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I've tried those things... It just made the music louder and the barking dogs (forgot that rule... guy behind me's dog barked through the entire inspection and the entire time I was looking this house... it didn't stop for 6 years until he moved, in a foreclosure... the new guy is a peach too) stay outside without whatever their problem was being addressed all that much longer.
I've learned that once you start down that road, you're engaging with straight up psychopaths. They know their music is loud and obnoxious and they know their barking dog is annoying (never mind neglected), they just straight up don't care. In my case, they seem to actually enjoy annoying other people.
Calling the cops doesn't work... One of my neighbors would blast her music and watch out the window the entire time for a patrol car to come down the street and then turn it off. The cops wouldn't hear it, so they wouldn't stop, and then it was right back to it! The one time the cops actually caught her resulted in A YEAR of that sort of crap almost non-stop. In regard to dogs, look into just how long it takes animal control to even look into the case of abuse for ONE dog, never mind a noise complaint. It just doesn't happen. There are blogs and videos on YouTube of people trying to get their neighbor's noisy dogs to shut up for YEARS. Most of those stories end up with one or the other of them moving.
You guys aren't really getting what I'm saying about the kids and the fires... But even with that said, the rules still stand IMO. If you're cool with whatever you see, fine, but you should always assume that what you see when you go to look at a house will be what you ALWAYS see. A fire burning means a fire 24/7 (which for me, starting in a couple of weeks, it will be for the next 6 weeks at least). Kids walking up and down the street not doing much of anything at 4pm WILL come back out at 4am.
Anyhow... if the beef is over the kids and the fires, then I guess everything else isn't too far off.
Well the law of karma would apply.... Eventually these psychopaths will come across another psychopath that will go further than merely calling the cops. There's always small claims court or a class action suit.
In my case the dogs are so bad that getting video and audio for legal action is very easy and the person question owns a number of businesses in town so it's not like they have no money to go after. I'll do what it takes. These people could also find themselves coming across someone who might go postal on them. When one psychopath meets another the results can be interesting.
I've found Larson interior storm windows have helped quite a bit. Part of the problem are old 1977 Anderson windows that still work great let in a lot of noise. Adding these Larson insider windows makes a substantial difference for only 10% of the cost of new windows and also adds a missing low e component to my windows. They can be hard to find but Menard's will custom order em. There's still the matter of enjoying my yard in peace.
Nobody makes big burn pits anywhere around here in town. They'd get fined pretty fast if they tried to burn plastics or rubber and dont live on an acreage. No roaming packs of kids, either. People around here are generally good people and probably a quarter of them work where I do which is the best place in town for pay. Aside from the dog barking it really is ideal to raise a family. I have to admit I have it good here.
My grandmother lives in an older, but generally well-kept neighborhood of 1960s ranches and tri-levels. A house at the end of that street on the connector road to the main highway is now for sale, and has cars on blocks, fridges and appliances in the yard, the landscaping is awful, etc.
That house is probably dragging down the value of nearby properties and causing people to think WTF.
Once again a mysterious definition appears. Either:
1. you completely failed to understand that mental illness and other mental impairments are part of the government's definition of 'disability' in this very important housing act that you are referencing or
2. you've posted this to help support my point that mental illness is protected by federal housing discrimination laws and therefore it's unwise for real estate professionals to be referring to people with mental problems as 'crazy' on a public forum.
Which of these two options is it? For the sake of consumers in your area, I do hope it's #2. But somehow I think it's unlikely that you would post something to support my point. Therefore, at this point, I'm extremely concerned.
what I googled and pasted was the Fair Housing Act. And you're right, mental illness has since been deemed one of the disabilities.
You seem to not understand what discrimination is though. I haven't conveyed any circumstance where I have, nor have I said I WOULD or even MIGHT personally discriminate. And for me, the discrimination is "will I serve a protected class?" - the answer is yes. It's not a comment on a message board where I say every neighborhood has some crazy people, be they obnoxious or mentally unstable.
I will list for sale or help any Buyer that is qualified, regardless of their status. Qualified = financially capable of the transaction, in case that term confuses you. I can't and wouldn't say, and don't care if there are black/gay/single/purple/wheelchair-bound/agoraphobic/schizophrenic that live next door or in the neighborhood. Or FAMILIES, which people ask about a helluva lot more than any of the other classifications!!
If the people who start these topics have any concern about what i say, I welcome their questions or concerns. Your stalking behavior, not so much. Go ahead and tell us from what experience you offer all your input, an go ahead and tell us what you do for a living - or retired from. At least provide some actual point of reference beyond your Ralph Nader impression of being such a consumer protectionist. Otherwise, the continued inanity is so super-tiresome that you've got other posters telling you to shut up, and you've taken some professionals able to capably answer questions and made them unwilling to participate lest you add your insufferable blathering.
O.P, what does the age of the nutty neighbor's camcorder have to do with anything? He's to be lauded for not running out and buying the latest, thus contributing to mindless consumerism. Yes, I'm serious.
* We're childfree, but own two noisy parakeets who can clearly be heard in the next house.
* Husband is a pianist, and practices frequently.
* Cat sits in windowsill, facing YOU.
* I drive a Vespa, and vroom-vroom it in the driveway, (also next to YOU) to warm it up.
* Our driveway has cracks in it! That's a visual offense!
* I ride a bike, and "drinng-drinng" the bell to let the Mr. know I'm home.
* We have a porch swing and sit on it, occasionally. Sometimes talking!
We solved the problem. Moved to a Sun City where there are rules and they are upheld. The powers that be are not obnoxious about it (No Nazis), but if a problem is brought to their attention it is dealt with.
And no kids so no loud music, motorbikes, crappy cars or trucks, etc. Yards must be kept up.
We moved away from a number of self-centered twits and their kidiots, a nut case next door, a slob behind us, all the usual stuff. The next door crazy was a real piece of work. We heard a bunch of noise one afternoon and went out front to see two fire engines and a few police cars. Went out back to see him with a fireman and two cops looking at his back yard.
Turns out he had a bunch of yard waste and wood from a big tree he cut down so he decided to build a bonfire on a postage stamp lot. Another idiot. This is the same one that barbequed next to his vinyl siding and wondered why it melted and caught on fire. The neighbors across the street had four young children and he had two. I never heard the whole story, but their kids were not allowed in his yard - ever.
On the other side the kids ran the house. Mom, dad, and the two kids would fight in the back yard over the dumbest stuff and the kids always won. We're talking an 8 and 10 year old.
One of the neighbors daughters baby sat for the family behind us. 3 times. She later told us his kids were so creepy she couldn't stand to be around them. Years later another neighbors daughter was asked out by the son and told us he was scary. The mother of those two told my wife once that she didn't know what to do about her daughter. Apparently there was a kid from a few blocks away that would come over. pull her daughter's pants down and touch her. WTH? Why aren't you watching your kids if this is happening? "I don't know what to do!" Good Lord.
When we first moved in we were building our deck and the neighbor next door was running all over the place. My wife watched for a couple of minutes and told me she had lost her kids. Sure enough she came over and asked if we had seen them. They were found a few hours later playing in a ditch. We lived at the edge of town then and the road west of us was dirt with corn fields on the other side.
Crack addicts/dealers that owned a delivery service for more than your standard packages. They lived around the corner. Heard they would clean house in the middle of the night, naked, with the blinds open. I think they are still in prison.
As someone said in another post, "They are everywhere."
My friend lives in a 60's neighborhood of nice ranch homes. His neighbor had tons of junk on his front lawn, and it was obvious he sold drugs as there would be traffic all hours of the night. There was really nothing he could do. Friend got sick of looking at the junk so he took pictures and posted it on Craiglist "free stuff on lawn, just take and do not ring doorbell as we work nights". So the yard got cleaned up that way. Still makes me laugh.
How about a twist? What if you yourself are the crazy one? Where do you live? :-)
We're all a little crazy, some more than others. Genetics combined with a rough upbringing and the fact that established personality traits are hard to change, like trying to learn a new language and divert a river, it takes repetition, discipline, and plenty of effort. The mind will tend to take the easiest, most used path... As a species we are only as good as the culture we are raised in, but this is a discussion best left for the philosophy or politics section.
It's amazing our society is as civilized as it is, actually, with all the conflicting personalities out there. I got a rep from someone that says they are rocking their outdoor speakers every evening. I don't care, lol.. as long as it's not done around my place. It reminds me of people who use their phones without headphones at the break room at work, or while out exercising. The only real reason to do so is to get other people to hear the music, since headphones provide much better sound quality than most phone speakers would get or outdoor speakers would provide at a volume level that wouldn't annoy neighbors.
People who speak loud on their phones trying to promote their importance to others.. it's like little kids who try to blast the speakers on their tablets while paying a game to get other people's attention because their game is so special. I used to do that with Zelda, A Link to the Past on the SNES when I was a kid. I understand the psychology behind it, lol.
These issues is why I'm more biased to support and wish I had a HOA versus not having one. I enjoy the restrictions. My bland, boring self likes restricting what other people can do, keeping them as bland and ordinary as me.
It was probably just a crazy person. However, I worked a case where one neighbor sued the other one - claiming that his neighbor was making it impossible to sell his house. These neighbors had many arguments during the years they lived next to each other and when one saw that his neighbor had listed his house for sale decided to take the opportunity to make his neighbor's life difficult. He made highly visible appearances and performed a variety of annoying behavior whenever a potential buyer was at the property. The judge threw the case out, no laws had been broken and the man had never left his own property for his activities. The judge explained that your neighbor has no duty to make your house attractive to buyers and that even if your house if for sale you cannot enforce a dress or behavior code on other people.
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