The Other Side Of The Fence

[Rachmaninoff]

[FONT="Trebuchet MS"]Or if you live in an apartment complex it would be 'the other side of the wall'. Either way, this thread is for those tales about your neighbors, the good, the ugly and the bad. I got to thinking about this on account of a relatively new neighbor that my parents have.

They moved into the house to the side of theirs a few years ago. At first they seemed just fine, even if they did keep to themselves and pretty much ignored everyone else. It wasn't until it was almost spring that they first got a taste of what they were like.

Anything that stuck through the fence or was over a bit, usually shrubs or tree branches, were cut and then tossed back over the fence into my parents yard. Now I can understand if they feel like those few branches hanging over are our responsiblity, but they never once asked my parents if they could have my younger brothers trim those for them.

My parents take good care of their yard and usually get to that kind of thing as soon as the weather becomes more reasonable, this happened in the first part of February when the temperatures were still on the cold side. To give you an idea, my parents usually get started on that stuff in late March.

The next year, it happened even sooner, in January. Which made no sense since most of that got done when they did the fall clean up to prepare for winter. The few branches that really stuck over very far were gone.

Confused by it, my father tried talking to the neighbor only for the guy to lecture him about being lazy and not taking care of his yard. o_O Something that isn't true at all. He told him that if he wants it gone sooner, to just tell him and he'll take care of it.

They thought that solved the issue, it did not. Yesterday my parents came home to find that even though they made sure nothing was hanging over or poking through the chain link fence, their neighbor decided to reach over and about butcher a fair number of the shrubs and trees. The fence in question isn't a tall one, it only comes to about mid-chest.

Not only that, they cut deep into the stuff, several feet in, mangling a number of the plants. This was more than just something 'sticking' over, this moved into them defacing my parents property.

When they tried to talk to them, the guy screamed at them saying that if they weren't so lazy, he wouldn't have needed to cut the stuff. The whole thing is rather baffling to be honest. Still, since they did more than simply trim what hung over, my dad had no choice but to talk to the police about it since they went way overboard.

So, that's my most recent brush with someone on the other side of the fence. What about the rest of you? I'm sure you've all seen some pretty nutty things yourself. [/FONT]

[OMNOMNOMALY]

[FONT="Garamond"]Oh boy oh boy. Some people just have no sense of boundaries. Your parent's neighbours remind me of the people that live in the house behind my parents. They found our backyard and our garage offensive so they sprayed pesticides and the like to kill the weeds, did some weed whacking and painted our garage door one day when we weren't home, even though we were in the middle of deciding on our new garage/yard. My Dad was especially mad since we have dogs and so he's worried about using pesticides in case they eat anything. They were nutty.

Anyways, this year I started university and moved into first year rez. This place is a gong show, to say the least. The guy that lives above me has a penchant for loud techno music, but only when I'm having a nap. My friend a few doors down and on the floor below likes to play ridiculously loud music at night after quiet hours have started. My other friends on the floor below me always try to steal my wireless. Other floors steal chairs from our floor, we've had people throw stuff out our windows, someone broke our vent... some of the people who dick around don't even go to UBC or live in the complex for God's sakes. People are ridiculous. I've lucked out though, as my neighbours directly next to me are very quiet =)

Weekends though, are another story, haha.[/FONT]

[chibi-master]

My neighbors have a son that is a senior in my high school. I found this out only after seeing him on my bus home on the first day of school. He stuck his head out the window and yelled to some shrimpy looking kid that's in one of my classes, "*that kid's name* is a *********!" I do not like this word. It is highly offensive and I got angry. I'd have confronted him about it, but couldn't figure out a way to do so without seeming as bad a jerk as he is. Then, he turned to one of his friends and said, "Yeah, that kid owes me a dollar from last year. I told him I'd kick his *** if he didn't have it, but he thinks he's the **** 'cause he's a junior!" At this point, I stood up and said,

"That kid is a freshman, genius." That shut him up, at least. He always talks so tough, but it's so hard to take him seriously. You see, my neighbor speaks with a lisp. He substitutes 's' with 'th'. Not very threatening.

[Sara]

[quote name='Rachmaninoff'][FONT="Trebuchet MS"]When they tried to talk to them, the guy screamed at them saying that if they weren't so lazy, he wouldn't have needed to cut the stuff. The whole thing is rather baffling to be honest. Still, since they did more than simply trim what hung over, my dad had no choice but to talk to the police about it since they went way overboard.[/FONT][/QUOTE][font=helvetica]I'm glad he talked to the police. It's good to have a record of these things in case they escalate later. [/font]

[Shishou]

[COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="1"]We have an apartment complex next door and people are constantly moving in and moving out, which is fine with me as I like to observe the different habits each tenant has... anyhoo, two(?) - I can't say for certain since there are quite a few folk that go in and out- people moved in one of the top back apartments (nearest us) late summer. At first it wasn't too bad, one of the guys was a musician and would twiddle around on the balcony outside in the later evening, kinda cool to listen to. However, a week later they would be constantly outside, drinkin', talkin', whatever ya do, and if I or any of my family would be outside, they'd watch us, once in a while ask us somethin' silly/stupid out of the blue like, "That your dog?"
My response would then be, "Duh."
I personally don't like the apartment balcony being able to see into our backyard, or any of our yard for that matter. I like my privacy, but the kicker came a few days later when the other guy living there (think [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurley_(Lost)"]Hugo[/URL] from [U]Lost[/U] if you want to know what he looked like) began watching/looking in my room, especially during the evenings. The window is convenientlyright across allowing a perfect view inside. This really unnerved me and I began to keep my shades drawn whenever the sun began to set.
I've had this happen before, but not to this extent, and in such a bold manner...
Since it is Winter he hasn't been doing it, in fact I hardly see him outside at all; I'm just hoping in the Spring this doesn't start up again. o_O;;
Not sure what I'd do... brain him with a bagpipe maybe?[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]Family home is out in the countryside, so our nearest neighbour is about 500+ metres away at each side which along with the fact one of our neighbours are my uncle's family (and the one next to him is another brother) has meant there's never any issue. Only issue I've ever had is the cattle at night sometimes, but it's not that common.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=1]Live in an apartment block in the city for college currently having moved out of a house of three slobs and a slobby-germphobe (yeah, couldn't work out that one either). Generally quiet as I'm living in the post-grad/mature student block, only trouble that every occurs really is when the guys in the flat above come back at 2 am pissed out of their collective heads and singing made slightly better by the fact one of them can really sing well.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=1]So yeah, I've been fairly fortunate, no nightmare neighbours so far. *Touches wood*[/SIZE]

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]Is it a nightmare neighbor if it lives in the same roof? No?

Well unfortunately I've personally had some nice neighbors. Not counting neighborhood kids who used to hurl effing [size=10]ROCKS[/size] into our middle bedroom window just for fun.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[JCBaggee]

[color=darkred][size=1]I don't really have any horror stories about my neighbors. I've been pretty lucky, in that my neighbors mostly leave me alone and I mostly leave them alone, but that's my hermit-like nature talking. I do have one funny story though.

The lady in the apartment directly adjacent to mine lives alone (she is divorced, and all her kids are grown), and draws retirement. Or disability. I'm not really sure. Her kids usually come over in the evening to see her and take her anywhere she needs to go, as she doesn't have a car. I've lived in my apartment for just over three years now, and she was already living here when I moved in, so there's no telling how long this has gone on.

So, I never really spoke to her. But after I'd lived here about a year and a half, I'm watching TV one night and there's a knock on my door. I look through the peephole, and it's my neighbor. She tells me her son can't make it over here tonight, but she was wondering if I could run her to the store before it closes, because she has things she [i]needs[/i]. Things that she must get before the night ends.

Now, despite what you may have heard, I'm a pretty nice guy as it is, and regardless feel I should be on pretty good terms with the woman living adjacent to me, so I agree. It's a fairly short drive to the store, and she runs in while I wait in the car. She's in there about 10 minutes, before she comes out with her "necessities": A pack of Marlboro Reds and a case of Keystone Light. She explains on the ride back that it's to help cope with her mild depression, because she doesn't want to take a bunch of pills.

I still have never really spoken to her.[/color][/size]

[SunfallE]

[FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"][COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Our neighbor behind us will cut off branches and toss them back over, but they've never gone beyond those that were sticking over the fence.

The neighbor to the east of us used to be the worst. Until a few years ago we'd have cars showing up all night long. They'd stay around for about five minutes and leave. Naturally this got old since many of them would have really loud music playing.

One night when one of the kids came home their father stuck his head out the door and yelled that if the loud music didn't stop he'd never drive again. So that ended the horrible music but it didn't stop the constant cars coming around.

I was beginning to wonder if we should call the cops when it suddenly stopped. Found out later, when the cops stopped by to ask some questions, that the kid had been dealing drugs.

I don't know if they ever caught him or not, but since then it's been nice and quiet. Well other than the dogs in the back yard. They love to bark a lot. Fortunately they're quiet at night.[/COLOR][/FONT]