The neighbors from hell won

[I try to keep my posts short, but this one might take a while...]

It's been almost two years that we have rented our house. It's really nice and warm and the landlord is nice. The neighbors are not. Click here for more details from a past post.

The house sits on a corner lot. The house behind us has an older couple with their pot-smoking son (I know this because he works with Hubby and they all make fun of him at work.) who looses all sense of decibels when he's high. After several calls to Noise Control, plus one loud, rude call from his daddy to our house to tell us to leave his son alone, he mostly got the idea.

The house beside us is a different story. After many, many calls to Noise Control (NC) for music from the house and from the garage shed, plus a visit from the local Constabulary because he thought I was harassing him with my calls, Numnuts still doesn't understand that annoying the neighborhood is not acceptable.

The latest episode was an excuse for Numnuts to loose the small amount of self-control he ever had. He was working on his car with the nasty lyrics of music blasting away and, with my very low tolerance for that sort of thing, I called NC. Again. Now you have to keep in mind that there have been a few occasions that they were in the shed with music but I had no idea until I went out to hang clothes or put out the trash rubbish. That tells me that they know where the limits are on the noise. Maybe I'm wrong.  But as long as I don't hear it thumping my brain inside my house, I don't have a problem with it.

Anyway, I called. When NC left, Numnuts stood on his deck, which is about 20 feet away from our house, across the fence, and started yelling, 'Come on out, ya b*stards!' which, of course we did not do. Instead I called the police because that's what the cops told us we should have done the last time. [His grown kids were drinking on the deck one weekend and yelling racist things at the house and at Otterboy when he came in with a friend. It wasn't really loud, so we didn't think much about it until the next day when we went to the Stratford Police Department to make a complaint. We were told they have to be called while it's going on.]

So, I give them the details they need and am told that 'a car is on the way'. We waited. And waited. Twenty minutes later, we hear Numnuts with his chainsaw revving and revving on the deck. During that noise (which I really don't mind, btw, because it's not the thump, thump, thump of the bass on his music), he's yelling, 'Ya want noise? Here's some noise!' I couldn't help but giggle at his stupidity.

I call the police back and say that he seems to be threatening us with a chainsaw! I hear the lady writing and she calmly says, 'A car is on the way, Betty. There is no need for you to call us again.' HUH? Isn't it the job of the Stratford Police Department to 'protect'? Hello! It's a BIG chainsaw!

Well, they finally show up at Numnut's house and I watch through the window as two cops listen to him for about 15 minutes. Then they come to our door and 'explain' that he was frustrated with NC coming and that's why the chainsaw (no kidding).

They also tell us that we are the only ones that complain--which I find very hard to believe since the house on the other side of Numnuts is closer to his than we are--and that it's just a matter of our word against his so there's not much they can do.

Hrumph. Now what to do????

I think I mentioned that Missy decided that she didn't like any rules or being told that she's wrong, ever, so she went to live with her mom (H). A little while later, Otterboy decided to live with us. Seemed even, one kid at each house, right? Wrong.

With shared custody, it is even. With one kid at each house, it's not. Each parent can apply for child support from the other, which is based on income. 18% of your income, to be exact. Since Hubby makes a very nice income for his family, that 18% puts us in a bit of a financial bind. We pay about 28% income tax to begin with because of our tax bracket, but with the additional 18% taken out, you can figure it out for yourself that we get just over half of what he works so hard to make. A bit disheartening.

Well, we had been talking about moving to a cheaper house for a couple of months now, but Numnuts was the last straw. It seems that he was the catalyst for our getting on with moving, so we should probably thank him. But that's not going to happen.

Next week, we will be moving to a quieter neighborhood (at least, that's what the neighbor there said). We will be able to have a garden again, so that's a big plus. It will be nice to be outside again.

The neighbor from hell might have won this round, but I think it might actually be a tie.