "pests". There is even a place in Florida somewhere where peacocks have pretty much taken over a neighborhood...they actually get into people's houses there. I don't know what they finally decided to do about them there. There's a limit to what a person can take. Just because they don't have teeth doesn't mean they aren't just as capable of taking over the neighborhood like someone's loose dog, and they have the added ability to fly and leave little "gifts" where no dog can reach. Personally, I'd rather step in a dog's lawn mines than have my hay all full of peacock waste, although those aren't welcome here either.

This guy never once complained about them he just trapped them in his barn until we just gave up and now theyre back to running around squalking everywhere. so it's not liek he hated them...he just thought they should be his & not ours.

ETA: We decided to let it go because the guy is a bit looney. We tried talking to him one time and he came running out with a gun, his wife wasn't much help either, i kind of think she was scared of him.

First, I think that letting htem roam onto others property is a problem you need to address. Since you purchased or hatched or were given them, they are yours. Since they are running free again, soulds like maybe you should trap them on your property, and then cage/pen them so that they cannot leave your property.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
We used to see a family on a regular basis at car races--our son and their daughter both had the same sponsor, so we saw them about once a month. Seemed like a rather normal family, until one time in talking to them the wife mentioned that they didn;t like their neighbors, so at night they would sneak into the neighbors' yard and pour herbicide on their shrubs. No reason other than they didn't like them--and thought it funny, was giggling as she told me. I found that behavior disgusting! I don't recall exactly what I said, but I did let her know my feelings. We didn't speak much after that.

 

[prov31gal]

wow, ive been reading this nonstop. i feel really really bad for many of you!
you just never know what you are going to get next door. its like one big really scary crap shoot that you can never win.
or like a box of chocolates..you never know what youre gonna get, but for some of you it sounds like an inordinate amount of chocolates are poop filled instead of caramel or cherry filling.
i thought i would share my neighbor story.
about 10 thousand years ago, when we only had 1 baby and were very young, we lived ina teeny house on a dead end street of the nasty part of our town.
we had a little girls who lived with her grandmother across the street, the girl was about 10 and emotionally disturbed. she came over all the time, and would just walk into our house.
that wasnt so bad, as things go. but there was a condemned house on the one side of us. one day some people came over and started to gut it, we thought, they pulled all kinds of stuff out of the house weird boxed too, that when they cracked them open in the yard this rotting maggotty brown stuff came uot and stunk uop the whole street, apparently is was many bags of dog food that water had been dripping on inside the house, and well, the results were not pretty, and so then there was a literal junk yard of debris between our house and theirs.
then we found out that they were not gutting it, but were cleaning it out so people could move in! eeewwww. apparently these people owned the house and it was their crap they tore out of it and now thery were moving back in. she was a sinle mom with 3 teenage girls, we tried to be friendly, but she threatened to kill me with her handgun, she was crazy and would tell me how she was on haldol shots for schitzophrenia. she said she was a witch and told me all kinds of scary stuff about animal sarifice and alternate dementions and scary stuff. THE police were always there.
WE MOVED PROMPTLY
then we lived in a horrible little garden apartment. still very young, now with a toddler and a new baby. the land lord always told us we were the best tennents he ever had, we wondered why, we werent special, and thenwe met the neighbors, on either side, one side had a single dad who was a lunatic, his 5 year old daghter would come over in a diaper and nothing else all that summer, he blasted heavy metal all day and all night, and always wanted to borrow 10 bucks all the time. but he was very nice and would turn the music down everytime we called.
the other side had a parade of scary individuald in and out all the time day and night.it was always loud. and then out porch light bulb sarted disappearing. almast evry night someone would steal the light bulb! we did experiments like putting a new one in every night, to see if they would steal it. they did. we left it on all night to see if a hot bulb would deter them. they still took it. one night we stayed up all night almost peering out our kitchen blinds tryingh to see if we could catch them. we gave up , we were so tires it was like 3 am. but at 7 am, when we went out the door it was gone!
we moved.
we have lived happily in our own home in the country now for many years, and the neighbors are great. our one neighbor came over the other day and used a snow thrower to better clear my driveway. when i went out i said"what are you doing?" she just blew me a kiss and went on. great neighbors, our kids play and i always send over eggs and goodies, and they send cookies. bliss.
our other side are an elderly couple who love our kids and buy them christmas presents and candy and we love them. they are happy we live here because the people who lived here before us we apparently terrible, for 3 years after we moved here, the elderly man kept telling us how horrible they were and how he had 2 heart attacks because of them. wow.
i guess compared to that, my loud kids and wandering chickens are nothing.
we had some people at the end of our road with pit bulls, it was awful, the dogs ran loose and people were afraid to walk on the road near the house, they chased us and we hit one with out car as it attacked the window and tried to get in to eat my husband. it wasnt on purpose we hit it. but i would have run it down if i had the chance. the law did nothing no matter what!
that went on for 2 years. then they moved, left the dogs behind...uuugghhh, horrible and the county eventually picked them up.
thats my story, long but not as intersting as some.

 

[Boyd]

Quote:
I guess I have to disagree with you about your first "bad" neighbor, Bleenie, because I had a neighbor who had peacocks also who were always "exploring"...well, his peacocks came over here repeatedly even after he was warned by animal control (who would do nothing else about them, because roaming poultry apparently weren't in their "job description"), but suffice it to say they were a HUGE nuisance here. They got into my barn, made a huge mess (did you know peacocks can turn over a galvanized can full of horse feed? I do!) spooked my horses and left their droppings all over my horsey stuff and my hay in my building. So while you might think they are cute "pets", on someone else's side of the fence they might be qualifying as "pests". There is even a place in Florida somewhere where peacocks have pretty much taken over a neighborhood...they actually get into people's houses there. I don't know what they finally decided to do about them there. There's a limit to what a person can take. Just because they don't have teeth doesn't mean they aren't just as capable of taking over the neighborhood like someone's loose dog, and they have the added ability to fly and leave little "gifts" where no dog can reach. Personally, I'd rather step in a dog's lawn mines than have my hay all full of peacock waste, although those aren't welcome here either.

The peafowl in florida where trapped and relocated to zoo's and folks who would keep them enclosed. For the ones that didn't have a home? Well, they didn't last very long. Some folks down there are not using the catch and release traps either. They are just sick of the problem.

I'd also have a problem with a large bird like that rolling around. Just like a large goose, no way would I feel comfortable if I didn't know the animal. Probably be destined for the dinner plate so nothing goes to waste. Wonder what peafowl taste like.. hm....

 

[SilkieTime]

Thank you Sonoran. This land did belong to him at one time and he gave it to his son that built a house on it an later sold it. The lady that owned before me never went back there ever in 8 years. I did put up two fences one for him then another about 10 feet in for the horses. I also put up a camera.
He has more to worry about then me now. He shot a lady of the night and a police man was there, he told him to drop the gun he didn't so the police man fired a shot and it went through his truck window. When he came back he was beat up real good. Now he has altimers now and needs a heart buypass. Him and the other man on the other side of him cut tirers back a forth. He does not have time for me any more.

 

[catfish/okie]

My neighbors are great. One neighbor has a cat and a dog. One day the cat went into my back yard and wanted to play with my chickens. they thought the cat wanted to eat them and a hen flew over into their back yard. Upon hearing the comotion he run outside and grabbed the cat and his dog and took them into his house. When i got home he told me about it and said my hen was in his back yard and he didnt try very hard to catch her because he was afraid she would fly into the back alley. I went back there and just picked he up and took her and put her back in the run in my back yard she ran a little bit but was not hard for me to catch her. The other neighbors! One day I was trying to start my lawn mower and it didnt want to start. She came over and asked me if she wanted me to let her husband fix it. I said If he could start it he could have it because I had another lawn mower. They said they had a riding one and a push one and he just wanted to see if he could fix it and he did and it wrked like a new one. At first they didnt like my chickens and they tried to get city hall to make me get rid of them. But I guess they got used to them. She now thinks its cute the way my hens jump into the air to get grapes out of my fingers. The rest of the neighbors! I never hear much out of them.