What to do about a bad neighbour?

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Poop on their lawn.

In front of the frontdoor has a better effect!

[ken0042]

The other thing I thought of- going down to the police station as opposed to calling them. It's one thing when the person calls on the phone for the patrol car to be busy; dismiss the call, etc. It's another thing when talking to the desk officer. Make sure you tell your friend to keep it "just the facts." Try to keep the emotions out of it a bit. Even have a log of things they have been doing over the past week.

[taco.vidal]

Setup some video surveilance cameras. You can get equipment for pretty cheap these days.

[Northendzone]

Can your employee and the other neighbour talk with the parents? As a parent I suppose
Ou could slough off one complaint, but two?

I never understand why some folks go out of thier way to be d!ckheads.......

[saskflames69]

Ask if they'll smoke you down. Then quickly grab their weed and show it to their parents. You might win A-Hole of the Year award, but if it shuts up some bad neighbors, so be it.

[Regular_John]

Effin move... I'm only 1/2 kidding, the drama caused in your home by bad neighbours is about on par with the pain involved in moving.

Having said that, the best bet is to document everything AND call it in. Yes the cops may get annoyed but at least they keep a record of every complaint. Then if it ever comes to a head (eg: big party, drug bust etc) there's a "paper trail" of previous behaviour/incidents to tie it back too.

[vektor]

I've always felt that the showing the house to people at a time when the problem isn't obvious is an equally bad thing to do. Getting a bunch of people involved to solve the problem is much better than tricking somebody else into it, I mean if this co-worker sells the house to a young family and it ruins their life that's a pretty dishonest thing to do.

Bylaws exist for this very reason, and if the kids are smoking pot I'd call child services. It has neurotoxic effects to anyone under the age of 21(ish) while the brain is still developing. There has to be some solution besides pinning it on another unsuspecting victim, my best advice is find one person that has authority and some empathy so they make it their cause. Once that happens it's out of her hands and progress can be made.

[Yakbutter]

Oh man don't call child services for a teenager smoking pot. Get a grip. Give it some time and they will chill out, don't do anything to aggravate them or stir the pot.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

underage drinking and pot smoking?

1. get a camera
2. call child services
3. no camera? call child services

As much as I can recall I thought that drinking with the consent of parents was legal. Also I thought there was nothing illegal about smoking pot, just possessing large amounts and/or dealing it. Lastly, just because they're a collective family of d-bags doesn't in any way mean the kids are being abused. Child services would be a really classless move, imo of course.

[Traditional_Ale]

Someone mentioned the Decibel 10 app. It's really awesome. Unfortunately it means they can measure their noise around the property and figure out exactly how loud is still legal. It's a lot louder than you'd expect.

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

As much as I can recall I thought that drinking with the consent of parents was legal. Also I thought there was nothing illegal about smoking pot, just possessing large amounts and/or dealing it. Lastly, just because they're a collective family of d-bags doesn't in any way mean the kids are being abused. Child services would be a really classless move, imo of course.

Yep, parents can give their children and only their children alcohol.

Who really knows what the marijuana laws are? I recall someone making a thread about being confused and even after reading it, I'm still confused onto what's legal in Alberta. I remember hearing small portions were decriminalized but still hear cops make people step on joints.

And calling child services is lame especially when I'm sure you'd just be wasting their time.

[Devils'Advocate]

http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/15/pf/b...bors/index.htm

"Neighbor disputes are a perennial problem," said Bob Borzotta, who created NeighborsfromHell.com, a Web site devoted to managing neighbor conflict.
...
If you've got a neighbor from hell, you can either learn to live with it, face it or move away, said Borzotta. One of the most disturbing things is that the bad guys usually win and are more likely to outstay good neighbors," he said.

I think this is what irks me the most. When good people suffer, and the bud guys win. This employee is a very good person and yet she's coming to work visibly upset and near tears on a regular basis.

Okay. Plan of attack.
1) Video surveillance.
2) Noise. Call the city to ask how to accurately measure the noise COMING FROM THE NEIGHBOUR. These apps seem to measure overall noise level, but not that which is attributed to a specific source. Also figure out how to record and log the incidents.

I thought about telling her to journal any incidents, but what can you really journal about broken flower pots. "Pots were broken". End of story. Also, how do you capture threats of violence coming from the kids? It would just be her kids word against theirs at this point. Maybe the best thing is to go to the police (as it was suggested... actually GO TO THE STATION) and ask THEM these questions - "How do I appropriately document this stuff?"

-==-=-=-=-
I know "move" is the easy answer. However, I don't like that... it just passes the problem on to whomever mistakenly buys the property and someone else suffers the same crap. If she does decide to move, I wouldn't hold it against her in any way... it just wouldn't be my choice.

[NBC]

The other thing to consider, as has been mentioned previously, is getting in contact with the landowner/landlord of the property. There is a good chance that if the tenants are acting in this fashion, they may not be looking after the property as well as they could. This is of prime importance to landlords. It isn't enough that the rent payments come in on time - you want to know that the people you have living at the property are respectful of both the property and the neighbours.

Your employee could frame her concerns such that they appear to be in the best interest of the landlord's property. She could mention that the fence has been damaged and there have been more instances of petty vandalism in the area and that she is concerned the occupants are not looking after the property as they should.

I've independently contacted a landlord here in the UK over some concerns I had with terrible neighbours. The tenant's boyfriend was dealing drugs out of the apartment. The police seemed reluctant to act, but the landlord was more than interested in what I had to tell him.

Regardless, best of luck with it.

[polak]

Really the only thing that is going on here is property damage.

The Pot and Drinking really doesn't affect your employee. The music isn't against the law and the bullying, while crappy, should be pretty easy to solve or at least avoid. Addressing those won't do anything to get them out of there.

I'd go after the landlord for the fence and while at that I'd mention the other things. If you can catch them on tape throwing the eggs, that would be great but you'll need to get a great shot of their faces/coming out of the house.

Frankly, if the landlord and video options don't work, I'd tell your employee to have a couple of her (preferably bigger) male friends to stop by next time there is a flare up and maybe scare some sense into those little d-bags. I'm not saying they should kick their ass or anything, just let them do the talking. Might make them think twice.

[troutman]

Start a Small Claims action for nuisance, and force them into mediation?

[NBC]

^ Is that something that is easily done?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by NBC

^ Is that something that is easily done?

Easily done, not easily won.

[albertGQ]

Just become a bad neighbor yourself

[polak]

Originally Posted by albertGQ

Just become a bad neighbor yourself

My dad took this strategy with some really irritating tenants that moved into their neighbours house a few years ago. Started blasting music, Calling bylaw services on them for parking their unregistered beater on the street and personally calling them out for stupid things like not cutting their grass. My mom was pretty embarrassed by this and looking back, it was pretty immature but it seemed to work. Within a month the beater was gone and within two months so where they.

I mean, it could have been a coincidence but they were happy with the result.

[Locke]

What you have to do is really ramp it up. Time for #### to get real.

Start by killing local wildlife. Start small with squirrels and chipmunks, even birds, then cut their heads off, impale the heads on pikes and start lining them up facing the house on their lawn.

If the reaction to that doesnt work then you'll have to work your way up to raccoons. I strongly recommend against using local wandering pets as you may begin to lose the neighbourhood PR battle at that point. But if you find a family of raccoons then what you do is impale their dismembered heads on pikes but be sure to include name-tags on each head and allot one head per bad neighbour.

That ought to get the point across.