Why do people have to be so mean?

[chicken_china_mom]

I have been having some bizarre issues with various neighbors since we moved in, and for those that have read my recent posts about the lady that lives next door, well, she is at it again. Yesterday my kids were outside, playing and picking mint on the side of my house. The little boy next door that isn't allowed to play with anyone was bouncing his ball off his house very close to my girls, but he wasn't talking to them, and they weren't talking to him cause his mother was there. My girls were making a role playing game as they were picking the mint and were very absorbed in their game when this freak neighbor lady walks up to my girls and hisses at them "Stop talking to my son!" My girls both dropped their jaw in surprise, because they hadn't heard her coming up behind them, nor had they expected her to approach them, and my kids of course said "We weren't talking to him." So she says "Good, don't EVER talk to my son!" And then, as she walks back over the line to her and grabs her son protectively and says to him "Don't be talking to those BRATS!" and marches him around the corner to the back of their house. My kids were so in shock that they just kind of sat there, looking at each other, unsure what to do or say. They eventually came in and told me what she had said. If I see her again, I will give her a piece of my mind. She has NO right to call my kids brats. My kids haven't done anything to her or her son except be nice. She is a hoarder and we think that he behavior extends beyond the items in her house and her cats to her son as well. He has told my kids before that as soon as he's old enough to drive, he's stealing his mother's car and he's leaving. He's gonna be 10 next month. He hates the way she suffocates him, and my kids feel so sorry for him that they want to be nice and play with him so that he actually HAS friends, but his mother won't allow it. He's not allowed out of his backyard, not allowed to play with most of the kids in town, and if he does get to play with some, it's ONLY boys, and only in his own backyard. I feel for the kid, but his mother is a real piece of work. I'm getting tired of her and her attitude problem. I just needed to vent a little. I guess my feathers get a little ruffled when someone takes aim at my kids. She can't stand up to me, so she goes after my kids. Pretty pathetic if I do say so.

 

[sundance]

his mother sounds like she has a problem. But before I jumped on her and beat the daylights out for calling my kids brats, go to the school and talk to the school counselor. She may be able to help the child, and he definitely sounds like he needs help. good luck marrie

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Does this boy go to school? If so, I think you need to talk to the teacher about your concerns for the boy. SHe will take that into account with her own observations and if she feels there is even a remote chance of abuse, is required by law to report it to Child Protective Services (or whatever your state's equivalent is called). This removes you from the equation in relation to the boy. As for her coming onto your property, go over and tell her that she is specifically NOT allowed to speak with your girls, and that she is not allowed on your property. Then send her a certified letter mentioning the conversation and repeating that she is not allowed onto your prpperty or to talk with your children. If that is not the side of the house that you posted No Trespassing signs on, post them. If it is, reference them in your conversation and letter.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Great minds think alike

We must have been writing our replies at the same time, lol.

 

[chicks4kids]

Is this the same one that got offended when you posted signs? I think I remember you posting something else about her cats and your chickens??? Am I right here?

Personally, I would put up a privacy fence, too bad about the boy, but if this is the same lady, it's not worth it....your kids don't need to be bothered by her. And how dare she come onto your property and speak like that to your kids. I think the majority of these problems you're having could be solved with the privacy fence-just shut her off from your family. Not just a fence, but something that blocks her sight. I hate crappy neighbors!! I feel for ya'

Check Craigslist for panels...people are always getting rid of them...you may not find enough right away, but some here and there and eventually you'll have it complete.

 

[WriterofWords]

Since nothing is happening on the school grounds that probably isn't the best place to start especially this close to the end of the year, it would be next year before he was even checked on. It's not the schools job to police off the campus. If you honestly think she is a hoarder and is behaving in a way that is detrimental to her son and his health emotionally or physically the best thing you can do is call Child Protective Services in your area. Voice your concern, tell them why, explain the behavior and let them go investigate and handle it. Don't even think about upsetting the neighbor,, it's the child's best interest you need to be concerned about. With CPS you can remain anonymous if you wish, or you can tell them who you are and why you are reporting due to what you have you seen, the interaction with your own children and what the child has said to yours and other's children about the stealing the car. He is about to be 10, he is more that tall enough and smart enough to know how to start and put into gear a car,, you don't want on your conscious that you knew he was planning this when it happens and he kills himself or someone else trying to drive away from his situation.

CPS will investigate, they will go into the house and check the living area, they will interview the young man and the parents and try to find out if he is in danger or at risk. If he is found not to be you have done your job by starting a paper train in case something does happen later. If he IS found to be in danger then you have done a wonderful thing for him and stepped in when others turn their heads and look away. Please, do not put it into the schools hands, their hands are mostly tied in cases like this unless something is seen AT school, or reported AT school because of seeing bruises, or the child himself saying something. Do the right thing, have the child checked on.

 

[redhen]

Yup... call CPS.. they will check her out.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Either call CPS or give me the number and I will call!! For what it's worth, as a former abused child...if he says he wants out, there is good reason! I stated similar things to my friends at that age, it must be really bad for a boy to be making those remarks because boys generally are more likely to HIDE their feelings rather than be so open about it. I was also suicidal at 8 years old. Get the kid some help. I'm warped, maybe permanently, no need for others to be warped when it can be helped. Nobody ever wanted to "stick their nose in" when I was a kid, and I wish they would have. Forced to grow up like that makes you hate people, and takes a long time to get over the feelings of "nobody cares." But then......just my opinion. I'd have called yesterday

 

[chicken_china_mom]

Yes, this is the same neighbor that put up the signs when we put up some poultry netting to contain our chickens.






I don't know exactly what the situation is next door. All I know is that she hoards stuff. I have not been inside her house, but various neighbors have, and they said her house is horrible. Every room is packed high with stuff and you can't even get to the front of the house. I can believe this because most nights she comes homes with shopping bags full of stuff that is not food, but never brings anything out. I don't even see her going to the dumpster in town to throw away her garbage. One neighbor's child said that this lady has a room filled with just toys for the boy. Mostly balls. Hundreds of them. Apparently she brings him home at least one every week. I know the house looks bad on the outside. The front porch is leaning something awful, especially after the earthquake we had in 2008. I know we got some cracked walls, so I can imagine how bad her house cracked. The area right around her back porch is cluttered and full of debri, but the rest of the yard is neat and tidy. And for some reason she buys bales of hay, puts them on her front porch, and then never does anything with them. They just sit there and rot?

My girls have had more interaction with the little boy than I have. They have grilled him with regular kid questions, like any kid would do, but then when his answers started to sound weird, my kids pressed for more info (my younger daughter in particular can be quite nosy at times), and they asked him if he's ever been grounded or spanked, and he said no. He told them that he has deliberately done stuff really bad (like pouring 2 gallons of milk across the kitchen floor so he could slide in it), just to see what his mom would do, but she just kisses him on the head and tells him to go get cleaned up, that she will take care of the mess. So he's not being beaten, he's just slowly being suffocated. At least, that's the way I see it when you cut off a child's social network. He has 2 swings in his backyard and he would rather play on those where he can at least SEE other children, than be in his own house. His grandmother watches him after school and she's nearly as weird as her daughter. The grandmother came over a week or so ago while we were planting trees to ask us if we had seen one of the cats. We knew the cat was pregnant, and she spent a lot of time in my yard following my kids around hoping they would feed her, but we took the advice of other BYC'ers and did not feed her. Well, apparently she had the kittens, but then disappeared. So the grandmother came over to ask us if we had seen the cat. We had not, we hadn't even known that she had the kittens, let alone where one out of 20 cats would be. In general, I ignore her cats. We politely told her no, we had not seen the cat. She left, but as she left her cell phone rang. It was her daughter of course, and I had sent my kids to another area of the yard to fetch a shovel or something, and as the grandmother walked away, she was talking on the phone, and as my kids were coming back to where my mother and I were planting, they overheard the grandmother on the phone, and they could hear my actual neighbor talking loudly saying that she bet we had stolen the cat! She was telling her mother that we had probably stolen the cat and were keeping it somewhere in our house! My kids were shocked and immediately ran and told us what they had heard. We weren't shocked by it. We knew we didn't have the cat. In fact if she wanted to make that accusation to our faces, I'd have brought her into my house and let her search it, top to bottom, and then feel like a real heel for making such a false accusation. Well, apparently the cat turned up some time later. She'd been off hunting mice. But she was gone for several days. But now she has taken to insulting my kids. Why? Does she want a war? Because I don't. I think her son is tired of his mother's controlling ways. He recently told my kids (he only whispers to them when his mother isn't home yet from work, and when his grandmother is inside the house and out of earshot. There is a shed on her property, directly blocking where the kids stand and talk) that he asked his mom if he could join his school's baseball team. And she told him no, that he didn't need to join a team, that she would play with him at home. I'm sorry, that poor kid should at least be able to do SOMETHING extracurricular. The only thing that he does outside of school is VBS. And he attends our church for that. Our whole town is maybe 4 blocks long, and the church is on the same street as us, about 2 blocks away, and if you stand in the street in front of my house, you can see the church. My kids walk down there all the time together. They walk home too. She will not let her son. He gets dropped off and picked back up. I'm surprised that she doesn't wait right there for him each night! He loves VBS because it's his one time of year to socialize with the other kids. He's not allowed to do 4-H, he's not allowed to join any teams, he's not allowed to play outside of his own yard, I dunno, reminds me of Norman Bates a little too much. My older daughter, brainiac that she is, went and told him that if he hates living with his mother so much, to wait until he's 16 and he can emancipate himself. I didn't even know that she KNEW about emancipation! She said his face lit up when she told him that, and he said he was going to do that. See if Child Services steps in, they're probably just going to send him to live with his grandmother. Rather than put him in foster care. And that's not much better than where he's at now. I'd like to know more information before I made a life altering call like that. I know that someone made a false claim against me several years ago that ticked me off majorily because it WAS false, and because I knew it was done by either my mean next door neighbor who thought I was a bad mother, when she was the alcoholic that wrapped her car around a dumpster and ended up on house arrest, and I could tell you horror stories about her kids! She was mean, always fighting with her husband, kids running in the streets butt naked, but because my dogs pooped in my yard and I didn't INSTANTLY clean it up, I was a bad mom. Yeah, excuse me for holding down a full time job while she was a stay at home mom! There's more to that story, but it's irritating to drag back up. Or the other person that would have called on me was my ex. It wasn't too long after we had split up, and I saw it as a petty attack at me for not allowing him to do what he pleased. I did ask the worker that came if it was a man or a woman that had called, and she said a woman. I was accused of selling my food stamps so that I could buy animal supplies, yet when the worker came in and I took her to my kitchen, my cabinets were stocked to overflowing with food, so she was able to mark that one off her list immediately. I was also accused of having roaches, which I told the lady straight out, if my house had roaches, I would NOT be living in it, and neither would my kids because I was highly phobic of roaches. And I was accused of having 6 dogs and 11 cats. Ok...I had 2 dogs at the time, and 6 cats, all indoor, all potty trained, and the worker even asked me where were the cats because she didn't see or smell them. So I know how much a false claim hurts, and I wouldn't want to make a phone call like that unless I was absolutely certain that the child was in danger of being harmed. Right now he seems like a sad, isolated little boy. I have not been inside the house to say what the condition of the house is, and I know I'll never be invited over! I'll keep my ear to the ground though, and see what happens, whether she gets weirder, or I can get solid information. Until then, I'm doing my best to be a good neighbor. I just wish she would do the same.

 

[WriterofWords]

What are you going to do about the possibility of her son being in a bad situation?