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Half of your complaints have to do with neighbor issues that happen in any neighborhood and not crime and safty related.
A garage band...yeah we have kids here that have one too... At least they are at home and they are pretty good students. So I went and TALKED to the parents, I asked if they could not play after 10pm since we have younger kids. Not an issue done.
Same with the people behind us with security lights... I went and TALKED to them and explained that they shined right in our living room. SO we worked together to change the angle (since she was scared at night) so that they could be on but not directly in our window.
Older kids on nice evening will walk around the neighobrhoods...happens in the GATED neighborhoods as well. MS kids can't drive so if a bunch of kids are running around and TP or Forking friends yards etc...most of the time its in good fun not holigans.
EVEN in the super nice gated communities in Keller and Southlake you will have vandleism. Bored kids will do that no matter what thier socio-econmic status is.
Maybe if they had a garage band they owuldn't have time to be vandles.
I think your view on older kids and what they what they do will will change when you have teenagers. I still chuckle at my old neighbor whose house was at the busstoop and would come out and yell at the kids for playing in the yard or "messing-up" the snow before her dear one could get to play. Flashforward... dear little one he became the biggest trouble maker in the neighobrhood...opening peoples gates to let dogs out, breaking branches off of trees, throwing rocks at the street lamps etc...
People in glass houses should not throw stones. Becareful when you cast that first stone. Karma is a boomerang.
You made it sound like an inner city crime infested ghetto. It's not plain and simple. Just go over on any given Friday or Sat night to Southlake Town Square now that the weather is warm.... you will find TONS of swarming 12-14 years running amok without parents...destruction of property yep...remember the cows? Only difference all these have money in thier wallets.
I can't believe you consider the items we've been discussing to be normal. ALL of my complaints are crime related...and we didn't even get into the kids both buying AND selling drugs in the community (yes, kids have been seen selling, it's not just adult drug dealers coming in for an evening, hawking their wares, and leaving). I have gotten the cops involved in ALL of my complaints; it never permanently resolves anything around BCV, and sometimes doesn't even temporarily resolve anything.
I talked to the people behind me about the lights every time they were on past 10 PM. Every time my baby woke up crying because he thought it was daytime and he should get to play, every time we couldn't sleep because it was possible to read a book in our bedroom with every light in the house off, I would go and ask them to turn the lights off. Each time I would politely ask them if they could turn them, tweak them, re-aim them, anything to get a more permanent resolution..."we will keep an eye on it" was the only reply I ever got. Besides, how do you tackle the issue when they leave the lights on and then go away for the weekend? Too many people just don't care, and they're breaking the law while not caring.
The noise level the kids produced was breaking the law, at any hour. There are multiple military personnel living in BCV, some of which would have to work shift work, which means sleeping odd hours. Maybe most people don't think about it that way, but disrespecting folk like that is unacceptable to me, and I can't believe it WOULD be acceptable to ANYONE! Not to mention I know multiple people who work from home and have to deal with it too. Say you had a young cubicle neighbor at an office job who wanted to listen to their loud radio while you were on a conference call in the cube next to them. Would any customer, or manager for that matter, ever find that OK, or would it be acceptable because "they're young, kids will do what they do"? Another example of people not caring, and breaking the law while not caring.
ANY amount of vandalism is also unacceptable in my book. Do you really not have an issue with it? Would you put a sign in your front yard asking all vandals in the neighborhood to keep the damage only to your property, and ask them to refrain from damaging anyone else's? Or is it just OK because the damage is spread around so nobody has to pay TOO much out of their own pocket for adolescent idiocy? I could understand if it's people from other communities coming through tearing things up, because they don't have to live with it...but it's the BCV neighborhood kids whose parents seem to not care who are performing these costly feats. I know a few parents in BCV who DO care, who keep track of their kids, who do what they can to make sure their kids aren't committing crimes and are generally staying out of trouble. It seems to be the parents who either don't care at all, or care more about themselves, that just stay home and watch TV while the kids do whatever they want, or just go out and leave their hooligans unattended. Call my language blunt if you like, but it's not inaccurate.
Another item I never mentioned was the hooligans directly attacking my house after I caught them red-handed breaking the law and reported them to their parents. Shortly after being reported, they threw rocks right at the front of my house, causing damage I had to pay for. The parents didn't care...sure, they got upset as I was reporting the kids the first time, but it didn't stop them from letting their hooligan kids run around unattended almost moments later. An extreme example of parents not caring, but it's by no means a sole example. I think it's a huge shame since it's their kids they're not caring about, and they're not caring that their kids are breaking the law.
EVERYTHING I listed was crime-related, and I know communities nearby who do not have these issues. Which also tells me it's the quality of neighbors we have in BCV, since it's not people from outside the community, it's people that live there. I KNOW it's not everyone...heck, it's even a small percentage of the population in the community, but this small percentage of idiots is causing a major amount of issues. As I mentioned in my original reply, I am now in the Chicago area, and I have none of these problems. Except for a few bright, shining stars for examples, I'm glad my ex-neighbors are not my current neighbors...and I'm sure more than one feels that way about me, since I hold people to a higher standard (of lawfulness) that they refuse to adhere to. I have never asked for anything more than for people to obey the law, and never complained for anything besides laws that were broken...not even community standards that were not kept, like sheds or overgrowth or anything of the like.
I have never lived in such an environment in all my decades of life, and I never will again. When I grew up, and where I grew up, that kind of behavior was entirely unacceptable, AS IT SHOULD BE! ANY amount of law breaking is wrong. It should be stopped, and people should NOT consider it OK because they think "it happens everywhere". I can tell you from experience, it does NOT happen everywhere, and until BCV residents turn their attitude around, pay more attention, and stop these people from doing whatever they want, whenever they want, it will only get worse.
I can't believe you consider the items we've been discussing to be normal. ALL of my complaints are crime related...and we didn't even get into the kids both buying AND selling drugs in the community (yes, kids have been seen selling, it's not just adult drug dealers coming in for an evening, hawking their wares, and leaving). I have gotten the cops involved in ALL of my complaints; it never permanently resolves anything around BCV, and sometimes doesn't even temporarily resolve anything.
I talked to the people behind me about the lights every time they were on past 10 PM. Every time my baby woke up crying because he thought it was daytime and he should get to play, every time we couldn't sleep because it was possible to read a book in our bedroom with every light in the house off, I would go and ask them to turn the lights off. Each time I would politely ask them if they could turn them, tweak them, re-aim them, anything to get a more permanent resolution..."we will keep an eye on it" was the only reply I ever got. Besides, how do you tackle the issue when they leave the lights on and then go away for the weekend? Too many people just don't care, and they're breaking the law while not caring.
The noise level the kids produced was breaking the law, at any hour. There are multiple military personnel living in BCV, some of which would have to work shift work, which means sleeping odd hours. Maybe most people don't think about it that way, but disrespecting folk like that is unacceptable to me, and I can't believe it WOULD be acceptable to ANYONE! Not to mention I know multiple people who work from home and have to deal with it too. Say you had a young cubicle neighbor at an office job who wanted to listen to their loud radio while you were on a conference call in the cube next to them. Would any customer, or manager for that matter, ever find that OK, or would it be acceptable because "they're young, kids will do what they do"? Another example of people not caring, and breaking the law while not caring.
ANY amount of vandalism is also unacceptable in my book. Do you really not have an issue with it? Would you put a sign in your front yard asking all vandals in the neighborhood to keep the damage only to your property, and ask them to refrain from damaging anyone else's? Or is it just OK because the damage is spread around so nobody has to pay TOO much out of their own pocket for adolescent idiocy? I could understand if it's people from other communities coming through tearing things up, because they don't have to live with it...but it's the BCV neighborhood kids whose parents seem to not care who are performing these costly feats. I know a few parents in BCV who DO care, who keep track of their kids, who do what they can to make sure their kids aren't committing crimes and are generally staying out of trouble. It seems to be the parents who either don't care at all, or care more about themselves, that just stay home and watch TV while the kids do whatever they want, or just go out and leave their hooligans unattended. Call my language blunt if you like, but it's not inaccurate.
Another item I never mentioned was the hooligans directly attacking my house after I caught them red-handed breaking the law and reported them to their parents. Shortly after being reported, they threw rocks right at the front of my house, causing damage I had to pay for. The parents didn't care...sure, they got upset as I was reporting the kids the first time, but it didn't stop them from letting their hooligan kids run around unattended almost moments later. An extreme example of parents not caring, but it's by no means a sole example. I think it's a huge shame since it's their kids they're not caring about, and they're not caring that their kids are breaking the law.
EVERYTHING I listed was crime-related, and I know communities nearby who do not have these issues. Which also tells me it's the quality of neighbors we have in BCV, since it's not people from outside the community, it's people that live there. I KNOW it's not everyone...heck, it's even a small percentage of the population in the community, but this small percentage of idiots is causing a major amount of issues. As I mentioned in my original reply, I am now in the Chicago area, and I have none of these problems. Except for a few bright, shining stars for examples, I'm glad my ex-neighbors are not my current neighbors...and I'm sure more than one feels that way about me, since I hold people to a higher standard (of lawfulness) that they refuse to adhere to. I have never asked for anything more than for people to obey the law, and never complained for anything besides laws that were broken...not even community standards that were not kept, like sheds or overgrowth or anything of the like.
I have never lived in such an environment in all my decades of life, and I never will again. When I grew up, and where I grew up, that kind of behavior was entirely unacceptable, AS IT SHOULD BE! ANY amount of law breaking is wrong. It should be stopped, and people should NOT consider it OK because they think "it happens everywhere". I can tell you from experience, it does NOT happen everywhere, and until BCV residents turn their attitude around, pay more attention, and stop these people from doing whatever they want, whenever they want, it will only get worse.
Dartag, I am so sorry that you are going through this horrible experience in your neighborhood, and you're right- this sort of behavior from neighbors should not be considered ok because it happens everywhere, because it doesn't happen everywhere. I don't know anything about this subdivision but is it by chance a brand new starter home tract type of community? A lot of articles have been written about them that are not very positive for their long term success.
DARTAG--there are two kinds of complaints from what I read--
those where you complain about activities that seem to break city ordinances about excessive noise, trespassing, damage to private property, statutory rape --
and those that you filed with police-- none--
if you have these problems why haven't you called the police?
we lived in Bedford for over 20 years and the house across the street from ours changed hands several times during those years...at one point it was bought by two gay guys (which was not the problem) who ran a real estate business buying/renovating/selling homes--
one of the guys had been married previously and had two YA sons who came to live with them...
the YA sons turned out to be really noxous---
they (from observing actions/hearing gossip) were selling drugs out of the house to other YA and high schoolers,
they had loud parties where 12 cars would be parked on both sides of the street for 3 days running w/o moving--against the HOA regs--
when their neighbor to the rear (the one most disturbed by the loud music/lights) complained first to them and then to the police they would throw rocks across the fence into neighbors' yard
when the rear neighbors finally started telling other people in adjacent homes who were mainly bothered by the parked cars and not noise (since our bedrooms faced away from the party area) and WE started called the police as well complaining about noise/party after 1AM--they became even more beligerent...
One 3-day party weekend--the police came out three times--the third time, one of the boys was drunk...he stepped outside the front door on to the porch and pushed the police officer's shoulder while telling him to go away...
he was promptly taken into custody, in cuffs, and parked in the back seat of the cruiser...
one of his drunken friends stepped out of the house complaining about that and was promptly arrested, cuffed, and placed in same backseat for being drunk in public...
The rest of the crowd got the message then--and because they were afraid of being arrested for being drunk in public or DWI--they closed down the party music but stayed inside until about 3 pm the next day before they left...
After that the guys lowered the price on the house to a reasonable amount (they had it up for sale but really overpriced because of all the work they put in) and they moved out to another house they were working on and left that one vacant until it sold...
so my take--you have crummy neighbors anyway--call the police--document ever incident that interferes with you personally--take out a peace bond/court order if you have to and get some video surveillence going (can be done pretty inexpensively if you have a home computer already) to document areas of your home/yard...
make them want to move....
if you have a neighborhood HOA surely that can be voice of unified concern--you can't be the only neighbor who finds this behavior a problem--most people complain about HOAs being unreasonable for variety of reasons--but this type of situation is exactly what HOAs are supposed to help prevent/contain/stop...
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