When we lived in Brooklyn our house here in Cleveland was rented out. We rented it to a husband and wife from Michigan. The woman was prego and at first they seemed quite normal. And then the craziness happened. I could go on and on about how insane they were but I won’t make you experience what I did. In the end they ended up breaking their lease and buying the house directly next door. That’s right the Chef & I would be destined to live next to the crazies. When they broke their lease we had just found out we were expecting Biggie Smalls so we decided to move back to the heartland.
Within two months of being back in the Cleve our crazy ex-renter neighbors moved. They said nothing. They were just gone. A few months after that a family of four moved in. The boys were a little older than Catcher but they were super nice and loved including him in their play. Catcher had a blast. One summer day, I was in the front yard with Catcher and the boys. Their dad came home and asked me about the previous tenants. Turns out this family was renting the house from our old neighbors while they waited for their house to be built. That morning a man came and served them eviction papers. The house had been foreclosed and our ex-renters were illegally renting it out. I felt terrible for the family because they were three months away from moving into their house and now had to frantically search for a new place to live. Catcher was devastated because ‘his boys’ would no longer going to live next door.
Fast forward a year and the house is for sale. A bank buys it for half of the price it was bought for by my ex-renters. And then…a family moves in. A family with three boys. At first I was excited for my son. He would be able to play and run and spend the summer outside with his new friends. After their FIRST night in the house I knew that the scenario that played in my head would never happen. I would never allow him to play with those boys.
I was home by myself (shocker I know) and the kids. Biggie just fell asleep and the boy and I were hanging outside. I heard some yelling in the front yard and went to check it out. The neighbors were in the middle of the street chasing a car screaming ‘asshole‘. I was floored. This continued for quite sometime and at first I let it go. Then they moved on to yelling next to my house. Next to baby girl’s room. It was 9pm. I was getting aggravated pissed and concerned that baby girl would wake up. I stuck my head out of the house and politely asked them to be quite. They went into their house and I assumed it was over. Not even close.
They went into their house and started pounding on their windows. The windows are about 10′ away from my girl’s windows and I was getting really angry. They showed no signs of stopping.
I wrote the following five minutes after my first encounter with this family:
At that moment I became the woman who walks over to her new neighbors house to talk to the parents of the three rowdy ass kids that are bangin on my daughter’s window while she sleeps and chasing cars down the street all the while screming ‘asshole.’
Yep. I almost called the cops too. But my aversion to law enforcement overcame my jusdgement.
Seriously though. How the fuck do you let your 3 children (who are all under the age of 10) chase cars down the street? How the fuck do you not hear them banging on the windows for 5 straight minutes? How?
I walked over, rang the bell, and this neighborhood chick who hangs on the street answered. I asked if a paretn was home and her reply was ‘sort of.’ Well my little friend, get the parent to the fucking door before I start banging on YOUR windows. The mom, I think, maybe a girlfriend answered and told me that she couldn’t hear them because she was in the other room. Not quite sure but I am thinking they must have some kind of safe room in their house because I could hear those animals 1 lot over.
She assured me that they would shut the fuck up so my girl wouldn’t be woken up.
They did.
But now I’m the asshole who introduced myself to the new neighbors in a fit of rage for fear that my daughter wouldn’t get a full night’s sleep. Shit this summer is gonna be loooooooong.
Any readers need a house?
Since that day the boys have had the cops called on them numerous times. One time they decided to walk into someone’s house while the people were home. The people were old and they obviously thought they were getting robbed so they called the cops. Catcher has dubbed the boys ‘mad boys.’ He tries to say hi and they are mean to him. One day he told them he was a superhero and they told there were no superhero’s. He was absolutely devastated.
Last night was the clincher. The Chef & I were at an event and I left the kids with my fabulous sitter, Christa. At 9m she sent me this text: “I just had to yell at the mad boys next door. They’re little shitheads!” At 9.15pm I received this text: “They were spraying water into the windows at Catcher. Then one of them started to pee outside of his window.” Needless to say I lost my shit. I called home and Christa told me that Catcher was scared. I told the Chef and he told me to call the cops. My aversion to law enforcement was again prevailed and we headed home.
Last night was my breaking point with these animals. I understand that boys will boys. I get that. I am married to a boy. But I am not going to let my child be scared to play outside. I am not going to live in fear because some parents don’t know how to tell their kids to stop being assholes. I want Catcher to play in his neighborhood and I want him to have friends. Some of the Chef’s best friends are people he lived by when he was a child. Those relationships are important but you can bet your ass that my kids are not going to have any relationship with the above mentioned monsters.
Ugh! Shitty parents with evil kids suck!! Rocco gets teased by the neighbor kids, but it’s pretty minor and more often than not they’ll let him play with them (even though they’re quite a bit older). Did those people buy the house or are they renting it? If they’re rentingk you could always find out who owns them and report them if they’re damaging the house. Just a thought.
Shitty neighbors sucks. Home is supposed to be a refuge and now it adds stress to your life. We had similar neighbors, not next door, so we could just keep our distance. Their kids were older. Eventually the kids were arrested and put in jail then the parents moved away. Not a happy ending for them, but certainly quieted the neighborhood.
My family dealt with issues of shitty next door neighbor kids and I actually had to go to court when I was in the third grade to testify that I saw my version of “mad boys” slice our antenna wire on the house and throw paint through my bedroom window. That trauma still stays with me today. I sure hope the situation rectifies itself cause this is only the beginning of future felons.
We dealt with crappy neighbors in our last apartment – but it was more the parents as the kid was only like 4 and a sweetie. But his mom was amazingly horrible and had parties all night, her ever-rotating roster of boyfriends would trash our shared patio and that poor kid would cry for hours. I never, ever wanted to get involved but ended up calling the police who called CPS one night after it sounded like their party was going to come through our wall. I hated going home because I never knew who would be on the patio and more often then not there would be an assortment of 3-4 strange guys sitting out there smoking and drinking.
It’s such an awful and stressfull situation to be it and that is so not what you need right now!
“Boys will be boys” does not mean “boys will be assholes and should be tolerated as such”. You’re right to be angry. Sorry you have to deal with this!
We’ve been dealing with a similar situation for about a year – crappy renters next door with a couple of troublemakers. Fortunately, we have a huge field between our houses (which we own). I called the cops numerous times and felt like a total douche doing it, but what else can you do when kids are trying to start fires on your property? And chucking large objects at cars driving by? This story has a bittersweet ending – the kids were recently taken into foster care because heroin addict dad violated his probation and meth addict mom wasn’t up to the task of parenting either. Our problems are solved, but those kids don’t have a chance – not that they ever did . . . Sure has been quiet around here though!
Yeah, this is insane and is one of those cases where you have to call the cops to handle it. Obviously you cannot communicate with them because they are out of their mind, but alerting the police that these children are unsupervised and acting like lunatics is the only choice. Get 911 on speed dial!