makuranososhi wrote:
KevinLA, I can relate. I've dealt with untrue public accusations that bordered on criminal instead of insulting. But if I had engaged them, it only empowers them. Take the power away from her to upset you, and she is just another drone passing by who does not impact your life.
M.
Sorry but this advice is easy to preach, tough to follow if you haven't been there. Neighbors from hell are very difficult to truly ignore, as they raise your stress level a great deal no matter how you decide to respond. In my case the "high road" is also the "high blood pressure road".
To the OP: I sympathize deeply with your frustration. But it sounds like you have it easy compared to me. For nine years I have lived next to white trash in an otherwise normal/OK neighborhood where people used to be cool with each other. You have one senior citizen giving you trouble? Try a whole clan, with three generations plus rotten foster kids. This b***h can't even raise her own kids right, yet she had the nerve to take on and further ruin kids from (other) bad homes. They constantly trespass on this property (owned by my family), disturb the peace, throw trash, cigarette butts, and in one case a jug of urine into my yard. When I have yelled at the kids (ages 8-18) to get out of my yard they give me a hard look and say "We're just getting our ball." (The ball that they've deliberately thrown over the fence for the 5th time in as many minutes.) I say "Well get it and don't come back" and this kid looks at me all thuggy and says "Well I'll have to come back if my ball goes in your yard again." His friends laugh and they slowly, arrogantly saunter away.
These were the early years of the harassment. I began calling the police when they did anything illegal. The police come and do nothing. "it's just kids" is their favorite line. Once in a while (I've called the cops about 12 times on this family) they would sympathize a little, tell me to get a no-trespass order and set up a surveillance camera so I can prove they did stuff. (Great, except I can't afford to put in a camera, and my family, who does not live in this house, refuses to let me put up No Trespassing signs which are necessary to make the no-trespass order effective.)
The last couple of times I called the cops I got a slightly more sympathy from them, because the cops now know what a rotten family they are. One of the foster kids, long a bully, turned 18 and quickly racked up two arrests, one for unarmed robbery and the other for selling weed. I thought I might have had them one night when one of their friends went hedge-surfing in our yard, throwing himself as hard as he could into and on top of the hedges about 15 times, damaging them severely. The cops came and caught him and made his dad pay restitution, but it turned out not to be anyone in the white trash family, just one of their friends from across town, so the white trash have still not paid for any of their actions.
The latest incident was when they tried to throw away their christmas tree but the trash guys wouldn't take it because it's technically yard waste. They decided to throw the dead tree on the sidewalk in front of my house instead. I saw it when I came home late one night, so I dragged it back in front of their house where it belonged. Next morning I found it jammed upside down into my hedges, and the as*hole who did it (big burly dude, middle generation, father of all the non-foster kids) was right there in his driveway working on his truck. I melted down in a semi-controlled way, where I still had some control over my actions but was ready to kill or be killed. I stormed outside, said "What the ______ is this ____" and grabbed the tree and hurled it at his feet. He exploded (although also in a semi-controlled way), telling me it wasn't his tree, that I was a fa***t and various other obscenities, and I replied in kind. We were very close to a fistfight, but I didn't want to go to jail over this piece of s**t so I disengaged. He continued to hurl insults as I walked back into my house (and, amazingly, complained bitterly about how often I call the cops on him - as if that is somehow my fault). So I called the cops on him again. I had to de-stress for a few hours at my local donut shop, so I didn't see the cops talk to him, but one cop who was sick of their BS assured me that he would talk some sense onto them and make them dispose of the tree. That was February and I haven't had to call the cops since, although the teenage kids all have cars now and park them on the sidewalk in front of my house and continue to disturb the peace and litter in my yard.
Now, until recently I had had a minor consolation factor: the driveway to my house is on the far side, away from their house. If I wanted to be outside without being in heckling range, I could stay near the driveway and they couldn't see me. (I get stressed if I can hear or see any of them, or if they can see me; all the blinds are routinely closed at my house for that reason.)
Now my consolation area has been ruined: more white trash, no relation to the original family, moved in on the other side of me, the driveway side. Tons of kids, again in that 8-15 age range, all little thugs wearing Tapout t-shirts and imitaion gold chains. There is a 6-foot fence beside the driveway that used to provide privacy. They installed a huge trampoline 6 inches from the property line, complete with basketball hoop so they can slam-dunk. Four or five kids bounce there pretty much all day, every day (unless it rains, something I have begun to hope for fervently). So they are looking down at me from four feet above the top of the fence. They are also fond of heckling me when I step outside. "Hey, nice shorts! Nice bike! How come you don't have any friends?" I can't work on my car, bike or garage now because those little s**ts will be right in my face yelling stuff. All of this is compounded greatly by the fact that my need for personal space is way bigger than most people's.
All these years I have tried to take the "high road", not resorting to violence, and calling the police when it got bad. But it is not a solution. There really isn't a solution. I would dearly love to napalm both houses, kill every single one of these as*holes. And the trouble with that is, I'll never do it, because my self-control is excellent. However my perseveration is quite bad and I sit and dwell on homicide and suicide fantasies for hours on end, unable to make myself move on and get on with my day. That can happen even if there is no current incident - I dread being and coming home. If I come home and all is quiet and I don't see any of the bad neighbors, I start to worry about when they will appear next, and how bad it will be. They are ruining my life, with some help from my Asperger's.
Makuranososhi, I understand you are a calm and sympathetic person but in this case your advice is truly useless. If you haven't been there, you just don't understand how badly this kind of harassment can impact the psyche.
I am moving out of this neighborhood soon, against my will and without a plan.
02 May 2010, 10:47 am
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