Neighbor Harassment

10-24-03 | Cowgirlcutie

[cowgirlcutie]

Okay, I need some advice from this well-rounded group of freepers. My husband and I moved into our home in a rural area over 3 years ago. Our neighbors (a husband, wife and 2 kids) to one side, have never been especially friendly to us, even though we've never bothered them. When we first moved in, we had no fence. The husband loves to get wasted every weekend. Before we had the fence put in, his couple of friends would come over to get wasted with him, in his metal shed behind his house and they would usually keep it pretty quiet. This past summer, we finally put up a 6 foot privacy fence. That's when the trouble started. He threatened to, as he put it, "light up our house like Las Vegas". So far he hasn't. HOWEVER, ever since then he's been out in his shed EVERY weekend getting drunk and serenading us with his stereo until late into the night. Our daughter works every weekend and I work at home and it's just a bit disturbing. I know if we asked him not to do this, he wouldn't listen. Now, when his other two drunken friends come over, their children come over to play with his children and now he's getting them to ride their four-wheeler into our yard, throwing things over the fence so that the children will have to come get them, etc (this is usually going on around 10:00 to midnight. He only does this when he's drunk (which lately is every weekend). So....do I have any recourse at all here? HELP!

[chicagolady]

It depends where you live!
I live in Chicago and the cops there could not care less!

I work at a POlice station in a small suburb that has Noise ordinaces. After folks are tickets 3 times for "Noise complaints" "barking dog" etc etc. they then get fined, 200 dollars, and they have to go to court. You would get your day before the judge and it would all be documented!

It depends. Go to your Police station and ask if the town has ordinances concerning Drunkeness, noise,....what ever they are doing to bother you. Possible "dumping garbage" in your yard??
If your local has ordinaces to keep the village half way sane..it is your legal way to have all these things documented to show numerous altercations.
The small town I work in has a ton of them, tell the police you want a COPY of The report. You always want to tell the Police you want your complaint Documented!!

[cowgirlcutie]

Good advice. I don't know if we have a noise ordinance, but I'll definitely find out. I just assumed that since we live out in the "boonies" that there probably weren't any ordinances about anything. He has dumped beer cans over our fence, but we just throw them back.

[cowgirlcutie]

You want to hear something even worse? Right before our fence was put up, the fence guy came out and was looking around. The drunk saw him, and after he left, proceeded to get stinking drunk. That night he started pulling up markers that had been left by the surveyor. The next day, he (the drunk) was out walking our property line. I went out and asked him to please not pull up anymore markers, as they were put there by the surveyor. He said that he wouldn't. HOWEVER, he tied one on again that day and paced around out back. He took a gun out of his boat and fired it over his house. His little girl was riding her bike in front of their house when he did this. My heart just stopped! The man is a nut!

[cowgirlcutie]

Oh I DEFINITELY feel for you and am glad it worked out for you. When my husband and I were first married, we had a couple of neighbors in apartments like that, but they soon moved out, or were kicked out. We waited so long to buy the house we really wanted. He and his wife keep their house up, but he's just a horrid drunk. When he's sober, he's fine. His wife AND his kids never bother us. When he's drunk, he usually puts his friends' kids up to doing things, which is sad. I've gotten alot of good advice and sympathy from all of you. I think the first thing I'm going to do is look into noise ordinances, then maybe use a camcorder to document what's going on, and then we'll go from there.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I don't know where you are in Texas, but most law officials don't take kindly to drunk driving..... do these drunk friends drive away at night? Perhaps an officer parked at the corner might nab a couple of drunk drivers one night?

[cowgirlcutie]

That would be nice. The only problem is that the one who gets the drunkest is the idiot next door and he goes nowhere. His friend who comes over, lives on the next street. He's run off all of his other friends. I don't think I've EVER seen one man who can drink so much beer in one day as he does.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

We had a neighbor who was like that - and he got really handsy when he got drunk...... I was always having to sidestep him. Fortunately he wasn't angry at us - he would get beligerant, but not really mean....... Have you thought about just pretending like nothing was wrong and inviting all of the neighbors, including the drunk and his family, for a cookout in your yard? You know, kind of kill them with kindness?

[Consort]

He sounds like a real dirtbag. Tell us his screen name so that we can send him some FreepMails.

[Ex-Dem]

I was about to ask you if the drunk had a gun, but from reading down, I see that he does indeed own one. That's something I would be highly concerned about, that he might cross the line one of these days.

Questions: Have you met his wife? Is she that way too or is she cool? Are there any signs of marital problems/domestic violence? Also, what in the blazes is your husband doing while you're standing up to your drunk neighbor???

[cowgirlcutie]

Actually he was at work when this happened (I always get home before he does). When he did get home, I asked him not to confront him. I thought the drunk might start something with him. As for his wife, she doesn't get drunk with him, but I get the feeling that she depends on him financially (completely) and doesn't want to mess up what she thinks of as a good thing (i.e. she doesn't have to work and likes it that way).

[cowgirlcutie]

I know exactly what you're talking about. We already tried the "killing him with kindness" and it didn't work. He would STILL get obnoxious when drunk. His wife even said, in front of him, that everyone thinks he's an *sshole and he agreed! Now, we just ignore him and that doesn't seem to be working either.

[cowgirlcutie]

OH, I wish! LOL. I would absolutely LOVE to see him get some nasty emails! I don't think he would know what to do with a computer though.

[Consort]

Buy him a new stereo that has a remote. Get two remotes; one for him and one for you. (Don't tell him you have one.)

[cowgirlcutie]

Now THAT would be great! I'd be having some fun then! LOL

[Atlas Sneezed]

I think a couple of the other neighbors have complained a couple of times about his loud music at night, but he just turns it back up.

---

This may be your best asset. If you are all united, you will have a much better chance at a nuisance action, or simple neighborhood peer pressure.

Take turns calling his disturbances in to the cops. The cops can't withstand that kind of public pressure, even if the drunk is their crony.