I pit my asshole neighbors

The BBQ Pit
41

Around here, the Sheriff’s office won’t give you the time of day unless you live in an unincorporated part of the county. Everyone else is directed to call their local police department.

Plus, fun fact: they were also at the block party! They brought one of their SWAT vehicles to show off. So even if they would’ve taken my call had I made one to their office, they were already on the scene, seen the issue, and did nothing about it.

In other words, what I said above: there’s a reason that the number one rule of throwing a block party is “invite and feed (at no charge to them) the cops”.

42

And they may or may not have.

I don’t know for sure how things would’ve been handled if I moved the cones & tried to drive past the pickup.

What I do know is that my friend had no problem meeting up & I owed him lunch anyway. And everything was back to normal when the block party ended.

As I said, I’m perfectly content not risking a ticket or making a big (likely unproductive) scene when there are alternatives.

The “neighbors” who threw the block party suck, the cops that the police department sent out suck, the cops that were there (including the Sheriff guys who also clearly saw the truck and did nothing about it) suck, and life goes on. Starting a feud with any of those parties or demanding they do something (even something they’re legally obligated to do) would have made my life harder, not easier.

The truck wasn’t parked properly and the cones weren’t where they should have been. It was a pain in the ass, but it was a pain in the ass that was gone when the block party ended. Any hard feelings I created with any of the aforementioned parties may not have gone away so easily.

Put simply, there are a bunch of things I could’ve done:

I could have tracked down the home or cell phone number of the City Manager and demanded he pull their permit.

I could have picked up the cones and moved them to where they were supposed to be, then called in the illegally parked truck without mentioning a block party.

I could have gotten the neighbors from the affected houses together, flipped the truck, and torched the home of the guy who owned it.

But, I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I had a pleasant day (despite the pain in the ass), hung out with my friend for a bit, and got everything done that I needed to get done.

43

So ,what exactly is your problem then?

44

Probably the pain in his ass.

45

Right now? I don’t have one.

I posted on Saturday about something that pissed me off on Saturday.

I also found a way around it & had a day that would have otherwise been pleasant, if not for the irritation caused by my “neighbors” and not fixed by the police department.

My neighbors are fucking liars, as I said in the OP, and the police department enabled them to be fucking liars.

But the issue was temporary, and the barriers, regardless of where they were compared to where they were supposed to be, were removed when the block party ended, just as they were required to be.

As I already said:

I’m not sure why exactly I would still have a problem two days later about something that was remedied in the interim, but I don’t.

It’s over, luckily nobody got hurt, and I had an otherwise decent day (as I assume my neighbors did).

46

Oops, my bad.

They’re “lying fuckers”, not “fucking liars”.

I rescind this claim.

47

Alrighty then.

48

Or you could have requested the assistance of the officer there to get you out of your driveway by simply informing him that the public right-of-away in front of your residence was not covered by the permit you had a copy of. But you didn’t because you don’t believe the cops or the courts were going to enforce the law.

Further, you’re now saying that it wasn’t really an inconvenience to you because you owed lunch to your friend who came to pick you up.

Weak pitting. Grow a spine.

49

Once again:

Cite?

Oh, wait, lemme help:

…wait… Those all say the exact opposite of what you’re saying I said… So, again, cite?

So if I kept complaining to the cops until they did something, you’d have no issues, but since I got my errands taken care of without making an unnecessary scene and pissing people off, I need to grow a spine?

I don’t know how to make this any clearer. I told the cops where the road was supposed to be closed, per the permit, and where it was actually closed, which they could see with their own eyes. They didn’t care. Telling them again “hey, this isn’t supposed to be closed here” isn’t going to make them care.

It was irritating and inconvenient, but not worth annoying the same beat cops I’d need to rely on if anything happened. They knew the facts and didn’t see it as a big deal. Telling them over and over wouldn’t help my cause in any meaningful way.

So, instead, being an adult, I found a way to take care of everything that needed to be taken care of without causing more problems for myself or risking souring relationships with neighbors or cops that I may need to rely on in the future.

If it happens to you, you’re more than welcome to handle things differently. I prefer to weigh risk & reward and choose my battles.

50

I guess I’m still unclear about the part where you talked to the the actual cops in your neighborhood about the illegal blocking of your access to the right-of-way. If I’m understanding it correctly, you assumed that the cops that were actually physically present in your neighborhood had seen and disregarded the specifics of the permit. Help me understand why you didn’t just, in a friendly manner, ensure that they were aware that the permit did not allow the block party to restrict access to your right-of-way. Nobody suggested you make a big scene about it. I think it’s fair to say that if you did so without telling them to do their job, but rather requesting their assistance, you might have gotten the result you were after and an irritation would have become a minor blip on your radar. Instead, you sulked and it brought you here to whine about it.

I think maybe upon re-reading your posts is that you called the police dept and talked to the receptionist who had no idea of the specifics of the permit. You saw officers attending the block party and simply assumed that they knew the specifics of the permit, but you never took the opportunity to verify that despite the fact that you seem to have had a copy of the permit yourself. You just assumed, for some reason, that they didn’t care about that the block party was illegally preventing residents’ access to the right-of-way and, further, that because they were bribed by the block party people with food, they wouldn’t serve your needs and defend your right to access the street from your driveway. On top of that, you believe you are unaware of mysterious laws that they would have cited you for violating if you had attempted to leave your driveway, but you failed to ask the officer(s) on the scene if there was any law preventing you from doing so.

So, in essence, you could have possibly solved the problem in a calm, mature manner with the resources you had, but you chose not to because there was a small possibility through corrupt policing and stupid magistrates that such meager effort could have been wasted. Your day turned out pretty well despite the “inconvenience” and yet here you are bitching about asshole neighbors who took advantage of your unwillingness to seek remedy. Did I get that right?

Sheesh, I’ve had my own run-ins with shitty cops and I’m about as cynical as they come about them, but you didn’t even give these guys a chance to be good cops and help you. You just painted the whole system as broken before you even tested it.

51

Don’t you understand? Simply walking outside and saying ‘Hi I hate to bother you but I really need to get out of my driveway and they closed part of the street they weren’t supposed to.’ could lead to a lifetime of persecution by the police and possibly millions of dollars in court costs.

Of course he never went out and talked to the cops. This outrageous assault on his civil rights was handled by peeking through the blinds at all the people outside having fun and clenching his fists in impotent rage then posting here.

52

No, not at all.

And every post I’ve made in this thread proves that, as, like your earlier claim that I said it wasn’t an inconvenience (which you’re yet to provide a cite for), pretty much everything is directly refuted by words I’ve already typed.

As such, I’m not going to bother, since you seem insistent that we go in circles & you seem perfectly content to ignore the words I actually use in favor of the words you want to believe I used, for some reason.

Ok, you’re up.

Explain the practical difference between this & what I did which would lead to a different result.

And then explain why I should’ve paid $20 for the ability to do it or how I was supposed to do it without paying.

53

Well, the one way you’d be acting like a normal, well adjusted person finding a way to coexist with neighbors and society, and the other way you’d be acting like an angry, irrational loon disproportionately upset about a little snafu in the parking arrangements for a block party but unwilling to address the situation directly due to some sort of paranoia, instead choosing to vent on a message board portraying yourself as having been wronged by the neighbors and the police who never even knew there was a problem.

By:

54

Or not. At this point, I really don’t care.

I pitted my neighbors on Saturday because they skirted permit regulations by getting signatures to close part of the street and closing more of it.

As I had errands to do, it annoyed me.

I called the police department and explained the situation. When that yielded no response, I found another way to get my errands done that didn’t involve continuing to bug the police department or paying $20 to find the owner of the pickup (or the K9 unit) or pissing off my neighbors by attending the pay to play block party without paying in an attempt to speak to the owner of the pickup or the K9 unit.

As such, I got the errands done.

I further explained, in response to direct queries, why I was hesitant to pull onto a closed street and move the barricades.

So I found a way to get my errands done without doing that. While it wasn’t how y’all would’ve apparently handled it, I really don’t care. Aside from the annoyance, I had a decent weekend. And I pitted the cause of the annoyance.

I had/have no problem explaining my thought processes on any matter, including this one. But, at this point, the only points being raised are points I already addressed (in some cases multiple times).

I already acknowledged that this was a trainwreck. Again, that’s not something I really care about. I ranted, as is the purpose of the Pit, while I also found a way to handle the issues I had in such a way that I didn’t risk damaging any relationships, got everything done that I needed done, and had an otherwise decent weekend.

So, with that, happy (third) Friday!

55

If I did that, I’d be talking to my mailbox.

If I wanted to talk to the K9 unit at the block party, I’d need to either:

  1. Go to the block party without paying, bypassing the ticket takers somehow

  2. Pay to go to the block party

or

  1. Shout down the street and hope they heard me over the music and noise

But, sure, I should’ve done one of those 3 things instead of what I did.

At this point, it’s just getting repetitive and ridiculous.

56

There were ticket takers who would have blocked your access to chat with the police, at a neighborhood block party? Now you’re just making shit up.

57

The police weren’t there to be police; they were invited guests to do the K9 demonstration and meet the kids and whathaveyou. Just like the Sheriff’s department was there to give people a chance to see the armored SWAT vehicle up close.

They were there for the enjoyment of the paying guests–to see them up close, you had to be a paying guest.

I’m not sure why that’s so far fetched, but I really don’t care if you believe me.

58

I don’t believe this part either.

59

Funny, because I also don’t care about that. :smiley:

I am intrigued about why I’d care if a person who had to have the concept of a block party explained to him did/didn’t believe me about how a block party is run, but that’s more curiosity than anything.

60

Geez, my bad. If it was SOOOO inconvenient then, why not seek a remedy instead of making excuses that the universe was conspiring against you? I mean seriously. How do you even leave the house with that level of problem-solving skill? Oh, right, you have friends. Lucky them.