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— I Hate My Neighbor —I am writing this here because I do not think it will do any good to talk to my neighbors.
A list of things we let slide with these neighbors:
Watering their lawn on a daily basis when we had a severe drought and government restrictions. We could have called the city but did not.
Their regular partying on nights when we, including our children had to get a good night sleep in order to get up at 6 am the next morning -- partying that included shouting and terribly loud music blaring from their hot tub, often until after 1 am. We could have called the cops but did not.
Their daughter taking a screwdriver to our teak table, writing on our sidewalk in chalk that our child, who has a disability, is a retard, petty theft from our house ( from one of their kids) and more that I don't have time to mention. ALL of this receiving no reprimand whatsoever.
Their CONSTANT shedding of overgrown landscaping into our yard, that costs us money to throw out -- because we pay for garbage removal.
The million times they asked us to watch their kids on weekends so they could work or go out on their boat.
The time when they went away for the weekend and left their young kids home ALONE -- we could have called the cops but didn't. Instead we watched their children.
And their drunken fighting that was bad enough at times for their children to come over here and sleep until their parents sobered up.
So what do we do? Build one wood fence between the property and they call code enforcement and turn us in. We built to code but without a permit, (like EVERYONE in our town does), hoping to have the money saved to go to make the fence nice.
ARRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH! The thing is this: we were going to save up a little more money and make their side of the fence visually appealing, with double pickets on their side, staining and landscaping, but not anymore. The money we would have been using for that is now going to a large fine and retro-active permitting. Oh well. #5050 — Comments (5) — 10/21/2009 at 6:23 PM — That's Juicy! (0) — That's Lame. (0)
If one of these places is yours, let us know.
You don't have to put up with these people, they are classified as a 'nuisance' and harrassment, they are intimidating and not the ideal neighbour to live next door to you.
You are too nice! You are putting up with too much from these grown adults who are irresponsible and make very poor role models for their children.
The writing on your table by one of the children is a call for police attention, should be photographed, the date, day and time of the event and should be taken to police for recording. The other events described should be diarised by you, and recorded, if you have camera surveillance this will be also valuable in giving evidence as permissible in the justice department.
The other steps of reporting this matter to your council, the police, if you are a home owner, you have more control, if you rent you also have control over the situation. You do not have to fear these people, they are inferior to you. They are ferals. We have the same sort where we live and have done something about it.
You don't have to live in fear, be intimidated, harrassed or disrupted in your daily living. There are measures you can take and you are clearly in a process of making a formal complaint because you are clearly upset that is why you have found this website, out of sheer frustration!
Go for it. I have, and I have got results, results which have my neighbours a 2 week eviction notice, after 3 tribunal hearings which the public housing authority lodged on my behalf. If you own your home, you still have rights to peace, minimal disturbance and adequate privacy of your property, by lodging a complaint at your tenancies tribunal office, your local council or neighbourhood disruption advocacy centre will inform you where your nearest office is.
You can also mediate. I never find this handy as a tool to alleviate any problems, as the noise makers, the harrassors only too soon revert back to their old ways.
The mediation is out of the question, as you cannot stand these people and their children. The best thing to do now, gather the evidence, diarise everything, since it started, and produce the facts to your local law enforcement agency.
I write this from Australia, and wish you the best of luck, stay in touch and we will see what transforms from here.
You don't have to put up with neighbours from hell, nobody should. We all have rights to peace, privacy and minimal disturbance, and lights out during unsocial hours, eg. 10:00pm onwards. Weekdays or weekends, day or night the noise rule applies.
We are too nice. Of course, we broke regulations with building a shed, pergola, adding hot tub, and building a deck without permits. NO ONE WE KNOW GETS PERMITS. It's kind of an unwritten thing. And no one in my neighborhood tattles to code on their neighbors. That's just wrong.
Now the shed, beautiful deck, with flowering vines, made from reclaimed materials, pergolas, with grape arbors and clotheslines (less electricity), and the shed we built for our lawnmower all have to come down as a result of their one phone call. AND it's going to cost us a thousand in fines, not to mention loss of cost of building materials.
All but one were built to code, and all are in backyard behind a fence.
Thanks for your replies. Now the woman of the couple is shooting me death glares and not speaking to me, and her snotty kid stared my daughter down and stuck her tongue out before running away past our house.
Whatever. It's a good thing that I have such a great husband. He doesn't get mad. He says our character will speak for us, as will theirs.
I JUST WANT TO MOVE AWAY.
Thanks for the tips. I'll remember them.
And one more thing: get a permit next time you build something. It's the law and that way, you can rest easy. You say nobody else does it, but that's a poor excuse and it's not true. Your husband insists your character will speak for you but trying to save a few bucks by not getting the proper permits for construction doesn't speak very well for your character. Plus, you'll run into trouble when it comes time to sell your house.
So we didn't. We have to submit plans to our city if we want to do even simple landscaping, such as planting bushes or adding mulch, taking down a dead tree, and believe me -- NO ONE DOES THIS. They want you to pay for a permit if you paint or put in a toilet. I'm not joking.
We would leave and go to a gentler town, now that we know how controlling they are. We're working on it.