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Old 10-21-2015, 05:08 PM
 
1,865 posts, read 2,208,176 times
Reputation: 3032

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My neighbors love us. We bought a short-saled house in 2012 and have been told the horror stories of the former owner and tenant (the mother of his baby). Apparently he had leery eyes about any female above the age of 12, their dogs terrorized the neighborhood, and the ex-girlfriend called the cops on several neighbors for stupid reasons. They were horrible people and the owner scammed donation money from police and fire departments.

We became friends with our neighbors since the day we moved in. One neighbor is 71 years old to the left of me and the other neighbors are a married couple in their early 50s with two kids in high school. We share meals, brew beers, work on the cars, work on our houses, and celebrate each other's birthdays. All 7 of our birthdays are within an 6 week span. We are as politically opposite as it gets, but we get along and look out for each other.
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Old 10-21-2015, 05:54 PM
 
6,192 posts, read 7,322,703 times
Reputation: 7569
Quote:
Originally Posted by seain dublin View Post
Well the OP needs to look at what they're doing wrong.

Before you buy or even rent you visit the area at different times of the day and night. Weekdays and weekends and see what is going on. Pay attention to what you see, is it quiet. Check out the local supermarket, the stores.

Clearly they don't do that.
^This.


I live in a pretty nice neighborhood in the city. Like others said, 300K is all relative---if I saw a house for 300K, it would be in the ghetto---you can't even buy a piece of empty land in my neighborhood for anywhere near that price. I own an apartment in a building but down the street from me are multi-million dollar homes that I could never afford.

That being said, because I have lived in this area all of my life, I know which specific blocks I would never live on because for whatever reason, they attract a specific element. Yeah, the neighborhood is for the most part very nice and very safe but there are a few blocks that are sketchier, dirtier, noisier, have a touch of drug action, etc.
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Old 10-21-2015, 06:18 PM
 
579 posts, read 518,677 times
Reputation: 2117
I've said this on other threads but the solution to loud music neighbors is...

loud music.

But not just any loud music. Classical. OPERA! Wagner, Ride of the Valkries.

It never fails. After five to ten minutes the other offending party shuts down and then you can shut down. Very few repeat offenders. After all they can't very well complain that your loud music is drowning out their loud music. Gone is the BOOM, BOOM BOOM.

This also works well at much lower levels for creeps hanging out around your back fences. Drove some teenagers away with some lovely La Traviata recordings.
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Old 10-21-2015, 08:06 PM
 
Location: 48.0710° N, 118.1989° W
590 posts, read 711,187 times
Reputation: 884
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tac-Sea View Post
It seems there is always one neighbor that just blows, and the vast majority of the time, they are renters. I say this after having lived in three houses I own.

1) The ghetto renters who's son did drugs in the alley behind my house, littered it with trash so thick you could barely see the ground. Loud music, stolen cars from their "friends" left in the alley.

2) So I moved...into a neighborhood of 300K houses. Only to find that half of them are renters, and one especially, is a section 8 renter that is absolutely disgusting, loud and obnoxious. There are some 10 people living in the house and the city and the feds do nothing, even though I've complained. Well, actually, they did finally come down on the landlord but it wasn't the many complaints so much as my offering to write an article for the media about the slums our tax dollars are creating. Why do section 8 people get to live in a 300K house? So they can have a house to live in that they can be proud of?? What is there to be proud of, without tax payer funded assistance, you wouldn't be living in that house, it is not yours and you can't really afford to rent it.

Where I live now there are neighbors who don't follow the rules of the HOA at all, loud music, cars parked on lawns, etc., and the HOA does nothing.

So I'm considering down sizing back into #2 above. It is closer to work, entertainment, transit, no HOA and I was having luck with the city getting the section 8 house cleaned up a bit, and not on a busy street like #1, which has neighbor issues on top as pointed out.

The only saving grace it seems, is that people eventually move on. #1 house above I've owned for 5 years and neighbors on 3 out of 4 sides of me have changed in that time, and are about to change again on one side.

# 2 house had a rental across the street, that is now owner occupied, and the neighbor two houses down who played loud music all the time sold recently. The hoarders on the left of that house got foreclosed on and moved out, and now there is a renter there, though they seem far better than the people who lived there previously.

So basically, it seems that bad neighbors are everywhere, at least one. Furthermore, even if you get a bad neighbor, they will likely move on in a few years, especially if a renter. Heck, even in #3 above, one of the crappy neighbors has already moved on and converted the house into a rental. Funny thing is, the renters don't make a peep, are clean and orderly. Even my other neighbors used to come out and get annoyed and stare at the neighbor that moved out, he was so loud and obnoxious.

I take it from your handle that you live in or near the greater puget sound area of western Washington state? That being said, you might as well chalk up the fact that your never going to find non-obnoxious neighbors there around the puget sound. We just moved away from Puyallup this June, over to eastern WA. We chose to move to a very rural area for a plethora of reasons, one being that the west side is just too damn crowded. While I understand that it may not be an option for you, I would suggest possibly moving further north if you can, maybe Bellingham, or further south to Lewis County. Thats my $.02...
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Old 10-21-2015, 09:23 PM
 
1,399 posts, read 1,788,505 times
Reputation: 3256
Quote:
Originally Posted by MAXIALE02 View Post
And if there is a Walmart and/or a smoke shop within the vicinity, RUN!
In defense of the smoke shop I would just like to say that not all of them attract bad people. I worked in one for six years and we had college professors and state representatives in all of the time as well as a ton of university students. But that was in the state capital in Michigan across the street from a University. I was very proud to have been a part of that place and I met so many interesting people!
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Old 10-21-2015, 10:38 PM
 
1,399 posts, read 1,788,505 times
Reputation: 3256
Quote:
Originally Posted by InchingWest View Post
In that case you should see about forming an HOA. Local governments are, in the main, very receptive to HOA's and like to see them formed. An HOA is a legal, incorporated, community entity where members of that community agree to a set of rules. Not following rules brings monetary penalties and those penalties show up on the homeowner's next property tax bill. Not paying the tax leads to _____, so people do their best to follow the rules.

One of the rules your HOA could impose is not allowing homes to be rented out to section 8'ers. You could deem them not to be rented out at all, or if you wanted only allow members of the military, police & firefighters to live there as renters. There are downsides (like you have to move and you yourself can't rent your house out) but in the main HOA's are a good thing if they're not overly restrictive and nit-picky.

Or you could simply impose rules as to noise, trash, etc. When the tenant doesn't follow the rules...slap the landlord with a violation (as a community of course; out of love) and charge it to his county tax bill.



And actually my friend, with your income and education you could perhaps move to better digs. And why not pop out a half dozen kids of your own. We civilized folks NEED to have more and more children. We're being out-bred by the dregs, and this development over the past 40-50 years is now being borne out in reality. We get to see it every day, just as you and I and others here are describing. Society really is crumbling around us.

Rome didn't fall in a day. It took several generations for society to decay to a point where it finally crumbled, first from within, then from without.
We love you! Now pay your fines or lose your home.......with love, your local HOA. Really?
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Old 10-22-2015, 01:22 AM
 
Location: NY in body, Mayberry in spirit.
2,709 posts, read 2,270,175 times
Reputation: 6441
Basically, some people just suck.
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Old 10-22-2015, 03:41 AM
 
Location: Wartrace,TN
7,955 posts, read 12,654,434 times
Reputation: 16202
Quote:
Originally Posted by breeinmo. View Post
If neighborhoods/neighbors are getting worse, doesn't that really mean society as a whole is getting worse?
That's my take on it. Nobody has any consideration for others anymore. When did it become acceptable to invade your neighbors home with your entertainment? Do people even realize that their "music" travels? Same thing with these harley riders with their loud pipes. Your "freedom" ends at my property line.

It's only a little noise? What if I piled trash in my backyard creating a terrible smell and attracting rats? Hey, it is my right to do it isn't it? What about my freedoms? What about leaving dogs out 24/7? Putting up 50 outdoor flood lights?
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Old 10-22-2015, 06:25 AM
 
Location: City Data Land
17,156 posts, read 12,891,961 times
Reputation: 33164
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tac-Sea View Post
2) So I moved...into a neighborhood of 300K houses.
So I'm considering down sizing back into #2 above.
Here we go again. Another "let's bash poor renters who are on government assistance" thread. But OP has taken it two steps further and equated their poverty with obnoxious behavior PLUS bragged about how financially well off he/she is by gloating about his/her downsizing to a $300K house. Congratulations, OP. You win the award for posting the most repugnant thread of the day. People in glass houses. . .
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Old 10-22-2015, 06:59 AM
 
Location: Jamestown, NY
7,840 posts, read 9,158,896 times
Reputation: 13779
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrsRosencranz View Post
I've said this on other threads but the solution to loud music neighbors is...

loud music.

But not just any loud music. Classical. OPERA! Wagner, Ride of the Valkries.

It never fails. After five to ten minutes the other offending party shuts down and then you can shut down. Very few repeat offenders. After all they can't very well complain that your loud music is drowning out their loud music. Gone is the BOOM, BOOM BOOM.

This also works well at much lower levels for creeps hanging out around your back fences. Drove some teenagers away with some lovely La Traviata recordings.
I agree. I don't have a problem with loud music occasionally. Since I live in a city, I expect to hear your stuff just like you'll hear mine. However, if I can hear your music from inside your garage at the front of your property all the way at the back end of my lot, and it's not because you're having a Fourth of July get together or birthday bash or something special, expect pay back. I'm a believer in "don't get mad, get even".

This past summer, when my next door neighbor, Mr A-hole, decided to treat me and the rest of the neighborhood to hours of obnoxious 70s/80s rock all day every Saturday, I found that a playlist of Cajun and Tex/Mex music from Beausoleil and the Texas Tornadoes fed from my Kindle to an outdoor bluetooth speaker aimed at their backyard on Sundays did the trick ... especially when his wife, who's a big NASCAR fan, couldn't sit out in the backyard on a hot Sunday afternoon and listen to the race (they don't have A/C). After about three or four week-ends, Mrs A-hole (who isn't one herself, just hitched to one) figured out that Mr A-hole's Saturday concerts led to my Sunday concerts, and Mr A-hole's music volume decreased to where it could be heard in the garage and out in front of their house but not 200-300 feet away.
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