Chastain86 Wars with The Neighbors: or, PLEASE Tell Me I'm Not Out of Line Here.

The BBQ Pit
1

I might not be the King of the Rant, but I can do it with the best of 'em. And now, I need to fucking vent. :mad:

First, a little setup: Mrs. Chastain and I live in a wonderful little subdivision in the Phoenix area, rife with 3 and 4 bedroom homes, and is by all accounts a Very Nice Place To Live ™. The area we live in is also big with young couples who have many screaming kids.

This does not bother me, despite the fact that we do NOT have kids. We’ve chosen not to right now, and if others want to have them, that’s entirely their call. No skin off my urethra.

About two months ago, our asshat neighbors across the street started putting up these little yellow barricades in the road, to block off the area so their rugrats could play in the road on their bikes and whatnot. Their kids range in age from (I would guess) 3-7 years old. The barricades are about two feet high, shaped like children, and look a lot like janitor “Wet Floor” signs, but say “SLOW DOWN, CHILDREN PLAYING” on them.

To clarify, we do NOT live in a cul-de-sac. They have effectively blocked both ends of the road with these yellow eyesores so they can teach their fucking kids that playing in the road is okay.

God. DAMN. It. :mad:

We live across the street from a motherfarking PARK. A park, it should be said, that exists so I don’t have to worry about your asshat spawn running out in the street while I’m driving. This park ALSO exists not 1/8 of a mile from your precious home.

So I called my association, the people that are supposed to take care of these things, and complained. The barricades went away, but now my neighbors are making snide little comments to me about “you need to slow down when you drive on this road, you’re taking a big risk.”

:mad: ASS. HATS.

Maybe teaching your farking kids not to PLAY IN THE FUCKING STREET LIKE HOOLIGANS is the way to go, mmm? At what point are you planning on teaching your children the right way to be safe as opposed to expecting the rest of the goddamn free world to look out for specifically YOUR KIDS?

Anyway, I need some validation here. Has anybody had an issue with neighbors in this way? Dammit, man, when I was a kid, if I’d even THOUGHT about going out in the road when I was 7 or younger, I’d have had the wrinkles spanked off my ass. And the fucking BRASS BALLS to put up your precious little barricades, effectively fucking up the street so your moron parasites can play, when there’s a park across the street?

GAH!!! :wally

I need a beer.

Thank GOD we don’t have kids. The thought that I might morph into such a self-absorbed asshat upon conception of my spawn scares the bejeezus out of me.

Am I going off the deep end unnecessarily? I have NEVER once made a snide comment to ANY of my neighbors, and I always try to at least wave to them, even though we don’t really socialize. And when it came to the barricades, I’d like to think I did the mature thing, which is bring it to the attention of people that could make the problem disappear.

FUCK.

Asshats.

2

Oh, I see your point entirely. These neighbors sounds like complete idiots. The type that think The World Revolves Around Them and Their Kids ™. Yech. I hate that type.

No, I don’t think you are out of line in being angry and frustrated with these people. They are blocking off the whole street just for their kids? How more self-absorbed and selfish can they get? And they are teaching their kids the same thing—that no one is more important than they are. Scary.

3

OK, I’ll take it. Just call me your friendly neighborhood advocatus diaboli.

Chastain, you said:

Define “effectively.” Can you get where you need to go without having to move the signs?

Also, isn’t this a residential street? So, people are not (in theory at least) driving quickly, right? Ummm . . . so what about playing in a residential street near one’s house makes one a hooligan? (And a bold-faced, all caps hooligan at that?)

I mean hell, just because you have issues with the very thought of playing in a street doesn’t mean everyone else does. And believe it or not, some of them are rational people. I played in the street. Wayne and Garth played in the street (Car! . . . Game on!). Seems to me that what you should be most concerned about is a) drivers being save and b) kids being taught to pay attention and play safely.

IOW, I just don’t see what you’re so upset about.

</advocatus diaboli>

4

safe. Drivers being safe.

Because after all, only Jesus saves. (But Gretzky gets the rebound . . .)

5

You CAN get around the signs without moving them, despite the fact that they’re located in the center of the very-narrow road. But let’s be rational here: It’s really less the issue of being able to get around them, as it is of personal responsibility.

And now my neighbors are resorting to making comments to both me and Mrs. Chastain about this? As if it’s our calling in life to safeguard their children’s lives? I am not their parents, and don’t want a second job. My point is, there’s not a reason in the world to allow this to happen. Take your children to the bloody park. You can walk there in less than 2 minutes, even if you have a limp.

Put another way…

I put my trashcans out on Friday. I come home on Friday afternoon, and my trashcan is out in the street. However, I find it terribly inconvenient to bring my can inside the garage. Can I leave the trashcan int he middle of the road, because OF COURSE my neighbors will see it and move around it? After all, it’s not blocking the road–you can clearly swerve around it. And as an added benefit, NOW I can go out in the road and play jacks in my spare time.

6

What yosemitebabe said.

Especially paragraph 2. Everyone knows that it’s Michaela that there’s no one more important than.

:smiley:

7

I don’t see how your neighbors have any justification for blocking even part of a public street just so their kids can play there. In fact, I’m surprised the police didn’t charge them with obstructing traffic.

Wasn’t there a thread some time back about some idiot who lived on a curved road and would tell her kids to run out in the street to try and get cars to slow down?

And on the subject of playing in the streets, the street I grew up on was literally only one block long. It was a through street, not a cul-de-sac, but there was a cemetary south of us and a public park/playground north of us, and except for the occasionally lost motorist no one drove on it except the people who lived on it. We would sometimes play in the street (usually doing things that we couldn’t do in the playground) but we were always careful to watch out for traffic; I remember having lookouts at the ends of the streets so we could get out of the street to let drivers through, and I don’t remember anyone ever getting hit by a car. But then, we never would have even considered actually putting up barricades, and we all knew better than to try this on any other street.

8

I don’t think Chastain is out of line. I think he’s more pissed off that I would be, but I think his neighbors are completely irresponsible to be teaching their kids that their need to play in a dangerous area (What? It’s dangerous to play in the street) is more important than people using the street for its intended use. Is it even legal for people to block off streets like that?

As for speed, if Chastain is driving the speed limit or below, why should he have to slow down just because his neighbors aren’t smart enough to teach their kids it’s dangerous to play in the street?

Incidentally, my siblings and I used to play, walk and ride bikes in the street all the time. However, we lived on a dead-end, rarely used road and we were taught that if a car turned onto the street, we needed to get off the road immediately until it was gone.

9

It’s real simple, Chastain… the next time they say “You need to slow down, you’re taking a big risk,” just respond with, “Your kids need to stay out of the street, they’re taking a big risk.”

It’s a fucking STREET, for Christ’s sake. Ya know, cars go there? Big piles of moving metal? That can hurt someone if they get in the way?

10

You know, I remember when “Go play in the traffic” was an insult. For your neighbors, it looks to be standard operating procedure. The sad thing is, at this rate, the kids are growing to be the kind of person who grows up to take a foolish risk, then sues someone for not preventing him from taking that foolish risk. I’d try to be reasonable, but that doesn’t sound like something these people are interested in. Boy am I glad I’m out of the suburbs!

CJ

11

Next time they tell you to “Slow down, you’re taking a big risk,” thankk them, then before you drive off, say, “Oh, if you need me, I’ll be over in the park doing donuts.”

:smiley:

12

I have this pet theory. Schoolbuses now receive roughly the same treatment as, oh, say…a Presidential Motorcade. I do see kids running willy-nilly out from behind schoolbuses. I don’t know if that means anything, but isn’t it possible that, based on their schoolbus experiences, kids will be running willy-nilly out into the street from behind non-schoolbuses?

13

When I was a wee lad, we lived on a section of street that was straight and level for aeound 150 yards, so after school the kids in the neighborhood would play football, and we didn’t do any of this blocking off the street foolishness.

Yes, the parents are asshats.

My suggestion to you, is that you get some of those plastic fireman hats and have little labels made up that read Chief Asshat and give them to the 'rents.

That’ll fix 'em.

14

OK - my siblings and I played in the street when we were kids - the whole neighborhood did. I grew up in a very quiet neighborhood, traffic was rare. No one got hit by a car.

If my parents had put little barriers up, we probably would have went elsewhere to play - in disgust. It would have ruined all the fun and made us look like wusses. :wink:

15

My friends and I always road bikes on the streets in our neighborhood-just local traffic-if you can even call the occassional car “traffic.”

However, when a car came, we would simply PULL OVER TO THE SIDE!!! D’uh!

Still, blocking off the street? I would have called the cops on them.

16

What an ANAL RETENTIVE ASS!!!

Sorry just what I would have said to the dickhead and his overprotective wife!!

17

Sorry… Not to say anything bad against overprotective mothers…

Just seemed kinda Ummm. Unnatural to me…

Kids are gonna be kids… They are gonna go outside the lines from time to time…

Sorry slight hijack…

18

I have been lucky to live near parks when i was a kid and never had to play in the street! I remember being taken to the park to play at three, and four years old. I still live within a block of a park and a school playground.

Having said that, these people are obviously ASSHOLES. I can’t wrap my head around the levels of putzness it taked to do this.

Indiana has big problem with retars racing arond schoolbuses, as a little girl just died, when some choad-for-brains hit her as she was crossing the roAd.

19

Wait, so these are two foot tall signs in the road that look like wet-floor signs? What stops you, as a concerned neighbor, from introducing those signs to your bumper at high speeds?

20

The only problem I see with this is that if the neighbors have a twisted view of reality - Face it; blocking the street with funky “SLOW DOWN, CHILDREN PLAYING” signs may indicate that they do - there’s a good chance that Chastain will get a visit from the cops after the neighbors accuse him of threatening to kill their kids.