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I'm sorry but this whole post is a serious overreaction. Leaving bait out??? Seriously, you want to provoke the situation?
I'm not talking about cowering in your own home - (although that's going to be the end result of calling the police on a 5 year old) but there is nothing good that can come from escalating a dispute with ugly neighbors. You are not going to accomplish ANYTHING by doing so.
The OP is teaching her son a good lesson by not involving herself with these people further - the lesson that if you are dealing with crazy, obnoxious neighbors that you have no choice but to put up with - the best recourse is to take the higher road by IGNORING them and not participating in making it worse. A lesson in picking your battles, and being smarter than the enemy.
The stress of having a war with your unreasonable and ignorant neighbor is not worth living with. "What's the worse that could happen?" is not a question you necessarily want to find out the answer to.
Totally agree. Yes, "picking your battles" was the exact phrase that came to my mind as well. Obviously, we have 2 different viewpoints going here on this thread, and I do hear what y'all are saying, but in this case, I just don't think so. However, I think I will "pick my battles" and not continue to argue the point....beyond THIS post that is.
I do not agree. People need to learn how to stand up for themselves.
I understand that, and in most situations I agree with you. However the neighbor relationship is a very delicate one, and if you get caught up in something nasty you have to live with it 24 hours a day.
What exactly is CMO3 going to accomplish by calling the police? Is it going to achieve any kind of goal? I highly doubt anything constructive is going to come of it. The end result of standing up for yourself here is not going to achieve anything positive. It's just going to make things worse.
I agree you need to stand up for yourself. But you also need to weigh whether doing so is just going to hurt you, and your family, and not have any impact whatsoever on the offender.
It takes two parties to escalate this kind of drama. I would bow out of it and not feel like a coward for doing so. Sometimes keeping the peace is a smart move.
I only suggested "bait" so as to assist with documenting it if that's what it comes down to.
We aren't talking about a noisy neighbor or some other nuisance crap. We are talking about someone willfully allowing their child to enter someone elses property cause damage and steal things. So, because you are afraid of escalation, it's OK to not keep a garden, have a lawn statue or let your kid leave a toy on your porch because it's probably going to be stolen? There is a marked difference between ignoring the fact your neighbor plays his stereo too loud and ignoring that someone is damaging your property and stealing from you.
I stand by my opinion, that you are not taking the "higher road" and "picking your battles" and teaching your child anything by letting this slide. All you are teaching them is that there are mean people in the world and we are too weak/scared to do anything about it.
Here's an idea, step-dad seemed slightly reasonable. Why not have the husband/partner head over and have a little chat man to man about what is going on? Not everything needs to be mean and accusatory, unless that's what it comes to.
Here's a little story. My parents have a neighbor two doors down that is one of "those people". He lives in his mother in laws house (has for years). Doesn't work and collects disability, but seems to get around just fine. Parking is limited and he has a driveway and my parents don't. He loves to empty his driveway each morning and put the cars back each night and take up a good chunk of the onstreet spaces. There were conflicts over this in the past, but he was intimidated by my father and would back down, classic bully.
A few years ago my father had a pacemaker put in and was in the hospital for several days. He became eligible for handicap parking and the town designated the space in front of my parents house as handicapped. They made the space kind of big, so where three cars would fit before, you could now only get two. My mom comes home from the hospital and he starts yelling at her for abusing the system and taking up parking spaces. She ignores him and walks inside. The next morning he sat on his porch and made oinking noises at her as she got into her car. She ignored him. He did the same thing for the next couple days, until my mom (whose intimidated by him) finally broke down in tears and told us what was happening (mind you dad was still in the hospital recovering from cardiac surgery).
I went to my parents house after work that day and found him sitting on his porch. I walked up to him and said, apparently you have a problem with my mother. He ran and locked the door to the porch. I told him if he ever stooped to picking on a 64 year old woman again that we would call the police. If that didn't work, I would come back and make sure he could never oink again.
Sure enough the next morning my mom was alone and he did it again. She called me and I called a friend from high school on the local police force. They showed up 4 cops strong and explained to him in very succinct terms that they never wanted to be called about this again and to knock it off or they would arrest him on harrassment charges. No more problems and I'm always sure to waive and say hi when I go for a visit.
Bullies (like these people) need to be put in their place, or you will be the one living in fear and intimidated by them until they "go away", which may be tomorrow or 20 years from now. I can assure, you are not even an after thought in their life, but they will dominate yours.
I agree you need to stand up for yourself. But you also need to weigh whether doing so is just going to hurt you, and your family, and not have any impact whatsoever on the offender.
I understand what you are saying and if the circumstances were more "minor" I would probably agree with you. However, to say that the situation isn't already hurting the OP and their family really isn't true.
They can't maintain a nice garden and their kid is always afraid that his toys are going to be stolen from his yard. By ignoring it, they are caving to the situation and having to alter their lifestyle and the way they choose to live their life. I firmly believe that my home and my property are my "castle" and no one is going to intimidate me into not enjoying it the way I want to.
I understand that, and in most situations I agree with you. However the neighbor relationship is a very delicate one, and if you get caught up in something nasty you have to live with it 24 hours a day.
What exactly is CMO3 going to accomplish by calling the police? Is it going to achieve any kind of goal? I highly doubt anything constructive is going to come of it. The end result of standing up for yourself here is not going to achieve anything positive. It's just going to make things worse.
I agree you need to stand up for yourself. But you also need to weigh whether doing so is just going to hurt you, and your family, and not have any impact whatsoever on the offender.
It takes two parties to escalate this kind of drama. I would bow out of it and not feel like a coward for doing so. Sometimes keeping the peace is a smart move.
The OPs neighbors are bullies. Bullies don't stop bullying you unless you stand up to them.
Edited to add: It's not keeping the peace for the OP, it's keeping the peace for they bully neighbors. The OP still lives in fear.
Wasn't there a recent news story about a guy that put up a LARGE sign on his house that there's a thief in the neighborhood? You could put a large arrow on your sign pointing to their house. Ok, a bit extreme. But the next time you catch the little demon stealing/destroying/trespassing, yell at the little piece of excrement. Maybe that'll scare him.
I understand what you are saying and if the circumstances were more "minor" I would probably agree with you. However, to say that the situation isn't already hurting the OP and their family really isn't true.
They can't maintain a nice garden and their kid is always afraid that his toys are going to be stolen from his yard. By ignoring it, they are caving to the situation and having to alter their lifestyle and the way they choose to live their life. I firmly believe that my home and my property are my "castle" and no one is going to intimidate me into not enjoying it the way I want to.
I agree and that sucks. But it's the reality of the situation, unfortunately.
So let's take the scenario down the call the police route. You call them, on the grounds that a 5 year old took a bucket of cars of of the porch. You don't have any evidence of them damaging your garden. They come over and what? Arrest the 5 year old? If you keep calling them every time you have a bent flower, they are going to get aggravated at you, and perceive you as the nuisance, not the neighbor. End result? You have obnoxious and now very angry neighbors. Your kid learns that calling the police accomplishes nothing.
What about taking them to court? Well, what is it you want the court to do? Get a judgment against them for 2.50 for used toys? The only recourse here is to get a restraining order against the 5 year old to keep him off of your property.
You call the landlord. If they are paying the rent, the landlord will not care one iota that their tenant's kid took a few things. They are not (nor do they have the grounds to) start expensive eviction proceedings on your say so.
So what are you left with in the end? Nothing will be done and you'll just be left with very very angry and obnoxious neighbors. And they'll still live there, and it may be you who starts considering moving.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momma_bear
The OPs neighbors are bullies. Bullies don't stop bullying you unless you stand up to them.
I doubt these will stop either, even if you do. And how do you do that, in this case, exactly? Why not just ignore it, there's nothing to be afraid of, unless you aggravate the situation further. I would just keep the toys out of the yard, and smile nicely every time I see them. I don't see that you have many other practical options.
Wow! Lots of replies on this....here's the deal...we are literally on top of one another. If they break wind outside and I'm out there, I hear it. I hate our living situation but there's not a lot I can do about it. So we just avoid each other, and it's relatively easy to do.
For the record, I DON'T live in fear of these people, but people are so nuts these days, there's no telling what they're capable of. With that said, I'm not really sure how to handle this, so I'm going to opt to let my husband (who is a little more level headed than me) handle it...he's going to speak to the boy's step dad.
Today was the last straw, really with these punks. I find cigarette butts in my flower beds, my back yard, my front yard. I don't smoke....in fact one of the heifers that live there flicked her cigarette in our flower bed in front of us all the other day. I picked it up and gave it back to her.
On another note, and this may be totally paranoid, but my dogs all had the massive, rank runs last night...unfortunately being pregnant leaves me with a ridiculous sense of smell so I woke up last night to their messes. As I was cleaning it up, I noticed little pellets of plastic or rock that were bluish green in color in the mess...sorry...I know it's gross. But I haven't changed their food or anything...I did notice that yesterday 2 of the dogs were sniffing and eating stuff under the fence (the neighbors and I share a fence). It could be completely unrelated but it is a little coincidental.
I don't want to overreaact...this kid is a KID. He's 5. I get that he's a small boy, but the way he did it was appeared so deliberate. His mother is a skanky whorish nut job so maybe he's stealing as a means of acting out. Who knows? I just want my son's cars back, and I want to feel like no more of my stuff is going to be disturbed, stolen, or destroyed.
It was confirmed this morning after I arrived back home from walking my kids to school...our neighbor's kid (who is 5) is the one destroying our flowers in our flower bed AND stealing from my 3 year old son. He LOOKED right at me as he was doing it and he grabbed the bucket of cars my son had on our porch....I'm pregnant and waddling, so I called to him, "hey, those are Colin's...can you put those back?" He looked at me, held the bucket to him, walked over to his back gate and took the bucket back there and never returned. So I piddled around in the front until his step dad came out to take him to school and I asked him if he could return the cars he took and he looked at me just like, "whaaaaaaat?" So I told his step dad that I saw him take some cars from our porch, (so did my 3 year old, who was freaking out about it all) and we'd like them returned. His wife (the boy's mother, who is the trashiest skankiest most repulsive woman) came out and said, "no one is stealing from you, *****".
So there you have it....I have to live next to these people. They are absolutely the WORST neighbors we've ever had....we're hoping they get evicted soon.
So now what do I tell my son, who saw another kid steal from us? Keep in mind my son is 3; now I know where all of our stuff is going....we've had a bunch of things stolen and just last week had a small garden statue shattered on our front walk.
Wow, they sound like real trash, sorry you are stuck with them for a while.
If I were you I'd just be sure not to leave anything outside that you don't want to lose.
Can you do something to protect your flowers, like getting some fresh manure and spreading it all around so that if the kid walks to your flowers he gets covered in it? I bet if he goes home reeking of that smell his "mother" will make sure he doesn't do it again, lolololol.
You just explain to your son that some mommies and daddys are not very good at their job and that he should feel very sorry for that little boy because no one is bothering to teach him out to be the best boy he can be.
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