My horrible, dog-abusing, spouse-smacking (equal opportunity here - they both hit and scream at each other), motorcycle revving for an hour at a time at all hours of day and night, car doesn’t start until the 3rd try, door has to be slammed, can’t communicate at any volume other than 11, stealing my trash can, neighbors are moving out! Finally, after having been evicted 3 1/2 months ago, they are actually leaving. I almost did a victory dance when I saw that stupid motorcycle in the truck, but I restrained myself. They aren’t completely gone yet, so I didn’t want to risk my car being vandalized. They’re going, they’re going, maybe as soon as tomorrow night I won’t have to listen to that horrid harridan screeching at the dog/kid/husband. Or hear a motorcycle being revved up at midnight for an hour. Or ever again have to listen to the aftermath of one of their ill-behaved, yappy, car-chasing dogs actually catching a car. Oh, joy, oh happy day, what a Thanksgiving this will be!
Countdown till they’re replaced with someone just as bad or worse, commencing now.
10… 9… 8…
^^ No, no–they’ll be quiet, working full-time types who like to read and meditate in the evenings. They’ll enjoy baking on the weekends, and you’ll only be pestered by the scents of cinnamon and sugar on the autumn breezes. They will have a quiet, well-maintained car, and their only pets will be two goldfish and three houseplants.
>>sending the new neighbour vibes now<<
Well, these were an improvement over the meth-heads (I swear, I thought this woman was in her late 60s, she was 40 :eek: ) and before them was the extremely large family with approximately 137 kids, all of whom treated our yards like their own,even my backyard with the 8 foot fence, keyed all the cars and stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. And then there are the tenants that all run together in one horrible mish-mash of hellishness, although I suppose the guy on America’s Most Wanted was the worst, although he was quiet.
The last decent tenant was the guy who kept reptiles. Lots of large reptiles. I’ve never seen lizards that size outside of a zoo and it was the first time I’d ever seen one big enough for a dog harness and leash. So overall, it has been getting better.
The funny thing is that this is a nice, quiet neighborhood, it’s just that one house seems to be possessed by bad spirits or something. People seem nice and normal when they move in, but within a couple of months, we’re being treated to screaming arguments at 2 am, with or without an assault with a deadly weapon, basically your everyday Cops fare. The house has actually changed hands several times, so it’s not just one lousy landlord. The house is possessed, I tell you!
No other house on the street has this problem. The houses on either side have the owners in residence, both quiet couples. One of the couples even has a toddler, who never runs down the street in his diaper, screaming his head off, unlike certain other people I could mention. A lot of neighbors have dogs, fairly large dogs at that, who rarely bark and always are on a leash/wearing a collar/have been obedience trained. Why can’t some of those people move in to that house? Is that so much to ask?
At any rate, they still seem to be moving, so I should have a peaceful Thanksgiving, at least.
I once had my crazy psycho neighbor replaced by a nun. I hope you have the same luck.
…and you’ll find you’ve grown so accustomed to the noise you can’t function without it.
…and you will crave this home baking every time you catch a whiff of it. You’d like to go over there and ask for some, but that would be rude. Instead, you’ll have to tolerate it and hope they’ll invite you to partake. But the worst part is that they’ll want to share it with you, but don’t want to be seen as imposing. An uneasy, but nice-smelling, air will exist between you.
…which is far better than your own, and you will be overwhelmed with envy every time you see it…
…who are jerks…
…who are also jerks.
Me too!! 
Could you get permission to perform an exorcism before the next tenants move in?
If they were evicted, why were they still there?
I can only guess that it took the landlord about what it took me when I evicted my tenants. After the court order they have 30 days (maybe it was two weeks, I forget now, but it seemed like forever at the time.) After that the judge gives them a couple extra weeks for each minor child. There are other ways to parly a bit more time as well. During that time the landlord has to pay the sheriff and the mover, and that can run some pretty big money if the people haven’t been paying the rent. Mine had about 6 weeks to get out. They used the time to get the drugs and the money out but not much else. (Actually I think they just did the drugs, if they had been better business people the rent would have been payed.)
And the one you think is really hot and fancy something fierce will turn out to really like you and will not have any moral compunction about getting involved in an incredibly torrid and steamy sexual relationship with you that will seem like a dream come true until you find out that the partner knows all about it and you start to think about what your new amour said about the partner’s prison time…what were the charges?
Be careful what you wish for. I finally got some hotties for neighbors and it was anything but pleasant. The girls themselves seemed OK, but their boyfriends and the boyfriends friends were real party-folk who left a trail of beer cans wherever they walked, got into early morning fights, were fond of the word “WOOOOOOOO!” and seemed to have lots of friends who would visit for about 4 minutes at a time all hours of the day.
Well, IANA lawyer/eviction expert/located anywhere near Silicon Valley, but my understanding is that, in at least some jurisdictions, people who are evicted can receive extensions for certain reasons that will allow them to remain in the premises for “x” amount of time. So maybe that’s what happened in the case of **Jahdra’s ** neighbors.
At any rate, Jahdra, as someone who’s dealt with neighbors from hell, I’m sending you my good-for-you’s and my very best thoughts.
As a slight hijack, I hope I won’t need to come crying to these boards about my own neighbor issues.
This weekend, some new neighbors moved into the second-floor apartment downstairs (I’m on the third floor of a three-story, three family house). I watched some of the move-in activity from my window, and when I saw the condition of some of the stuff that they were moving in, I told myself that no good would come of this. For instance, they were moving in a refrigerator (although I’m certain that the place comes furnished with one), from which they’d removed the doors (presumably for easier transport). Unfortunately, I think they were absent from How to Make a Good Impression class on the day that folks were told to CLEAN YOUR EFFING REFRIGERATOR OF POOLS OF (WHATEVER THE HOLY HELL THAT BROWN STUFF IS) THAT GATHERS AT THE BOTTOM WHEN FOOD GOES BAD so that people who see you moving in aren’t tempted to make unfair judgments about your cleanliness.
As much as I told myself, “Well, Li’l Pluck, just hold on. You don’t know these people’s story, and maybe the fridge thing is just an aberration,” I don’t think it’s working. Here’s why:
After my landlord (who lives on the first floor) evicted some bad tenants almost two years ago, she and I set off roach bombs (on two separate occasions for safe measure) on all three floors of the house (they’d left a roach buffet behind), and I haven’t seen a roach since then. Not until, that is, this morning when, as I was sitting at my computer debating whether to do schoolwork or read the NY Times online, I spied a full-grown roach climbing up the wall in my study. Fast-forward to now: my entire apartment smells like Raid.
No, not amused. And more than just a little squicked out. And annoyed, too, since I was awakened yesterday morning by their very loud television. [/hijack]
Again, Jahdra, best of luck! 
My neighbour is moving out too. Which is a damn shame. He’s great neighbour! I complained about the music once, and I haven’t heard it since. And he was so apologetic! He was a great help when my apartment court fire too.
Maybe it’s your own cosmic influence, because that’s how it is with us. We are Crappy Neighbor Magnets. I swear, three times now (in three different neighborhoods) we have attracted the Worst Neighbors In The Neighborhood to settle next door to us.
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Newly-divorced guy whose young teenage son used to climb onto the roof and shoot his pellet gun at passing traffic and people. Dad was too busy out drinking and chasing wimmen to have a clue what was going on.
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Newly-married mom of two teenagers. Teenagers and new stepdad hate each others’ guts and spend every waking moment screaming, slamming doors, carrying the fight out into the front yard, etc. Stepdad’s noisy, crappy old car’s engine explodes on front street and makes an Exxon Valdez-like spill which runs into all the gutters and stinks up the neighborhood for days. Teenage daughter blows boyfriends in parked cars in full view of the nice old folk neighbors across the way. Teenage son, trying to impress his shithead buddies, tries to pick a racial fight with our black engineer neighbor.
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Current situation: we share a wall with a below-market-rate home. A nice enough middle-aged woman is the owner, but she soon brought in her boyfriend, her single daughter, her married daughter, her son-in-law, and two grandchildren. Other people, some of whom look like they just got out of the federal pen, stay for varying periods of time. It’s a tiny 3+2 home which has about 12 cars belonging to it, most of which have engines that sound like Harley Davidsons (which they also own a couple of). Kids were taken away by CPS for a month, but were returned, unfortunately. Son-in-law is a gang member, which we know because of his gang tattoos. He once tried to beat up the HOA president who came to ask him not to blast his stereo so loud that windows were rattling a block away. The front lawn died after a few months because not one of the many adults living there could be bothered to water.
So I share your puzzlement. Nothing makes life quite so miserable as shitty neighbors, I know.