Crazy neighbor opinions, advice or other stories, please :)

In My Humble Opinion
41

Crazy neighbours are a bitch to be sure.

You seem to have a really good attitude though, and that will always serve you well. I’ve had a crazy neighbour and it’s not fun.

My suggestion is for you and the kids and the teens to, every single time you see her, even if she’s ranting and raving, get a giant grin on your face, wave vigorously and say, “Good Morning, Mrs X, always lovely to see you!” Every fucking time, regardless.

It won’t change the crazy neighbour, but everybody else will feel a lot better. It’s sure to make her upset, everything else seems to, after all. Added bonus; next time she calls the police and lodges a complaint, she’s sure to throw in, “And that whore has the whole neighbourhood waving and saying ‘Hi’ to me!” They’ll be dragging her off in no time.:smiley:

42

Long story short I recently bought a house in a narrow street that can have two cars pass (one side has parking, the other you can drive down with a few inches on each side. Never a problem if cars are driving on both sides since only 1/2 the street has parking so people will veer off and allow others to pass).

My crazy neighbor asked me…not to park on the side of the street that allows parking across from him driveway. Uh, no buddy, you do two backups like the other yokels with driveways. Now at first I was very cordial - EVERYONE has been super nice and helpful, from the old Italian couples to the young kids in their first house like myself. So I apologized but showed him the parking sign.

Then he leaves me crazy messages. We speak again -he’s taking pictures of my damn car, touching it, etc. I repeat that we had this discussion before and that nothing will change. He threatens to call the cops. I encourage him to do so, so all 3 of us can stare at the sign that allows parking.

But what I did and what will likely work for you is sending her a notarized letter (banks and AAA have them for like $2) CC’d to your attorney (don’t even bother sending it to an attorney if you don’t have one, just say CC Attorney SoAndSo) with your signature stating that any further harassment, including screaming, yelling, or calling the police will result in a harassment suit.

My crazy neighbor now says hello and asks how I am. He doesn’t care if I rot in hell - and I know he’ll rot there - but he sure as shit leaves me and everyone else he used to harass on the street alone with the picture taking and the passive aggressive notes.

Bingo, case closed. Cheap, inexpensive and effective. If she’s old and crazy she’s probably terrified of Teh Law cause she’s broke.

Use that to your advantage.

43

I had a crazy neighbor similar to the OP’s once. I ignored her. Then one day she had a minor emergency and waved me down as I was driving by, heading to work.

She told me her problem, and I had the satisfaction of smiling and telling her to fuck off.

44

We have one of these. Apparently every 3 months or so our upstairs neighbors get an extended weekend or extra day off and use this time to sit up all night long and play guitar. The first time this happened we banged on the ceiling to let them know we could hear them. The second time this happened my husband went upstairs and advised them that we could hear the music and to please turn it down. The third time we banged on the ceiling again. The fourth time was on Saturday when they started playing the guitar at midnight and put it up at 4 am to set up the drums which they played until about 7 am. This time we didn’t say anything to them and are writing a letter to our landlord to address the issue instead since they don’t seem to care that we are bothered by the noise. We don’t want to call the police since this happens so infrequently (and because the one time my husband went up there the apartment reeked of weed and we don’t want them arrested for that) but if we have to we will eventually.

45

“Help, I’ve stroked out and I can’t get up.”

46

I had a crazy neighbor who ordered me where to park my car, and yelled obscenities out of her window at me when I had to move her trash bin and recycling bin that she put blocking my car in (when I parked it where she didn’t want me to).

She was a nice looking, 30 year old lady who moved in and said she was a substitute school teacher. But she was crazy.

She never parked her car in front of her house and she freaked out if anyone else parked there (I never did). She even freaked out when someone got a flat tire (not a neighbor) and had to leave their car there till the tow truck came. She yelled at them from her window not to dare sit on the curb in front of her house, but to stay locked in their car, on a hot summer day. Also cars parked in front of her house occasionally had their tires slashed. No idea who did it though. According to the screaming out of the window, the area in front of her house had to be left open in case she got a boyfriend who wanted to park there. Maybe that’s who did it.

Fortunately she has moved away. A large family now lives in the house where she used to live by herself. (It is two stories and I think three bedrooms.)

47

We had a neighbor who called child services on families she didn’t like. We were in a small condo complex and apparently the families she didn’t like ended up being all of us. The nice CPS lady who came to our house was so apologetic because it had been the fifth or six house on in our complex she had been to that month, off of the same “anonymous” tipster.

She was truly evil to mess with people’s families that way.

48

While I like your suggestion best, I’m lacking a smoke bomb. So I’m going to go with this one :slight_smile:

I’ve already got the teenagers online with this. I haven’t seen the kid’s grandparents yet, but I’m sure they will buy in. I know my friends will :slight_smile:

Evil and twisted and just perfect!!! Thank you so much!!!

49

For the second time in one day I must say this - pictures!!!

:smiley:

50

Now I want to visit you, just to say “Hi!” to your neighbor.

51

We have an elderly couple – Bill is a WWII vet – living up the street, and the old man has gone from grumpy to crazy. His next door neighbor, Sue, is a single businesswoman. She spares no expense keeping her house and yard up and doesn’t cause any trouble. But he doesn’t like her. His first complaint was that she was a single woman living alone. He suspected that she was a dyke. Then a boyfriend, Jim, moved in, and blew that theory to hell. So now she’s just the neighborhood slut, living in sin. And whatever she does annoys the hell out of him.

Their relationship deteriorated when Jim, who is meticulous about the lawn, asked Bill to not mow their yard. Bill had been steadily encroaching on their land to the point where he was cutting the entire strip between their two houses. And he cut it way shorter than they liked. So Jim one day made the horrendous mistake of politely asking Bill to please just cut to his own grass and they’d cut theirs.

Bill went on a rampage after that. After cussing Jim out, and trying to engage all the neighbors in a hate campaign (which failed), he had the audacity to call the police on Sue. What was her crime? Jim parked his truck in Sue’s driveway for WEEKS ON END. And they weren’t married! Didn’t matter that he LIVED there or that he took the truck to work every day. Bill wanted her (not him) cited for allowing that truck to be parked in her driveway.

When the hapless police officer explained to him that there was nothing they could do, Jim cussed him out and lodged a complaint against the officer.

He’s getting crazier by the day.

If he’s out when we pass, we just all wave while he stares at us, trying to figure out whether we’re friend of foe.

To the OPer: If killing her with kindness doesn’t work, I’d be seriously tempted to carry one of those canned air horns around (the kind you blow when you want to make a substitution in soccer). The second she opened her mouth, I’d blow the air horn.

Hey, it worked with the dog when he kept digging at the fence.

52

elbows You will be so proud. The teenagers thought that the “turn the other cheek” idea was so great that they now have the whole street involved. I warned them to not ask leading questions in their greetings, better to say “Its great to see you” than “How are you?”.

ZenBeam and Curlcat, come on over. We can wave at her together :slight_smile:

There is a large family that walks the block. They don’t live on our street. CNL has complained about them, did I mention that when she’s not mad at someone, she rewards them with gossip? :smack:

2 adults and 6 kids. They do such evil things as walk/ride side by side. Hands are held and they talk. No shouting, the riding ones don’t get in the road and when a car approaches, they move to the side of the road and wave.

Today, I was thrilled to witness them all smiling and waving at CNL’s house. I saw their mouths move, but I didn’t hear them. I was inside and my home is closer to the road than CNL’s house.

If CNL’s head asplodes, I’ll be sure to come back and give elbows the bragging rights :slight_smile:

53

Uh, why would Jim complain about the officer? Unless you mean Bill.

54

I god no - it’s hot enough over here right now, I can’t imagine what Arizona is like! :eek:

55

We have a couple of neighbors that are living in a house that they’re trying to fix up, and make liveable, because it’s far from being liveable right now. Yet, they keep living in it. We have no idea how. I have several stories about these two folks, but I have to tell you about this one:

A week ago today, they removed the old, filthy, three-sided tub/shower surround that was inside of the house.

The problem with this is, that after they yanked it out of there, and hauled it out, they proceeded to set it up in their front yard. The open side of the surround is facing their house, thankfully. It seems that they have to move one side of the surround, so they can get in and out of it. They leave it propped open when they’re done using it.
They have a garden hose running along the side of their house, all the way to the front of the house, and the end of the garden hose (that has a sprayer on it) is slung up, and over, the top of the makeshift shower. Sitting out there on top of one of the corners of the makeshift shower, are a bottle of liquid soap, and a towel.
They’ve yet to change out the towel. It’s getting more grimy as each day passes. There is also a bucket inside the makeshift shower, and the other neighbors and I are a bit afraid to think what they’re using it for, and what they might be doing with the contents when they’re finished.

I swear, it’s like living in Hooterville out here.

56

Ha, Manuel, and his long bed. The memories…

A proper sheriff wouldnt have had to remove his sunglasses. They got special classes just to master that trick.

That’s what’s cool with immigrants, you can remind them you can send the INS on them.

I have huge problems with my neighbours but when I read some of the stuff here, wow, I just dont think I’d have your patience. Crazyness doesnt ramp down usually, it’s almost always piling up.

57

We had a crazy neighbour whilst renting a terrace house - definitely too close for comfort. She was quite normal when we moved in, but deteriorated either through alcohol or drugs.

She had a couple of teenage kids there, but we could never work out whether the lad was a son or a boyfriend (and if he was a boyfriend, we couldn’t work out whether it was the mother or the daughter he was with…).

They would all have screaming matches in the middle of the night, then someone would storm out the front door and she would go into the garden at the back and cry loudly. One night the lad was locked out of the house and used his mobile to try and convince mother/daughter to let him in, with loud pleas of ‘but I LOVE YOUUUUU!’ which echoed all the way down the street. (Terrace houses all the way around, sound tends to bounce around)

After Michael Jackson died, they would have tribute nights, playing one of his album’s over and over and over. I quite liked his music up until then…

We had to approach them to get them to fix their plumbing - the pipe from the bath/shower was cracked and spilled hot water all over our kitchen roof and onto our patio. She came over to take a look and was adamant that it wasn’t her problem because the water was coming over our side.

We asked her to go run the shower and come back. She came back and saw the water gushing out of her pipe, onto our property. She still maintained it was our problem to fix. She then moved on to her ‘I’m just a poor single mum’ routine saying she couldn’t possibly afford to get it fixed. Then she said she couldn’t even afford to make a call to a plumber and we’d have to do it. We stood our ground.

She eventually had a plumber come over and we let them through to our back yard. He quickly assessed it and then turned to her and said, ‘You had some other work you wanted me to do as well?’ She quickly hushed him and they left. Yeah, no money to get it fixed, right…

After we left, the rental company got in touch with us to ask if we had problems with the neighbour during our tenancy. It turned out things had gone from bad to worse after we left, with the new tenant being verbally abused and threatened and getting old bits of furniture, etc, thrown over the fence into the back yard.

Such charming people!

58

The only one of my neighbors which falls anywhere close to these is the psychologist, and she’s more dumb than crazy. Most are simply old and old-fashioned. Thankfully it’s a variety of people I’m familiar enough with that I knew I basically had to be patient until they got used to “the strange things the girl in 3B does”.

My building is cross-shaped, with each apartment ocupying one arm, and three floors. The ground floor contains storage rooms. I live in one of the third-floor apartments (3B); 3A was empty for years and is now occupied by a couple in their 30s (and I still jump every time they use the blender, which is about the only time I hear anything from their flat - the house has walls that would make a castle proud), 3C is the psychologist and her two sons, 3D is a Saharaui family who rents. About half of the neighbors are old; many of the people under 60 many not be physically old but they have “old brains” in that they’re incapable of comprehending concepts such as “in order to pay my HOA’s fees, I need an account number. Sorry, I’m abroad, I can’t ‘just walk to the bank and tell Mikel it’s for #6, he’ll know what to do’”. HOA fees are tiny, so I pay yearly; they never put anything in writing, so I need to call Mikel and ask him how much are we paying and whether there have been any “special payments” - it’s not his job, but he’s resigned to doing this for pretty much every single HOA in town (a 4000-people town, of which upward of 3900 are in a HOA).

The HOA’s Secretary changes every year, it rotates among those who actually live there (or one of their children who does live in town). A few years ago, the psychologist stopped my poor flatsitter as he was bringing up the groceries and threatened him with suing us both and calling the cops to kick him out of my house because “she hasn’t paid anything for months!” The poor guy called me in a fright, I calmed him down, managed to track the current Secretary and explain that she had to look for a big payment back in January. She freaked out over this (“but I don’t know how to do that!”), so her sister grabbed the phone, I gave her the information, she found the payment, that was that. Note that, since the HOA doesn’t put anything in writing, a judge would consider such a suit as a real cute joke (plus, the HOA can’t evict people in any case).

I’ve been there long enough that by now I’ve had similar scenes (minus threats, usually) with everybody who actually lives in the house. The one who’s Secretary this year called me to give me her phone number “in case I needed anything”, even, and the new folk who’ve moved into 2C (next year’s Secretaries) have email :eek:

59

Where did you get a Holocaust Cloak? :dubious:

60

Road trip!