Neighbors, sigh

****WARNING****
~Sad post follows~

So here is the scoop on my drive-me-crazy neighbors, which some of you have heard me vent about. A few months back, a young man moved into the adjacent unit. He didn't appear to have a car, and judging by the hours he kept, he didn't have a job.

Then he started playing loud music. It was so loud that it shook the walls, and the volume continued to increase over time until it was waking the kids up and I could hear every foul-mouthed lyric. We had at first given him the benefit of the doubt and presumed that maybe he was having a party or two at his new house. Besides, it's just a fact of life that when you share a wall with someone you hear some noise, and we count ourselves very lucky to not live in an apartment where we'd share all our walls. About the time that we were deciding to go next door and ask him to tone down the music, it quieted down. He has continued to play it at all hours, and loud enough to shake the walls, but at least it's not waking us up and I can't hear the cussing.

Then came the drugs. This young man and a group of friends started smoking substances that are illegal in the backyard. I used to like to let Christopher play out there with his dog, and in his sandbox, but the smoke got so bad that even with all the doors and windows closed, our house constantly smelled of smoke. One day it was so bad it was making me sick, and I can only imagine how it was making the boys feel. I didn't really feel comfortable going out and telling a bunch of people who were innundated with an illegal substance to cut it out so I could breathe, so I called the property manager. He said I should ask them to "tone it down". Well fat lot of good that did.

Next came the people. In addition to the drugs, a large number of people started coming to his house, at all hours, and almost invariably on foot. Some were the kind of people who make you check if your doors are locked and your valuables are there. Some were regulars, some were unknown people who came once and never again. I finally called the police and made a report. They agreed that it sounded like someone was dealing drugs there.

And then came the car. Between 3:00-6:00am, someone smashed Bryan's new car so badly that it was illegal to drive it until it was fixed. The damage was really severe. I talked to the other two neighbors that I know well, and we're sure it wasn't anyone visiting them. And then two different vehicles showed up at this new neighbor's house, both of which had damage that matched with Bryan's car. Hmmm.... Bryan managed to fix up his car enough that it's now driveable, but it no longer has any resale value.

So I called the property manager again and told him I'd had to make two police reports since that guy moved in, and I was upset about it. He said there really wasn't a lot he could do about it, maybe I should just talk to him. "Sure, I'd love to go talk to someone who drinks, parties, does drugs, and has friends who destroy other people's property. I'll just head right over." NOT!!!!

The final straw was when our front insane neighbor's dogs got out, and I had to call Animal Control. They also broke into our back yard. The neighbors, not the dogs. I called the manager and basically yelled at him to do something, now. Then the next day I wrote him a letter detailing all the rotten things that had been going on, and asking him to do something immediately or call us and tell us that he wouldn't so we could move out immediately.

Well, he did call. And he had some interesting thing to say. The new neighbor doesn't have a job. He's not mentally competent, and lives off disability. That's why he does, in fact, have no job and no car. Apparently he lives mostly alone with some supervision from his aunt and a friend. His mom was the one mostly responsible for keeping him in line though, and the manager had called her and told her everything that was going on. She said that she hadn't known about all the stuff that was happening, and promised him she'd take care of it. There was also some mention that this man had been kicked out of the last place he lived, and he was hoping to not have that happen again. So now I kind of felt bad for him, but still felt that my family's safety should be of the more important than his "social life", if that's what such behavior is called.

Thing did quiet down a bit after that. The partying dropped off, the smoking wasn't unbearable (and seems to have been reduced to cigarettes), and the strange train of people subsided. It seemed like this might be bearable, until....

I woke up one day last week and was hurrying to an appointment. When I went outside to get in my car, I found graffiti scrawled on my hood. I drove off, but I called the manager and told him that now my car had been messed with, and the cost of the damage being caused was adding up, so we'd be looking for another place to live. Now, I know for a fact that he doesn't want us to leave. We're excellent renters: always pay early, never miss a payment, never damage the property, never call and bug him, and we've lived here for longer than he's been the manager. He tells me that he'd rather have this new guy leave, and he'd take care of it. Then I felt bad because I really didn't want to get him kicked out, I just want my family and our property to be safe. I went to the appointment and then to a car wash. Sad news: in spite of my best efforts, that graffiti isn't ever coming all the way off. I got home and told Bryan all about my rotten day.

Once I'm done crying it out, I was getting ready to go to Grandma's for a while with the kids. I went outside to put Christopher in the car, and this guy and his friend come over to talk to me. Bryan's inside and can't hear them. The man tells me that he's really sorry for the music, and he didn't know who was messing with our cars, and he'd like to do anything he can to be a good neighbor. Now, knowing what I know about him thus far, I really appreciated what he was trying to do. And I told him thank you for coming over to talk to me about it. Then after he went back inside, I went inside and burst into tears. It'd been a long day, and that was my last straw.

So all said, I think the guy is nice enough, and I'd feel really bad if he got kicked out again, but he's got friends who are apparently not respectful of him, his house, and his neighbor's property and safety, and short of him having no friends over, there doesn't seem to be a lot anyone can do to prevent what others are doing when they come to this guy's house. We're going to give it a shot at staying where we are and seeing if things improve further now that everyone knows what terrible things have been going on, but if anything else happens, you'll be seeing news about us moving to a new home.

There, I vented. Hopefully now everyone will know and I won't have to repeat my sob story ever again!


P.S. Throughout all this, we have felt very blessed that we didn't buy a house when we wanted to. We feel very grateful that the Lord blocked us off all the times we put in purchase contracts on other homes, and even on other rentals. One of the homes we almost bought has lost nearly $20,000 in value, and we would have been sunk in debt over it. And when Bryan lost his job, it became obvious that the homes we'd tried to rent would now have been beyond our ability to afford. So even though all this is frustrating, we feel blessed to be here where we at least don't have to worry about finances and debt. Whew!