I have neighbours from hell.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

When we first moved in to our house, approx 2 years ago, the neighbours to either side were lovely, quiet, clean families and a pleasure to live beside. Then, about 9 months ago, the neighbours on one side moved away and everything changed.

A 35 year old man and his girlfriend bought the place and moved in with their two dogs, once of which was extremely aggressive to the point of trying to attack us through the fence with enough force to cause it facial wounds. This dog would also escape out the front gate and chase people, cats, dogs and anything else walking by.

Multiple complaints and letters from the HOA did nothing. Eventually the guy broke up with his girlfriend and she moved out, taking the dogs with her. Then the guy moved his mother and the 14 year old boy she fosters into the house with their large, barky but not as aggressive dog.

The homeowner then pretty much moved out and hasn’t been seen in months.

Then things starting going straight to hell. The back yard is full of furniture and trash. Then a young couple and their large, intact male dog moved into the SHED in their back yard. That’s right, they’re living in the shed.

THEN they started selling drugs out of the shed. How do I know this? Because odd cars arrive at all hours, sometimes parking on OUR property, then they go out to the shed, pass something between them and then off they go. Then they started the drug transactions in their driveway and now the vehicles pull up, and someone from the house goes out, and the driver doesn’t even have to get out of the car. We’ve had people come to our place, by mistake, late at night presumably looking for drugs.

Three nights ago, they had some stranger pull his truck into their driveway and park his truck about 6 feet from our house. He worked on this truck till something went wrong and it burst into flames, cue 911 fire department, police…

I’ve gone to the police, I’ve made reports with crime stoppers who said they are well known to the cops but there’s nothing they can do W.T.F??

Anyway we are having an emergency council meeting to talk about what to do. My suggestion is going to be reporting them to the municipal zoning bylaw officer. The houses are zoned as single family homes which means no drug-selling squatter living in the shed. I assume (but have to find out) if it also means that the shed people can’t move into the home itself as there is already a family living there.

If nothing is going to be done about it, we will be moving as the situation is just going to get worse and worse. The types of people I see going in and out of their house are not people you want to live next to.

:mad:

2

The very reason I live in the woods in the middle of 90 acres.

3

My God, this mirrors the same issue I was having here in Chicago, in my old neighborhood.

The neighborhood was already falling to shit and I could tell that the neighbors were definitely contributing to this, if not attracting all of the pieces of crap. They had a loud aggressive, intact and matted dog, gang members outside all hours of the night, drinking and throwing bottles, shouting, arguments (even at 2:00-4:00am), fighting, police showing up at least 3-4 times a month to arrest someone. It was just so bad, and the police could not do anything about removing them, even though they all had a history of violence and drug abuse. I can still find them on an Inmate Query today. Due to the revolving door policy of the jail here in Chicago, they are out immediately and were back at it.
We went to Chicago CAPS (police/neighborhood) meetings and the like, but there was absolutely nothing that could be done. My brother and I even got into a fight with one of the gangbangers starting trouble (beating up his girlfriend on our lawn). Needless to say, the gangbanger lost horribly, but instead of taking it in stride, we had a car full of them sitting outside our house for what seemed like a week, graffiti and threats etc. This didn’t stop until I caught up with him one day outside of a store and slammed his head into an old payphone box (no phone, just the metal box around it).
This shit continued and the neighborhood just got worse and worse until we just finally decided to move to a better neighborhood. Personally, I think your best bet is doing the research and moving somewhere else, because it is likely not going to get better. I was waiting for something to go awry and a bullet to go through my house (bed was sort of near an upper floor window) and hit me. Its just not worth it. Change is always great too. Might as well sell before their friends bring down your property value even more. It isn’t worth the actual REAL risk to your life by sticking around, people like that will attract more and more criminals and the problem is only going to escalate. Calling them in for infractions will likely not work (in my experience, anyway).

Best of luck! I know the ‘feels’

EDIT: Forgot something funny, they had a pet Mallard! Yes, a duck they somehow captured, apparently living in their house as well. In a dense Chicago neighborhood sigh

4

Have you considered putting a not very discrete security camera on your house? To discourage customers?

5

Those type of folks may seek retribution or something if OP does that. If they get busted, they’ll think OP is the rat.

I know, maybe a bit of hyperbolic paranoia, but if someone is willingly living a shed, they may not have much left to lose :slight_smile:

6

We are going to start with the zoning bylaw officer and Bill, the head of the council is an old guy who’s been here for 30 years and knows the fire chief. He’s going to ask for an inspection of the shed as it’s a fire hazard if people are living in it.

I have a little bit of hope that that will get them out of the shed. I don’t care about them getting arrested for the drugs as they’ll just end up back on the property in a few months. I want them to move elsewhere.

I did learn that one day about 3 weeks ago while I was at work, the police came and arrested the foster kid. The neighbours across from them saw it. He’s back in the house though because I’ve seen him out walking the dog in just the last few days.

7

How about putting up a big fence you can’t see through?

8

Better make it bullet proof!

9

Don’t foster care agencies kinda sorta frown on placing kids with people who have drug dealers living on their property? Maybe you could get some leverage there.

10

Foster mom is a tenant in the residence; drugs are being sold from shed/‘another residence’ on the property, not from the unit where the foster child is living. How is this different from drugs being sold from one unit of an apartment complex while another unit has a foster child living in it?

Even if they do say it’s all one property, is an otherwise well cared for foster child better off being around the vicinity where drugs are being sold or uprooted again to go live somewhere else?

11

The HOA did nothing? Are you paying dues? From your description, there are at least three or four violations of the common covenants for an HOA/development. The HOA can (likely) easily bring a suit against the homeowner for several violations.

Here’s an unsolicited bit of advice: bad people bend and yield under pressure. Bring a suit, put up cameras, take pictures, complain to the police and fire marshal, and take whatever steps are legal. Bad people might react negatively, but they ultimately give in and either relocate (most likely) or take drastic action (much less likely). In my experience, they do not push the situation to the limits because of their “rights” or because “it’s a free country.” In short, act prudently, but apply all the pressure that you can.

12

You would thing so, right? But the police told me to call Child Protective Services and Crime Stoppers just didn’t seem to care at all.

He was arrested and taken away in handcuffs a few weeks ago so if he’s living with drug-dealing squatters and getting himself arrested, it just can’t be good for him there.

I just don’t know how much effort we want to put in to fighting them. They could all move out and we could end up with the same sorts of problems again. I just don’t know. For now I’m going to wait and see what happens with the inspection.

They seems to have taken a bunch of mattresses out of the shed and put them out in the yard - where it’s been absolutely pouring for days. So I don’t know if maybe they’ve left, or bought new mattresses for the shed, or moved into the house or what.

13

There must be some law against living in a shed. I mean, that just sounds bad.
In the interim, stop them from coming on your property. Put up no trespassing sign or some blockage on your property line.

14

This is a bit drastic, but it worked in my situation. Find the landlord & offer to buy the place from them.

I had a “neighbor from hell” while they did not deal drugs, they sure used drugs a lot! Yelling, loud “music” at all hours of the night & day, throwing their trash into my bushes, & being arrested quite often were some of the symptoms that make me use this title for them.

I refuse to live in a HOA controlled area, so no “help” from them. IMHO, HOAs are less then helpful. The local police while sympathetic, were of no help. The DA & the judges were “liberal” & the bad guys rarely served any time in jail, even when given five years in jail as a sentence. At least four of the neighbors had four year sentences that they were “serving” next door to me.

Other than that one house, the neighborhood was wonderful. After one too many nights of lost sleep, I either had to move or they did! So, in my sleep deprived mind, I figured that since the absentee landlord would not evict them, I would! To that end I approached her with a fair market offer. She countered with an offer that was 10% below that. She was tired of all the complaints from the neighbors, & she did not have the strength to address the issue. Her only request was that we pay her over a ten year time frame. DEAL! I evicted them the day after the sale was final.

My neighbors loved me! We all got some much needed sleep.

I have now done this twice. It works!

15

^^nice!!

16

That is a very interesting suggestion. One that I hadn’t thought of but would be a really great option. Also we are, right now, looking for something to invest in as we just received a fairly large inheritance.

17

Before you do so, look up the eviction laws in your city/state. You may wind up taking a long time to evict them, especially if there’s a senior and/or minor living on the premises.

18

The shed people have definitely moved out of the shed. All of the furniture from the shed has been moved up onto the porch (so pleasing to look at…)

When the truck was on fire, there was the firetruck, an ambulance and also 2 police cars. The cops and firetruck were next door for over an hour and I’m wondering if, when they were there, they saw that people were living in the shed and told them to get out because, since that night, there have been no lights on in the shed and now all the furniture has been removed.

We’ve seen the shed people’s car a couple of times but they just stay for a few minutes and then leave. It’s like they’re just coming to get stuff and then leaving right away. No sign of the dog since that night either.

Maybe it’s taken care of itself? I’m hopeful but also thinking about what buying it would mean. It’s not for sale right now and the people living in it are the owner’s mother along with the foster kid (which we haven’t seen for a couple of days, either, so maybe he’s gone).

Maybe the truck bursting into flames will end up being the catalyst to everything changing over there.

19

Close, but there’s another option. When facing a similar situation, my Dad handled it like this:

  1. Find the landlord, and which company insures his house.
  2. Have lawyers inform said company and landlord we have filed a lawsuit seeking damages significantly above the policy’s liability limit, including a laundry list of complaints, health problems, Dr bills, mental stress, etc. that they are responsible for.
  3. Sit back and watch while the problem solves itself, usually within days.

Of course this will only work if your state has reasonable tenant/renter laws. In Texas at least, the laws are sane and protect the property owner rather than tenant (as they should). Landlords can serve eviction notices when the rent is one day late, and start eviction on the next day. Once rent is late, the landlord has the option to continue the eviction, even if the tenant pays. IANAL, but I believe you can have them gone by the third day. This makes it easy to rid yourself of problem tenants.

I’m surprised by this too, but perhaps because I live where the HOA is powerful, draconian and ever-watchful. The activities described by the OP would have the owner drowning in lawyers and fees within days. Our HOA will haul you into court and place liens on your house for painting an unapproved color… Somehow I imagine there would be SWAT teams and helicopters if a homeowner dared to put someone in their shed or garage. (My first thought when reading the post was: “The HOA let them build a shed?” :eek:)

20

Update!

Imagine my surprise and great joy to arrive home after work to see a large moving truck in their driveway! They were moving stuff into it till 4:00 am this morning. I don’t know if it’s all of them moving or just the shed people moving out (the shed people had been living in the house for the last few months).

The fosterboy was replaced with a small, fostergirl a couple of months ago.

Funny enough, we just finished having a $10 thousand fence put up a week ago. Still, I’m glad we did put up the fence as it goes around the whole property and is 6 feet tall so I can even be out in the yard naked and nobody can see.

I’m very curious if the still-absent homeowner will sell it or what he’s going to do.