New neighborhood, and I'm starting to think my next door neighbors are weird as heck. (wife, husband)

[KathrynAragon]

OK so about a month ago, we moved into a new neighborhood. It's what I'd call an upscale, upper middle class suburban neighborhood.

We were a little surprised to find out that out of 50 homes, there are 74 school aged kids living in this gated community! KIDS EVERYWHERE. Most of the households seem to be dual income professionals. In fact, come to find out that we are one of only THREE families out here who are over 50. Now - I'm fine with that and I LOVE kids. So that wasn't a drawback to us at all.

So - the first weird thing that happened was that the first week we lived here, I took the trashcan out to the curb and well - let me tell you what happened. We have a narrow strip of property between our driveway and our next door neighbor's lot - about six feet. These are big, spacious lots so the houses aren't right up next to each other, but our driveway is over pretty far so there's just about six feet between our property line and the neighbors. So anyway, I noted that on Tuesdays, everyone puts their trash can out by their driveway but on the other side of the curb in the street (barely). I rolled mine out there and made sure it was within our property line and not overflowing or anything like that. Imagine my surprise the next morning when I found our trash can, still full, sitting in the MIDDLE of our front yard. Not on the other side of the driveway, not by the curb, but rolled up haphazardly in the middle of our yard. Weird.

There was no telling who did it, so I just rolled it to the OTHER side of the driveway and sure enough, a few minutes later the trash truck came and emptied it and I just rolled it back inside the fence. Strange but whatever.

Then the neighbors came over and introduced themselves a few days later, and there was nothing weird about it to me, but afterwards my husband said, "I don't like that guy. And I think he's taking steroids." This is out of character for my friendly, extroverted husband, to have some sort of immediately negative response to someone. I hadn't been paying any attention to the guy because I was talking with the wife. So what do I know? (At this point, I hadn't mentioned the stupid trash can thing to my husband.) During the conversation, my husband mentioned that we were getting a storage building delivered, and the guy said "WITHOUT GETTING IT APPROVED BY THE HOA? You've got a lot of nerve, man." It's a storage building, not a slaughter house or a party barn. And sure enough, the SECOND - I mean the SECOND - the truck pulled up with the storage building, we got a call from the HOA president saying "A little bird told me that there's a storage building parked in front of your house." Actually, it wasn't in front of our house - it was (very temporarily) in front of THE NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE, so no one other than the neighbors would assume it was for us - they'd think - if they noticed it at all - that it was the neighbor's storage building. So I'm pretty sure it was our neighbors who called the HOA about it. (That's another topic for another day but it's working out.)

Anyway, about the same time, I realized that their dog can get out of their back yard. How did I find this out? Because any time their dog was in the back yard and I came home and opened my garage, the dog would suddenly appear, and start spazzing out running all over my garage and driveway, and one time it even ran INTO MY HOUSE AND PEED ON MY CARPET! OK that's getting crunk in my book.

OK - so far, still trying to keep peace with the neighbors and just be friendly and stay out of their hair. But the other day we got security cameras - a Nest system - installed at our house and we get notifications whenever there's someone in our driveway, or back yard, or at the front door or side yards, etc. Only on our property - which is our right. Well, every single day, their boys come over to our yard and play in our yard. I'm talking about for several hours. I had heard them in the past but I just figured they were playing in THEIR yard - nope, they are in our yard. Our driveway slopes down a little and theirs doesn't - so now the boys have started bringing skateboards over and skating down OUR DRIVEWAY - and yelling and carrying on. They've also started playing football in our front yard. Honestly. What the heck is that about? And for the past two or three days they have left footballs, or skateboards, or both, in our yard. That's weird enough already but on top of that, now my security cameras are going off over and over again, blowing up my phone, because I get an alert every time someone is in my yard. And I'm not going to turn off my cameras. They need to quit coming in my yard. "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Oh, and they have a two story play house in their back yard. So they can see down into our back yard. OK. But don't sit up there and TALK TO ME. Don't just sit up there and watch me either. Sheeze. They do both.

One good thing about the security cameras though - if the trash can gets moved again, I'll have it on video. And tonight, for the first time, I took the trash can out there and carefully placed it within our property line but on the side of the driveway close to their property line. Within the line of vision of the camera.

This should be interesting.

I think my plan is this. 1) First of all, I am going to go out there tomorrow - because I'm sure they'll be playing out there tomorrow - and I'm going to tell these school aged boys (they aren't toddlers - they are between the ages of 9 and 14) to please quit playing in my yard and driveway. Pretty sure they will just ignore that. So the next day I am going to go talk to their mom and tell her "I've already asked your boys but for some reason they have ignored this so I'm going to ask you - tell them to please stay off our property because whenever they come on it, I start getting all sorts of notifications on my phone." That's part of it but also - I don't want them getting hurt on my property. But I'm not going to tell her that because I don't want to give them any ideas. I don't HAVE to give them ANY reason other than I just don't want them on my property.

And if I see any of them moving my trash can I am going to call them out about that. But first, I'm going to say over the speaker - "HEY. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" That should get their attention.

Any other suggestions?

[BirdieBelle]

I wouldn't assume the boys will ignore your request. Nicely let them know you want them to stop, and hopefully they will.

The trash can thing is the only thing that sounds weird to me, and the rest feels like the usual boundary-reinforcement that happens when you're the literal new kids on the block.

The camera should take care of the trash can issue, if it happens again. Is there a policy about trash placement that you aren't aware of? Are you actually doing it correctly? Gated communities are notoriously strict about things that seem picky to lots of people.

Did you get the storage building approved by the HOA before you got it? Of course your neighbor reported you, but that's just HIM setting those boundaries. They don't know you two from Adam and don't have any idea what else you're planning to do over there It's not cool, but based on what's happened so far, it sounds like things will probably get more awkward before they get easier.

[petsandgardens]

The boys may have been playing there for years before you arrived. Were there former owners in your home?

I like the idea of talking to them via the speaker.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Hence, why I hate HOAs. At minimum. Good luck.

There was a reason your place was for sale. Might want to start looking for another home. I don't see this one working out. Might as well get out asap.

[delunsa]

They sound like the type of a-holes who think their property is their property and your property is their property. They may want your property empty so they have more space.


It may get ugly. Good luck.


I would have lost it if their dog got in my house. You need to get a handle on this right away ... but expect a lot of passive/aggressive reactions.


Yes, they messed with your trashcan and called the HOA on you.

[Kim in FL]

I agree; you need to set boundaries and soon.

The dog in the house, too much! And I’m a dog lover, but keep your dog under control. Same for the kids. Keep them under control and allowing to play on someone else’s property without their permission is wrong.

The trash can thing is very odd.. why would anyone do that?!

I lived in an HOA community and loved it! However, we had one neighbor who thought she was in charge of the whole place. She was a snowbird so thankfully we only had to put up with her for 6 mths out of the year. I’m sure you got a copy of your bylaws so you already know/knew your storage building would be a problem. Just be prepared for future calls about the stupidest things.

At least now you have cameras that will capture a lot more than your neighbors bargained for.

[DontH8Me]

You had me at HOA.

[bizcuit]

I wonder if your HOA allows fencing. If so, it might be worth the investment.

[KathrynAragon]

Wow, thanks everyone for the responses!

To clarify - I had already contacted the HOA about the storage building and spoken directly with the President - I thought we were fine and apparently we ARE fine now. I guess we'll find out but I'm not freaked out about that one way or the other. It will work out. I just didn't like the busy body aspect of the neighbor calling the HOA, which seems like what happened.

Oh well, the issue is cumulative anyway. The HOA is not my big concern, it's my neighbors that are concerning me more.

I thought about whether or not the previous owners had allowed the kids to play loudly in their yard, but it doesn't seem likely, because the previous owners had two very small boys (one was three and one was two) and they had actually disconnected the doorbell because it might ring and wake up the kids. I can't imagine them being fine with hours of yelling and playing in the yard by neighbor kids.

Or leaving toys scattered across the yard either. I love my husband's idea of rounding up all the toys and just putting them in the garage. Of course I'd give them back to the kids but they'd need to come ask me for them. Or their parents. In which case I'd just say "They were left in my yard. I didn't know who they belonged to so I put them away for safekeeping. You are more than welcome to have them because I don't want to store them - and please don't leave them in my yard again."

I know why the previous owners moved by the way. Don't think it had anything to do with neighbors. But now that I'm getting to know these neighbors, I doubt they were good friends!

Yes, I was placing the trash can properly to so speak. It's clearly not that big a deal around here - you put your trash can out on Monday nights or Tuesday mornings for a Tuesday morning pick up - at the end of your driveway. That's all I did. So far today it hasn't been moved - LOL!

And yes, I thought the dog thing and the trash can thing were by far the two weirdest events. I mean, it's cumulative, ya know? I wouldn't be crunk about the kids playing in our driveway, but it's like it's all combined which leads me to believe we have pretty serious boundaries issue going on and I don't think they are going to get any better. I am going to have to say something and I really hate that. I agree - I think I need to get ready for some passive/aggressive behavior and a lot of petty reporting. The thing is, we don't do anything that would be worth reporting. THEY are the ones with loud, trespassing kids, strange habits regarding trash cans (ha ha), a dog that regularly gets loose, AND GETS IN PEOPLES' HOUSES AND PEES ON THEIR CARPET, etc. They've got a lot more weirdness going on than we do, believe me. If they want to play some sort of strange game, we're going to win it.

[gus2]

It kinda sounds like you didn't do your homework on your new neighborhood. But hey, we all learn more once we actually move in.

Regardless, I agree with BirdieBelle that they don't know you yet. But the first things you did were violate the HOA and install security cameras. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but you can see how somebody might have their guard up, right?

It doesn't matter who called HOA; they would have found out anyway. If the dog issue is a regular thing, you can definitely mention it or even report it if needed, because I'm fairly sure y'all have leash laws.