Over the last couple of months, there have been several visits by the local police to my neighbors house. I’ve never seen anyone come out in cuffs or anything, and from what little gossip there is on the grapevine, they seem to be all mild domestic disputes.
My son enjoys playing with the granddaughter of the neighbors, and we’ve so far managed to arrange that the playdates occur at our house. Eventually, the time may come where she’ll want my son to play at her grandma’s house. I flat out refuse to allow that to happen at this point.
The neighbors themselves will likely make the police visits seem like no big deal (I haven’t spoken to them, but they have not been a welcome addition to the block with the yard being a mess, traffic congestion, noise level, etc. I can’t hold any of this against the granddaughter, though, she seems well adjusted and sweet enough in spite of it all), but can I call the cops and ask for nonspecific details of their many visits? My concern is that if they are domestic disputes, they aren’t alcohol and/or drug induced, and that there are no weapons there to fuel the fires. And if they aren’t domestic disputes, what are they?
I’m very, very reluctant to allow my son near a house with frequent law enforcement visits.
Sounds like someone is 911 happy during their arguments.
If it were me, I would face to face ask the police the next time they are out there. Basically saying that you noticed the frequency of police visits and your child plays with the kid from that house and should you be concerned or alert for anything? If you sound like a sane, concerned parent/neighbor and ask in a polite way, the police should give you the basics and whether or not you should be concerned.
If you know their names, you could search the city and/or county courts online to see what, if any, charges have been filed against them. At least, here you can. YMMV.
Are you sure they’re having domestic problems? I ask, because when we lived in South Carolina, my husband played rugby with a couple cops. They would stop buy pretty often when they were in the neighborhood. One guy was on duty on Christmas Day one year and came in for a quick cup of coffee and to say Merry Christmas. When he left, one of our neighbors called to see if everything was okay .
They aren’t social calls. I’ve seen them all in a group outside the house (barely out of earshot) discussing things rather intensely. One time, I heard someone (don’t know the relation, if any) tell an officer upon arrival “I didn’t mean to get you out here so late” (it was only 10:30 PM or so).
It’s a nice neighborhood, an old neighborhood, a quiet neighborhood. It’s my grandparents old house (I bought it from them a few years ago), and everyone is pretty set in their ways. There probably haven’t been 4 police visits to the block in 10 years (including a death and a fire), and now in the last few months, we’ve had at least 3.
I hope their late on their mortgage and get booted. Soon.
Domestic problems seem like the most likely cause of the calls, but it could be anything. My neighbor “Bob” likes to call the police when he’s been drinking. He’s called about loose dogs, noisy dogs, noisy kids, kids in his yard, and a few other notable incidents:
Bob called the police to report that some young kids down the block were torturing their dog. This was total bullshit.
Bob called the police when another neighbor got very drunk and was walking down the street. Bob said he wanted to make sure the drunken neighbor didn’t drive.
Bob likes hookers and has them at his house whenever he’s got the money. One night he and a hooker got in a fight and she stomped out. Bob called the police to look for her because, he said, she was sick and was running a fever and had taken a lot of cold medicine (yeah, right). This was about 3 a.m., and the police went driving through the neighborhood with a search light. A lot of people were awakened by a search light shining in their bedroom window.
If your neighbors are elderly, and the calls are occurring after dark, perhaps they hear noises and thnk they might have a prowler.
Whatever the reason, it’s probably best not to let your daughter be in their house unsupervised. They obviously don’t have very good judgment.
Three generations in the house. Grandmother (my mom), mother (my sister), son (my nephew).
Heated exchange between son and mother. Mother calls another relative to complain. Son takes phone from mother and cusses out relative. Relative calls cops on son.
Next day, son (still highly POed at having the cops called on him) calls cops to have mom taken in for a drug test. The first car was unable to get her to the door, so they called for backup.
A few days later, Relative from Item 1 shows up on property. Is told to leave. Refuses. Cops come out to ask relative to leave.
Grandmother is not involved in any of the commotion.
They don’t have to have bad judgment. They could genuinely have a prowler. They could be getting threatening or harrassing telephone calls.
When I was in college, I had a stalker. I placed a lot of phone calls to cops, and had lots of visits and conversations. It’s good to know that my neighbors were probably hoping I’d get evicted.
You would probably get nothing from the cops. Some things are for public knowledge and some are not. You would get more out of a request for the reports. These will be sanitzed to comply with your states privacy laws. If you asked me anything at the scene I would give you nothing.
Rumor now is that it’s the neighbor next door to them who’s calling the cops. Apparently, she calls every time she hears yelling in the house. There are two teenage boys living there. I’ve been a teenage boy before, so I understand the yelling, but not all the calls to the police. Phone-happy neighbor is the kind of neighbor who has her nose in everyone else’s business. :rolleyes: .
Still not comfortable with them, though, but I no linger fear the worst.
Still I’d be cautious about letting your little girl play over there unsupervised by you. What if it’s not just some old busybody’s craziness, but these boys do actually have some kind of behavior problems. Maybe they don’t, but I don’t know if I’d take the chance. I sometimes find that it’s true that “where there’s smoke there’s fire”.
Our neighbour’s had the police over there probably 20 times in the past year. His tenants, and then his girlfriend. Yesterday morning we were all awakened at 5:18 with repeated shouts of “POLICE! EXECUTING A SEARCH WARRANT! OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!”
The neighbour himself was away for a month, and the girlfriend seems to have been running some kind of drug house. Stupid bitch did a drug deal in the middle of the (very narrow) street directly in front of my house on Halloween night, while all of the neighbours were in front of their homes, and the kids were walking around. Stupid bitch.
If you ask your neighboor and it’s anything serious, like drug abuse or domestic violence they will quite possibly lie or white-wash it.
I recently hired a carpenter on the recommendation of someone I knew. Seemed like a nice kid. In the end, he wasn’t. He stole $300.00 from me and did terrible work. I have never come close to drug addiction, and never want to again, but now I know it causes what seem like nice people, to lie and steal; and they can be anyone. So, be very careful and don’t assume anything when it comes to your children. Ask the police. This guy was in a drug rehabilitation program and going to AA and counseling and having drug tests every week. His mother, the retired postmistress in town, assured me he was an honest kid, and blah, blah, blah, over six weeks, until I decided it was worth $300.00 to have these disgusting people out of my life forever. She lied to me three times. So, don’t ask the people involved because you cannot trust their answers.
Ask yourself: how many times have you or your family had the police called to your house? Never, in my case. And never for anyone I know. This is not normal.
I think it would be reasonable to ask the cops. They may not be able to tell you all the details, but it’s their job to make sure people are safe, and if you explain that you’re wondering whether it’s safe for your child to play there, the cops should give you a reasonable answer.
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