Need advice about a crazy neighbor! (kinda long)

LauraMax

LauraMax

Cathlete
I moved to my new house specifically b/c the neighborhood was really quiet. But my neighbor is ruining it all! :(

He has some mental issues. I'm pretty sure he's OCD. He CANNOT STAND having leaves or water in his driveway. He sweeps his driveway at least 2X a day. When it rains he's out there every 30 minutes or so. He drags a giant trash can up & down the street picking up leaves & branches. He washes his car every other day, & he doesn't even drive it every other day!

So, the problem is his driveway is right below my BR window, about 20 feet from my head, & I like to sleep w/my windows open in the winter. I've already spoken w/him about his driveway activities. The first time was when I'd first moved in. He works for Comcast CS so it's odd hours, sometimes he gets home at 1 am. I had to stop him from sweeping his driveway at 1 am. :mad:

He still doesn't seem to get it. Yesterday he was out there doing God knows what at 6:30 am. Screen door slamming constantly, garage door slamming, sweeping, garbage can being dragged u[ & down the driveway, puttering around in the garage. On a Sunday! I shut my windows & I wasn't shy about it, so he screamed "GROW UP!" from his garage. This morning it was 5:30 am, & I'd had insomnia last night. Now I'm getting really steamed! (not to mention really exhausted)

I'm just at a loss. I work some pretty long hours & I depend on the w/e to catch up on my sleep. Asking him for courtesy hasn't seemed to make much of a difference. I don't think calling the police would help--I'm pretty sure the noise ordinance only covers sounds over a certain decible level. I don't know what else to do, other than pray that he moves soon.

Has anyone else ever dealt w/this successfully? :confused:
 
I don't have any advice for you, just wanted to tell you I'm in the same boat-maybe worse. Our neighbor has some mental problems, too. She sits outside all day during the spring , summer, fall and cuts her lawn with scissors! All while talking to herself about conspiracies, etc. She's claimed that there are cameras in her faucets, people are spying on her, etc. SHe has six inches of standing water in her basement! She had sod laid a few years ago, but never waters it. She lets the backyard grow to about 4 feet. She lives alone, no one ever visits her. I've called protective services, the police, the city zoning board. I had the police come out at 11:00 at night one night because she was at the curb, dressed all in black, cutting the grass. Someone could have totally run her over. They made a report and then I never heard from them again. The city will come out and cut her grass when it gets really tall, against her will, and then put the charges on her tax bill. She doesn't work. She has no garbage pick-up, no phone, no air conditioning. She never opens a window. She's emaciated.

It's frightening! I worry about my husband cutting the lawn and having his back turned to her and letting the kids play outside alone is out of the question-we never know when she's gonna snap. And if we ever try to sell our house, it'll have to be in the winter when no one sees her outside. And the irony? My husband is a landscape designer.

I wish you a lot of luck. It's very difficult to get these kinds of problems resolved. I wish she'd get foreclosed on. At least then, we could mow her lawn and not live in fear.
 
Nope, no success here. We've been dealing with HORRIBLE upstairs neighbors that are most certainly on drugs, up all night, have friends coming in and out all of the time. They're out on the porch smoking and chattering and carrying on constantly (day and night). They're always fighting and breaking things (so we have glass raining down on us from the porches every freaking day!!)

We also have 24 hour construction/destruction happening right across the street at a mall. We're talking the whole shebang here, forklifts, demolition, a caravan of trucks scraping up rubble, backing up (they do 90% of it from 10 pm to 10 am., because they don't wan to disturb the people shopping during the day. It's a nightmare!

AND... more than that, our apartment complex has started a nightly trash pick up service. Starting at 9 pm, they pay a company top dollar (well, we do now) to pick up our trash and take it to our own trash dumps and compactors. Well, ours is less than 20 feet from our window. So from 9 pm to 1 am every single night, we have a bunch of jerks throwing trash, running the compactor, driving huge trucks, and not being shy about conversing as loudly as possible over the noise of the compactor and trucks.

After three months of torture and complaints that got us nowhere, we finally broke our lease and found a new place. It was our only option. I already have severe anxiety and sleep issues and this put me over the edge. I think I can officially be considered insane now. We move in two weeks and I can't wait to get out of this he!!hole!

I'm sorry you're going through this. People creating the chaos have no concept of what they're doing, because nobody is doing it to them!!!!! It's maddening. I understand, but I'll be the first one to tell you there is nothing you can do about it legally. And if he has OCD, that's much stronger than any reasoning you can do with him. :( I think praying may be the only option.
 
Jeez, & I thought I had problems! :eek:

Klaudia, your story is almost identical to one we had in the town I work (except our dear old gal also had 5 dogs who crapped all over her house--she never cleaned it up--& she had a pretty serious rat problem as well). When her neighbors cut her grass she always called town hall screaming about some long gone lilac bush that they'd allegedly hacked down. I had to hang up on her once when she started singing me lullabies in French. We did manage to get her into an assisted living home only after her water was shut off (at that point it became a health issue so we had the legal right to ship her out). Maybe there is hope for you........
 
I think perhaps every neighborhood has a bad seed. I have a neighbor almost identical to yours Laura and it sucks. And in our last neighborhod, we had a neighbor like your old one too (cat crap all over the house, dirty malnourished kids, etc...)

I have no advice b/c I am very afraid to speak my mind to people...I just dont trust people around my kids these days.

hey why not try getting even some how? at least it might be fun!!
 
Clarissa said:
hey why not try getting even some how? at least it might be fun!!
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Hmmm interesting you mention that b/c I happen to know for a fact he's been perusing my Comcast account without my permission (he says to me over the fence one day: "you cancelled Fios & went back to Comcast!" I say, "how did you know?" He says, "oh, I just happened to take a look at your account." What the fudge?).

Also he keeps stuffing his leaves & branches into the storm sewers. Causes street flooding & pretty bad ice in the winter. It's also a violation of DEP regulations.

But do I want that kind of kharma?
 
Nah just kidding, but start thinking - there has to be something you can do. This guy is a real creep. Dump a big bag of leaves in his yard. Oh wait, he will be up till 3 am raking them up. UGH - OCD people aren't so bad but this type of OCD really gets to me. They like to be so perfect to a fault. (I am OCD myself having a real obsession with symmetry in my own house so I can understand, but GEEZ.)
 
I think people are weird like that. We had neighbors like that once before. Their last name was Jones so they lived up to their name nicely, I might say. I never tried to keep up with them. Thought they were nuerotic. I tried to be nice and rake my leaves so much that I hurt my wrist from doing so so much because I knew it bothered them to have my leaves blow in their yard..they would pretty much tell me so in a rather nice way. lol. If I had to do it all over again, I would let the leaves blow and look out the window and "raise a toast to them". Life is too short and not everything can be perfect 24/7 and people will only end up wearing themselves out trying to keep up. Kinda silly.
 
you could start blowing your leaves into his driveway since that seems to drive him nuts.....
 
I sometimes think about moving and getting closer to people. I forget how hard it is living in a neighborhood. I won't move any time soon even if my life depended on it!

Although I don't have any suggestions for you Laura, I want to thank you for making me understand that I'm fine here just the way it is. So sorry you have to put up with a butthead, such as your neighbor.

Janie
 
Hi Lauramax,

Is this the neighbor that was peeking in your basement window while you worked out? If so, that's a whole different kettle of fish, but in my experience, neighbor wars never work. No one ever "wins." It just becomes just a big escalating pissing contest. If the guy is OCD, he cannot stop what he's doing w/o a LOT of effort and he's not going to put out that kind of effort for someone he dislikes. My suggestion is do some yard work yourself while he's outside and say, "Look, I'm sorry we kind of got off to a bad start here. I was cranky the other morning because yadda, yadda, yadda..." It may have never occurred to him that you sleep with the window open! What's he interested in--besides leaf sweeping? He's probably a collector or self taught expert on something. Ask him about what it's like to work at Comcast. How long he's lived in the neighborhood? What trees shed the most leaves?! Anything innocuous will do.

As background for this suggestion, I have a DS (11 yo) with significant learning and social issues (aspergers and adhd) and I'm convinced that when many adults look around and say, "We didn't have all these special needs kids when I was a child." Well, actually we did, and they've grown up too and are the crappy neighbors and workmates of today because they never got the help they needed. His telling you to "Grow up!" is kind of revealing, because it's such an out of place response to what you said. I bet he's been told that a lot because of his inappropriate behavior over the years.

So maybe he "ought" to be able to tell that he's being an obnoxious neighbor. Well, he can't tell and I'm willing to bet he's NOT doing it just to piss you off. He just doesn't know better and he's not going to stop just because you yell at him. Yeah, he could probably get fired for looking at your Comcast account improperly, but IMO, that was likely a lame attempt to "get to know you." Do you really want an out of work OCD neighbor mad at you? Some extra understanding and kindness can't hurt and if it helps, Yay!

BTW, the neighbor who talks to herself and cuts her lawn with scissors probably can't afford the medicine she needs for her mental health issues. She's more likely to die of malnutrition than hurt anyone. I'm surprised there isn't a social welfare agency that doesn't look in on her.

JMHO.
 
I have no suggestions for you but I think the guy might be my ex-neighbor!:p We had one just like that. He was always washing his car and picking up leaves. We have a tree that sheds a lot for a few weeks out of the year and he put up a little fence like thing to keep the leaves off his yard. He didn't just wash the car, he dismantled parts of it and cleaned the inside of the bumper and hub caps and vacuumed it every day. Luckily our bedroom is on the other side of the house so the noise was not an issue. Anyway he moved about three years ago. (to Oregon so I guess it's not your guy) A young guy bought the place and lives there with a few roommates. They are very friendly, surprisingly quiet and the keep the place up real nice. Maybe you will get lucky too.

The Comcast thing is kind of disturbing. Maybe you can contact the company. I'm pretty sure employees are not supposed to be snooping around in people's accounts.
 
Jonahnah,

We can't figure out how she pays her mortgage, let alone medication. Our situation has been going on for six years. We've always tried to be helpful-my husband has offered to mow her lawn, etc. But it's been escalating every year. And I can't figure out why Social Services hasn't come out either. I know I should be understanding, but after 6 years of it, I'm gettting frustrated. This summer our neighbors told us she was in our driveway, screaming at our house when we weren't home. It's scary!
 
Well, unfortunately you aren't going to be able to make this guy change his ways.

Any possibility of moving your bedroom to the opposite end of the house?
 
jonahnah said:
Hi Lauramax,

Is this the neighbor that was peeking in your basement window while you worked out? If so, that's a whole different kettle of fish, but in my experience, neighbor wars never work. No one ever "wins." It just becomes just a big escalating pissing contest. If the guy is OCD, he cannot stop what he's doing w/o a LOT of effort and he's not going to put out that kind of effort for someone he dislikes. My suggestion is do some yard work yourself while he's outside and say, "Look, I'm sorry we kind of got off to a bad start here. I was cranky the other morning because yadda, yadda, yadda..." It may have never occurred to him that you sleep with the window open! What's he interested in--besides leaf sweeping? He's probably a collector or self taught expert on something. Ask him about what it's like to work at Comcast. How long he's lived in the neighborhood? What trees shed the most leaves?! Anything innocuous will do.

As background for this suggestion, I have a DS (11 yo) with significant learning and social issues (aspergers and adhd) and I'm convinced that when many adults look around and say, "We didn't have all these special needs kids when I was a child." Well, actually we did, and they've grown up too and are the crappy neighbors and workmates of today because they never got the help they needed. His telling you to "Grow up!" is kind of revealing, because it's such an out of place response to what you said. I bet he's been told that a lot because of his inappropriate behavior over the years.

So maybe he "ought" to be able to tell that he's being an obnoxious neighbor. Well, he can't tell and I'm willing to bet he's NOT doing it just to piss you off. He just doesn't know better and he's not going to stop just because you yell at him. Yeah, he could probably get fired for looking at your Comcast account improperly, but IMO, that was likely a lame attempt to "get to know you." Do you really want an out of work OCD neighbor mad at you? Some extra understanding and kindness can't hurt and if it helps, Yay!

BTW, the neighbor who talks to herself and cuts her lawn with scissors probably can't afford the medicine she needs for her mental health issues. She's more likely to die of malnutrition than hurt anyone. I'm surprised there isn't a social welfare agency that doesn't look in on her.

JMHO.
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Same house, different guy. I think the one peeking in my window is his boarder (or son, but I can't imagine this guy actually found someone to bear his child). I think that guy lives in his basement (yet another violation of local ordinances).

Actually we got off to a pretty good start. And in some ways I appreciated his nosiness b/c I live alone & it made me feel more secure. I never really yelled at him, I just saw him outside one day & asked him to limit his driveway activities to daylight hours. I'm pretty sure he knows I sleep w/my windows open b/c YOU CAN SEE THEM 15 FLIPPIN FEET AWAY!!!! :p I don't think he's doing it to piss me off, however I've made it clear (politely & reasonably) that sometimes work keeps me out late & I really need my sleep. It appears he's just incapable of stopping!

I don't know that he's interested in anything else. I seriously have never seen him do a thing other than putter around in his driveway. Oh, & he has a habit of swerving into the oncoming lane to stop & pick up debris from the street. He walks w/a severe limp & rumor has it it's b/c he got hit by a car during one of these excursions.

This guy is so nutty he actually had an entire thread dedicated to him on our local message board. The title was "P----- Avenue's One-man Sanitation Crew." :rolleyes: Evidently disturbing me isn't his only habit. He walks our neighborhoods & has apparently pulled out some people's plants & shrubbery b/c he didn't like the aesthetics. He even took our neighbors across the street to court b/c he didn't like their garden. Like I said, he has some real problems.

Bizybee, my only 2 BRs are on the same side. No relief there. :(

And you know what's funny? When I first met him I told him I was looking at the house b/c the neighborhood was quiet. He told me it was the quietest neighborhood in town. LMAO! Maybe it will be once he moves away!
 
I have one for you

I'm very fortunate. I live in a small town and in a quiet neighborhood. I do feel for you and anyone that has to deal with anyone like that.
(I live next to an alley) and just next to that is a small church. A couple of years ago they decided to do construction on the church and work on the parking lot. Needless to say our entrance to the back of our house was completely blocked off as well as cars were parked EVERYWHERE.
I was woken up at 6:00 a.m. by the preacher who on a blowhorn said "Welcome brothers and sisters to our gathering," and proceeded to do a prayer over the loudspeaker waking up the neighborhood.

The police showed up because someone must have complained.
 
Well - If you want to fight then be prepared for anything this whack job might do....If he is already messing with your cable account then he has the capacity to really go off the deep end.

Check your county ordinances on noise control. Or check your property covenants. If there are ordinance on noise and he is violating them then call 911 every single time a violation occurs. Be prepared to set up video recording cameras around your property because there is a great chance he will try to vandalize your property and you will catch him in the act of violating the noise ordinances. It's a lot of work and will take a great part of your time to fight him.

If it's not worth the fight then just close the windows and grin and bear it. Not a fun option either. You could always resort to high school antics and blow your lawn clippings in his direction and just be as annoying as he is.

There is no real good answer to this situation. Sorry.
 
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