New neighbors, whose lot abuts the rear of bad neighbor, take on this family as a “project” to help them learn how to parent. They become friends with new neighbors (Earth Mother and High Tech Father and 3 sweet girls) , making a positive impact on them. At least for awhile. New neighbors tell bad neighbors “like it is.”
Mom gets off drugs (supposedly) and gets a job working for the Peacock County Health Dept. She embezzles money and ends up arrested for embezzlement, and then arrested for drugs in our County. She went to trial and landed a year in jail. During this time the Older son (16?)becomes, essentially, the head of house. Dad works constantly and there are male teens constantly at the house—partying a lot. Daughter eventually goes to live with a neighbor after Mom begs the neighbor to take daughter in. Felt daughter would be safer, and they might be capable of dealing with her lice infestation.
Several times a week during the early morning hours, a car would drive by shouting loud obscenities and threats toward Elder son . Someone has not been playing well with others in school. It wakes us and other neighbors up. This continues off-and-on for several months.
Upon release, Earth Mother gets Mom involved with her daughter’s school. Mom’s in therapy as well as daughter.
I approach Dad, the bad neighbor, about helping him get rid of the non-working vehicles. Earth Mother also pushes Mom and Dad to clean up yard and get rid of cars. Earth Mother and I pay for 1 car to be towed. After several more weeks, Donna’s car finally gets towed. The 3rd car was to be given to son. Eventually it disappears.
Elder son has plans to join Coast Guard. He drops out of high school. He has belonged to Sea Scouts for a few years. Not sure what happened, but THAT bridge is burned. He starts getting drunk and starting fights downtown. (underage) He is arrested, is not bailed out. After he eventually goes before a judge on a Friday, and is given probation, he is arrested again on the same charges on the following Monday night. This fight was a drug dispute with a Coast Guard sailor! (Another bridge burned) He does some more time, and upon release gets a job as an apprentice electrician. So now he’s making more than his step dad. When work slows, he is laid off because he is the only employee who has problems showing up on time and taking off a lot of days when he didn’t feel well. More drinking, more fighting, more jail, another good job in an auto body place. Now he’s driving.
Oct/Sept 2004 – Mom and Dad decide to marry. We pull weeds in their driveway anticipating their wedding and to reward them for cleaning up the driveway. Had wedding in their backyard, inviting some of the neighbors.
2005 – Small trailer is placed in their driveway, right next to our bedroom window, to be used “by the boys” as a place to hang out with their friends. Becomes a nightmare—loud parties, drinking, fighting. Teens in and out all day long, even when “boys” not around. Trailer has widows knocked out, etc. Mom and Dad begin to place plants around it to “hide” it more from view.
SWAT Team shows up and arrests Younger son for home invasion and pistol whipping the resident (But he was a drug dealer!) Caught with a gun. Sent to locked facility. Did some major time, almost sent to the “Big Q” .
Cite home owner for code violations. Back yard finally gets cleaned up.
Home Owner tells us he is evicting Dad and Mom. Says he thought about evicting them many times. This does not happen, however.
2006 – Mom “disappears” for 3-4 weeks, and returns with a new boyfriend. Mom and new boyfriend stay at Earth Mother’s house. Dad moves out of house, and Mom and new boyfriend remain at Earth Mother’s house to “housesit” while Earth Mother and High Tech Dad move back to Oregon. Later, they move to another rental owned by Earth Mother and High Tech Dad.
2006 - House finally becomes vacant, landlord does half ass job of fixing it up, new renters found.
Showing posts with label Neighbors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neighbors. Show all posts
Friday, March 02, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Neighbors Part one- a kinder gentler time ends
My beautiful bride wrote most of this...
In May we will have lived in our house for 30 years. We have seen a lot of neighbors on the whole block come and go. We still are only the 3rd longest residents of the block. Our northern neighbor for about 15 years was an elderly lady named Winnie. She was born in Wales but moved to our town as a young girl. She married, and had a son. She was about 80, and widowed when we moved in. Hers was the oldest house on the block, having been moved from across the street sometime long ago. Although she did not have a car, she had a driveway that would accommodate 4 cars, 2 deep, 2 wide. She had a gentleman friend name Emmitt who would visit each day, parking his 1959 chevy in the driveway. She was wonderful, kind and cheerful. Oh, and she was quiet. Eventually her son moved her into his house in Reno. She outlived him by about 5 years, just passing away this last year at over 100.
The house was "flipped" by some "frugal" investors. The next owner was a husband, wife and 2 kids. They were a bit reclusive, but still....quiet. He got a new job south of SF, so they moved and rented out the house.
Renters move in. Couple, with 2 sons, about 9 & 10 (hers) a toddler daughter (theirs). Dad and I share the same first name.
First morning we hear thunks on the side of our house. We step outside, the 2 boys are throwing rocks at the side of our house. Request for a cease fire was met with attitude.
They never seemed to finish moving in, but instead left boxes, appliances, furniture, tools, and other household stuff in boxes in the four car driveway. Their stuff managed to inch its way closer to our yard as time went on. Several times I had to move wood or other long things they had leaned against our house. Occasionally, they’d make room for a non-working car. It looked like Al’s Junkyard. They kept saying they were going to finish and get rid of the stuff. Finally, we wrote a letter to the owner, who apparently called them. By the time he got there at the end of the week, it all disappeared, except for a couple of non functioning cars. Within a week or so, things started piling up again, though not as many boxes. Now they had space for additional non-working cars. I think they had three, at one point.
Within the first several years, small things begin to go missing. Mom starts driving off with guys in sports cars and big burley biker dudes. The male half (they are not yet married, that comes later) who has blue collar workaholic tendencies, looks depressed and works even HARDER, and constantly. Does lots of "improvement" projects of dubious quality around the property. "Stuff" has been accumulating, and continues until they leave. Throughout their stay, male half would do primarily woodworking projects late into the night, highlighted by hammering and use of a high pitched planer. I would have to walk over and ask him to stop after 10pm, EACH TIME!
We had a hot tub put in our back yard, Elder & younger sons sat on their roof, smoking and watching us use the hot tub at night. I think they wanted to see us skinny dipping. Kept finding burned cigarette butts on our patio.
One night we heard a loud noise in our backyard as we happened to walk around the side of the house. Younger son had jumped over the fence and was in our backyard—he had scraped himself and was bleeding. He had no explanation why he had jumped our fence. We escorted him home pretending that we were worried that he had hurt himself.
Additional family came to “visit.” They stay for about a year. Names like Justice, Rebel and Independence (Indy) At least 10 people living in the small house. This situation went on and off for several years, one person even living in the drafty carriage house at one point, and a tent in the back yard during winter another time. One friend who stayed there and/or hung around a lot, my wife calls “Swarthy Man”. He seems to be Dad’s best friend. Another frequent guest is Donna. Donna periodically contributes to the non running car collection when a jilted lover ruins her old BMW by putting sand in the rebuilt engine.( she loves the BMW more than ANYTHING)(actually she has two) Donna is a chain smoking, loud mouthed, big boobed, blond bimbo. One year, around Christmas when my late mother in law was visiting from out of state, Donna side swiped MIL’s car the day before she was set to leave. Fortunately, swarthy man has an auto body shop, so he fixes it for free in a couple of days.
Dad manages to knock over our garbage can in the street awaiting pickup, spilling it out. I happened to be walking out the front door when this happened. He made no effort to pick it up so wife did (with some attitude, admittedly). He called her a bitch. Around this time He “went away” to a county lockup for 6 months somewhere for not paying child support.
Mom asked me to give Younger son a lecture about the hazards of messing with matches—being a fireman and all. She’s mostly concerned about fires as she had found him lighting matches and setting small things on fire. WE see him lighting small fires. I am still impressed with the prophesy of my "chat". One of the things I told him was that he was just one of those people who always gets caught.
Mom gets a new boyfriend, but Dad still lives in the house. Boyfriend was just out of jail and sometimes stayed at the house. Big fights. Dad leaves loudly, many times. They separate, but Dad comes back within a few weeks and boyfriend leaves (back to jail?) Rent a room to a Latin couple with a baby. This lasts for several months, giving way to the couple leaving and family members and swarthy man coming and going all the time. At least 8 – 10 people there again off and on for another couple years.
In May we will have lived in our house for 30 years. We have seen a lot of neighbors on the whole block come and go. We still are only the 3rd longest residents of the block. Our northern neighbor for about 15 years was an elderly lady named Winnie. She was born in Wales but moved to our town as a young girl. She married, and had a son. She was about 80, and widowed when we moved in. Hers was the oldest house on the block, having been moved from across the street sometime long ago. Although she did not have a car, she had a driveway that would accommodate 4 cars, 2 deep, 2 wide. She had a gentleman friend name Emmitt who would visit each day, parking his 1959 chevy in the driveway. She was wonderful, kind and cheerful. Oh, and she was quiet. Eventually her son moved her into his house in Reno. She outlived him by about 5 years, just passing away this last year at over 100.
The house was "flipped" by some "frugal" investors. The next owner was a husband, wife and 2 kids. They were a bit reclusive, but still....quiet. He got a new job south of SF, so they moved and rented out the house.
Renters move in. Couple, with 2 sons, about 9 & 10 (hers) a toddler daughter (theirs). Dad and I share the same first name.
First morning we hear thunks on the side of our house. We step outside, the 2 boys are throwing rocks at the side of our house. Request for a cease fire was met with attitude.
They never seemed to finish moving in, but instead left boxes, appliances, furniture, tools, and other household stuff in boxes in the four car driveway. Their stuff managed to inch its way closer to our yard as time went on. Several times I had to move wood or other long things they had leaned against our house. Occasionally, they’d make room for a non-working car. It looked like Al’s Junkyard. They kept saying they were going to finish and get rid of the stuff. Finally, we wrote a letter to the owner, who apparently called them. By the time he got there at the end of the week, it all disappeared, except for a couple of non functioning cars. Within a week or so, things started piling up again, though not as many boxes. Now they had space for additional non-working cars. I think they had three, at one point.
Within the first several years, small things begin to go missing. Mom starts driving off with guys in sports cars and big burley biker dudes. The male half (they are not yet married, that comes later) who has blue collar workaholic tendencies, looks depressed and works even HARDER, and constantly. Does lots of "improvement" projects of dubious quality around the property. "Stuff" has been accumulating, and continues until they leave. Throughout their stay, male half would do primarily woodworking projects late into the night, highlighted by hammering and use of a high pitched planer. I would have to walk over and ask him to stop after 10pm, EACH TIME!
We had a hot tub put in our back yard, Elder & younger sons sat on their roof, smoking and watching us use the hot tub at night. I think they wanted to see us skinny dipping. Kept finding burned cigarette butts on our patio.
One night we heard a loud noise in our backyard as we happened to walk around the side of the house. Younger son had jumped over the fence and was in our backyard—he had scraped himself and was bleeding. He had no explanation why he had jumped our fence. We escorted him home pretending that we were worried that he had hurt himself.
Additional family came to “visit.” They stay for about a year. Names like Justice, Rebel and Independence (Indy) At least 10 people living in the small house. This situation went on and off for several years, one person even living in the drafty carriage house at one point, and a tent in the back yard during winter another time. One friend who stayed there and/or hung around a lot, my wife calls “Swarthy Man”. He seems to be Dad’s best friend. Another frequent guest is Donna. Donna periodically contributes to the non running car collection when a jilted lover ruins her old BMW by putting sand in the rebuilt engine.( she loves the BMW more than ANYTHING)(actually she has two) Donna is a chain smoking, loud mouthed, big boobed, blond bimbo. One year, around Christmas when my late mother in law was visiting from out of state, Donna side swiped MIL’s car the day before she was set to leave. Fortunately, swarthy man has an auto body shop, so he fixes it for free in a couple of days.
Dad manages to knock over our garbage can in the street awaiting pickup, spilling it out. I happened to be walking out the front door when this happened. He made no effort to pick it up so wife did (with some attitude, admittedly). He called her a bitch. Around this time He “went away” to a county lockup for 6 months somewhere for not paying child support.
Mom asked me to give Younger son a lecture about the hazards of messing with matches—being a fireman and all. She’s mostly concerned about fires as she had found him lighting matches and setting small things on fire. WE see him lighting small fires. I am still impressed with the prophesy of my "chat". One of the things I told him was that he was just one of those people who always gets caught.
Mom gets a new boyfriend, but Dad still lives in the house. Boyfriend was just out of jail and sometimes stayed at the house. Big fights. Dad leaves loudly, many times. They separate, but Dad comes back within a few weeks and boyfriend leaves (back to jail?) Rent a room to a Latin couple with a baby. This lasts for several months, giving way to the couple leaving and family members and swarthy man coming and going all the time. At least 8 – 10 people there again off and on for another couple years.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Neighbors
After a period of blog blank, where I couldn't think of ANYTHING to write about, Drunken Housewife ,has once again inspired me.
The only problem is this. For the worst neighbor, it is a ten year long epic tale which includes, but is not limited to, at least two felony convictions, SWAT teams, drunken family fights, Meth addiction and recovery, numerous abandoned/run over cats, lies, betrayel, abandoned vehicles in the driveway next to our bedroom, a crappy trailer which replaced the abandoned vehicles and became party central briefly, Sea Scouts, and lice.
I don't know where to begin.
The only problem is this. For the worst neighbor, it is a ten year long epic tale which includes, but is not limited to, at least two felony convictions, SWAT teams, drunken family fights, Meth addiction and recovery, numerous abandoned/run over cats, lies, betrayel, abandoned vehicles in the driveway next to our bedroom, a crappy trailer which replaced the abandoned vehicles and became party central briefly, Sea Scouts, and lice.
I don't know where to begin.
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