posted 09-19-2001 15:09            

Couches and other indoor furniture belong in living rooms - not on front porches, say some town leaders looking to fine people who put the furniture outside.

The town council is expected to vote tonight on whether to impose an ordinance that could come with a $50-per-day fine for violators.

Dallas resident Wanda Eatmon is more blunt. People who put old indoor furniture on porches make an area "look kind of trashy," she said.

We have a damn neighbor who is just like that. She gets all uppity about making certain neighborhood changes. She has on numerous times gone to the city and bitched about Traffic in front of her house, the park across the street, how such and such upsets her dog, the color of the store across the street, how the street lights effect something. She recently had the city put up cement pillars on the sidewalk because she didn't like the foot traffic near her house. She is also the same person who bitches about people who play in the park across the street and wants the current trees ripped out and larger ones put in so she doesn't have to hear/see the people.

She tends to complain a lot to and about us. Her normal complaint is "Could you please stop [fill in the blank] it upsets my dog". In fact her whole life revolves around her dog. From what we have observed she has to be about late 30s or 40s, alone and not much going for her. I imagine she has many exciting nights where she follows her standard routine of taking the dog for a walk, cooking for herself and the dog and then settling down to watch some sort of prime time tv, Friends, Survivor, Any Reality show or what have you. I imagine after that she makes a check list of what needs to be done (wash the dishes, mop the floor, etc) just gunning for something out of the ordinary to spice up her boring ass life, maybe an extra spot on a dish for her to fret and whine about. I presume that she has some sort of scary relationship with her dog, which wouldn't surprise me if it involved dog sex. Weis and I are just waiting for the day that the dog comes running out of the house with socks or nylons duct taped around its front paws and her calling his name out in her bathrobe.

Other various complaints she has come to us about are:

Weishaupt's Alarm clock - Keep in mind she lives across the street from us, and she claims that his alarm clock wakes her up everyday at 6am. I imagine she wakes up every morning and wakes across the street and strains her ear in hopes of hearing the faint sound of the alarm clock.

4th of July - Around 8:30pm we lit off some boring ass, safe and sane, fireworks in the middle of the street. We are talking little shitty fountains that might make about a 1 foot high fountain for about 10 seconds. These are the kind you find in the freaking kiddie aisle in a grocery store. Totally tame stuff.

She came out to complain, that the fireworks where upsetting her dog. I told the bitch that my foot up her ass will give the dog something to complain about. Ok well I didn't say that. She did complain that at 8:30pm that our fireworks where upsetting her dog. I figure that the huge mortar shells being launched in the park with huge explosions, infact delighted her dog.

Various BBQs/Parties - Second it turns 10pm (low level noise ordinance), she is out there with her dog complaining that the 6 people smoking on the porch are upsetting her dog and she really needs us to keep it down because she needs plenty of sleep for another boring ass day of her life.

posted 09-19-2001 18:58            

I do have a band living next door. A bad, wholly untalented classic rock band. They're friggin' horrible.

Nice people, though.

posted 09-19-2001 19:39            

"BITCH, YOUR DOG IS UPSETTING ME, PLEASE KEEP IT DOWN."

posted 09-19-2001 20:08            

My neighbors are nice enough at face value. Oklahoma transplants, actually. But they sell more grass out of their house (weekly) than most people have ever seen in their lives - lots of traffic. That I don't mind. Nor the 5-night a week barbeques. Nor the people blocking and/or parking in my driveway while they make a "visit". Nor their pitbull barking it's ass off at all hours of the night 'cause they won't let the fucker in the house. Nor the sound of their alarm clock (this one's valid) blaring right into my bedroom window (the houses are that close) for at least an hour every morning until someone shuts it off. Limp Bizkit loud enough to hear when I'm in the shower at 6:00 every morning. And the favors - Help me fix my car, help me install my satellite dish, help me fix my computer, help me wipe my ass for chrissakes. Can I borrow your lawnmower/tools/car/paycheck/wife kinda things. Of course, I'm a pushover when it comes to trying to keep the peace with the neighbors - I'd rather put up with a few things and stay friendly than bitch about everything and have it turn nasty.

And about the couch on the porch - I got a bunch of surplus office furniture from an office we shut down in Phoenix, and I take the neighbor to my warehouse to see if he could use any of it. I gave him a desk for his brother, misc. printer stands and filing cabinets, and about a half-dozen office chairs of various styles and colors. The next day, the office chairs are on the front porch around his plastic picnic table in a sort of Dali-esque arrangement of textures and colors - all fake leather and tweed on casters. This act of kindness actually enabled him to bump up the head count at his barbeques...

I may be getting old, and I know I'm getting anal, but keep your neighbors in mind, folks. At least one of us owns a shotgun...

-Q!

posted 09-19-2001 20:55            

He moved to Berkeley or something and we got new neighbors. An ill-used single mom with four kids. Her boyfriend was black and the father of her youngest son. Her other children were daughters of who knows what random guy. They would skip school all day long and lay in sleeping bags on the living room floor watching tv. Several times they came up to our door asking to use the microwave to reheat McDonald's pancakes or some other fast food. They all lived together in a small two-bedroom apartment.

There was a small community business area two blocks from my house. Tiny mom and pop grocery store, a sandwich shop, a framing/art store that showed local artists, a liquor store and a pizza joint. These kids formed a theft ring and would go in to a shop and one would ask for a glass of water or something. While the proprietor was occupied, the rest of the kids would grab shit and run. Every time I went down to the store to buy a pizza or something, the clerks would be talking about these rotten kids.

There were drunken fights between the woman and her boyfriend at all hours. Once he showed up in the middle of the night and was beating on the doors and windows yelling for his son (a very cute little 6 year old). There were a lot of visitors who would come in pairs and one would wait with the car running while the other was inside for a few minutes. The woman would scream and swear at her kids as a matter of course. "Bring me my fucking purse you stupid little asshole" for example.

A few months after she moved in, a fifth kid arrived. He was mentally and behaviorally damaged and had been away at a juvenile facility. Not long after he showed up, he kicked in a huge plate glass window in their living room. He would beat up on the younger kids all the time and they all got into even more trouble. One of those kids drew a bunch of stars and squiggly lines into the paint on the trunk of my car and gouged stripes down the sides with rocks.

When they finally moved to another town where the welfare was better, they left literally 30 or 40 garbage bags full of clothes and other things piled in back of the house. They rode off in a taxicab taking only what they could carry and left this huge pile of shit for my roomate and I to lug to the curb.

Now, I try to be a decent neighbor, but we lived in fear of gunshot wounds being upstairs from that.

The other bad one was our former neighbors at this place who had a baby that would scream bloody murder all night long right beneath our bedroom. Now our current neighbor just has squeaky bedsprings and that's much easier to drown out with music.

posted 09-19-2001 23:00            

Loads of them.

Singing Green Day incoherantly (because they don't know the words) at 3:00 AM when I have to get up in an hour to go to work.

posted 09-19-2001 23:10            

I also have another neighbor that loves when it snows. You see, since he's lazy and fat an an alderman, I guess he deems it ok to push all the snow in his driveway into our fucking yard. Everytime it would snow he would do that. My dad would just yell at him and stuff. Oh no, it didn't stop him. So, after he did it, I did what my dad should have done. Around 2 or 3 in the morning I went outside and moved all the snow from the huge mound back into his driveway. I packed it against his car tires and put water I brought over onto the snow. I waited a little while until the slush was hard and stuff, then got more snow and more water and did another layer type deal. Tossed a bunch of snow on his roof over his door until I made a mini-avalanche that blocked most of the door and stairs, tossed water on that. Went back home a little before sunrise and watched from the upstairs room as he tried to get the door open. It took him a little while to get out from the frozen snow and the amount of it. Then he went to the car and saw the snow, looked around and started to kick it away. But I guess it was harder than that, so he had to use his shovel and pick at it. I found it quite funny. He hasn't done that since.

Oh yea! The people across the street from me, they are wicked deadbeats and dirty people. They had a party one night and thier shit was all over the street and our lawn, we got pissed and told them pick it up or we'd call the cops, they did. So, the next night, I went into my garage and got a trash bag filled with empty beer cans that we were gonna recycle, and went to the neighbors, opened it and scattered them across the yard. Got other trash and also scattered it, along with a bag of chips and other assorted snacks. So I guess they weren't to happy, and thought my parents did it. They came over and demanded to see my parents, I asked why. They told me, then I told them that my parents left early in the morning because they had to meet up with my brother that was coming home from his trip to LA. They were like "Oh..." so then I was said "Well, didn't you have a party last night?" And they said no, then I asked if they did the night before and they said yes. I then said maybe thier friends threw another one without them knowing [ at the time ] so they left. I guess they got pissed at the friends... end of story. Well... actually no. I wasn't sure if my little fake story was going to hold up or not, cuz it is shitty when I look back on it... but those people aren't the brightest in the world :P

posted 09-20-2001 07:22            

Imagine every bitchy, whiny, complaining person organizing themselves for the common goal of "Making the neighboorhood beutiful." One of their best tools of war is the Neighborhood Association Housing Contract. This is a contract that bars anyone moving into the neighborhood from doing the things that irritate these "Whinnie-Bitchettes" And here is the kicker, they can MAKE you sign one of these inorder to move into your new house. My parents current contract requires them to:
a.)Have 2 fir trees of specified species that are no taller than 6 feet on the front yard (Thats right, if the tree happens to grow taller than 6 feet, you have ta replace it)

b.)Atleast $2000 of "Foundation Dressing" around the house

c.)The color of the house has to be preapproved by the organization

d.)there is a sound ordinance of 95db, that is the loudness at around a normal conversation

Any Whoo, here is my story:
The day that I was moving into my new house, a lady in a nice Lexus pulls up to the house and walks over to the front of our yard and crams a ruler into our yard, she then proceeds to walk to me and inform me that the lenght of grass in our yard is a QUARTER inch too tall, and that if this infraction wasn't fixed by the next day, then it would be considered in violation of the housing contract and LEGAL ACTION would result.

I stood and pondered this a minute, here I was, the first day in our new house, the moving van parked in front of our house, and movers happily carrying all of my most precious possesions into our house, our mower still in the truck. My first reaction was to reel back and punch the fuck outta this bitch, but I decided to proceed in a little more civalized appoach: I reached into my pocket, removed the keys and proceeded to say:

"Listen lady, I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but you are currently inviolation of MY ASS and if you don't get THE FUCK OFF OF MY PROPERTY WITHIN THE NEXT TEN SECONDS, I will be forced to pursue violent action by keying your precious Yuppie-mobile!"

She responded by getting all huffy and spouting out some "Well I NEVER!" and some "I am Appauled" before cramming her fat ass into her car and hauling ass.

I have seen this bitch many a times since this incident, and she has avoided me like the plague. I don't blame her, My temper has aged like a fine wine, into vinager, a little sour for some.

by the by, I HATE YUPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

posted 09-20-2001 07:22            

At least it means there's no room on the 4'x8' porch for THEM to sit, because then the family from Deliverance would attempt to communicate with us as we come and go, which is like talking to 5-year-olds on heroin. Nice people, just litterally and obviously inbred.

posted 09-20-2001 10:28            

I live across the street from the Valencia Gardens housing project in San Francisco's Mission District.

I will not even get into the insane hippie burnout freaks who live IN my building, or their old sidekicks who have been evicted since I moved in over 4 years ago.

No, I will only give you the two latest incidents in all their wonderful technicolor.

Monday night, a car that was parked in the car wash that is directly nextdoor to my building caught on fire and exploded. I slept through the explosion AND the multiple fire vehicles that showed up. I am not just a heavy sleepr, I am also used to it.

But that is not even the good story. I love my neighborhood, it is wildly entertaining. I did not even get cable until a few months ago, I did't need it, I could just watch out the window.

So, the guys in the carwash like to show off. They speed out of the carwash parking lot and do donuts in the intersection of 15th and Guerrero, which is a very busy street. Sometimes, on a nice summer day, this will go on all day long. I have personally witnessed about 15-20 accidents in this intersection since I moved in.

OK, so about a month ago, 4 people in a late 80's model Mustang 5.0 come ripping around the corner onto Guerrero St. I did not witness this, I am just assuming. They either lost control cornering too fast, or doing donuts, I am not sure as I was passed out shitfaced at the time. At any rate, they lost it, jumped the curb-high median in the middle of the street and SLAMMED into a parked car, right in front of the door to my building. They were going so fast, that they broke BOTH of the axles on the parked car, bending the tires underneath it as it jumped up onto the curb. It also was hit hard enough that it got out of the way of the Mustang, so it could continue along to SLAM IN TO THE WALL, about 4 feet below my bed, on which I was passed out.

Once again, I wish that I could say that I jumped up in shock, and ran outside to see what was going on. Sadly, all I remember of the incident is my GF trying to shake me awake, and saying repeatedly, "Zak, Zak, wakeup, a car ran into the building!!!'

I was apparently not interested enough to even open my eyes.

Anyway, thank god for the parked car that got totaled, otherwise I would have been "sleeping" on top of the Mustang. As it is, it just broke some bricks, and some half inch thick slats on the buidling. Although it's point of impact was directly in between two 8"x8" supports for, well, my bedroom.

The funny thing is, the exact same thing almost happened about 2 years ago, only the parked car stopped about 3 inches from the door, and neither car hit the building.

posted 09-21-2001 08:16            

I HATE being the last one to post. It reminds me of in real life, where I try to join a conversation and everyone stops talking and walks away.

posted 09-21-2001 09:52           

one nice summer day im sitting onmy front porch smoking a cigarette, minding my own business when i hear...FUCK YOU BITCH IVE HAD ENOUGH. so like any normal person im intrigued...so i listen closely, and its the man and woman that live across the street from me argueing about something stupid im sure. i cant really hear what they are sayin but i hear the yelling. so im trying to listen, still sitting on my porch when all of a sudden a lamp comes shooting threw their front window...landing next to the curb on my side of the street.

im sitting there like HOLY SHIT. this is getting good. then the boyfriend/husband whatever he was proceeds to throw every lamp in the house out of every window on the first floor. and by this time everybody on my block is out on their porches watching. its really bad i know. your hear some rumbling in the house and then all of a sudden the man kicks open the front door and storms out....

then he runs back to the door, and im thinking did he forget a window? and much to my disbelief he breaks every little window in the door with his fist. (you know how those wooden doors have those 9 little windows)

now with his hand all cut up and bleeding he hops in a friends car who was conviently waiting down the block with his car running. and all of a sudden you see the woman come out, no bruises thank god, with a BIGASS jug. like you ever see one of those gallon wine jugs. and with all her might launches it the guy getting into the car.

because she is a woman and cant throw for shit she completely missed and it landed in the middle of the street. this was a couple of weeks ago, every window in that house is still broken to this day.

posted 09-21-2001 10:50            

There were, however, a LOT of little personal circuses going on in there. Take the lady across the street - her 20-something year old son lived with her, and used to like to get ALL tanked up and drive off in his 4WD truck. She didn't think he should be drinking and driving, but he refused to listen to her and was bigger than she was, so he always did it anyway.

So she started slicing his tires every time he started drinking. Which was, basically, daily.

I think he must have just been putting new innertubes in the tires every time she stabbed them, because I swear to GOD she flatted all four tires at least three times a week for several months. And he always had them fixed again within a day or two.

posted 09-21-2001 23:24            

Then I helped Jim move to a really sweet house several miles and one county line away... ("DUDE, WHY DIDN'T YOU FUCKING *PACK*?!?!?") and it happened all over again with new cats. What's funny as hell is the time the little black cat was walking through Jim's only slightly-unmowed lawn, sinking his legs deep into the grass, past the knee. Jim pointed at the cat, looked at me, and said "lowrider cat" in a Billy Madison sort of voice. Pure genius, I tell you.

Of course, he was trying to one-up me from the time I pointed out the load bearing caulk plastered all over his new bathtub.

Then Jim moved again to a different house, except this time he got neighbors with a pack of little yappy shit dogs. I hate little yappy shit dogs.

Some of you may remember Jim's post on his website about the angry old crone... That's the woman.

posted 09-22-2001 16:50            

My personal experience is that anybody who currently doesn't work for a living is going to make a less-than-satisfactory neighbor, for the simple reason that they've got way too much fucking time on their hands.

posted 10-05-2001 13:24            

But when I lived in Minnesota, I had some bad ones.

First, the neighbors across the hall moved in. My then-boyfriend and I were all psyched because they were deaf and wouldn't complain about any noise we made. What we didn't figure on is that deaf people are the LOUDEST people on earth. They would come up the stairs, which were right beside our apartment, at all hours, SCREAMING at each other in their garbled speech. I took to sleeping in the smaller bedroom so that I could no longer hear them.

One night, I was awakened by a BANG BANG BANG on the door. I went sleepily to the door (my boyfriend was navy and worked all night at the sat base) and standing across the hall were two policemen. They weren't banging on my door, but on the door across the hall. I yawned and said, "Hey, dudes, I don't think they can hear you. They're deaf." They gave me a blank stare, then one of them said "We got a report of domestic violence in this residence." (it just occurred to me that I probably was not wearing much, hence the blank stare--or maybe not). I told them someone had probably just called because they were deaf and therefore didn't realize how loud they were being. They thanked me and I closed the door. So they just banged LOUDER on the door. Fucks.

In this same apartment building lived a lot of Asians. I'm not sure where all of them were from, but I do know the people in the one bedroom apartment next door were a family of about ten Cambodians. Anyway, there was an Asian family three doors down who had a daughter in her early 20s. Daughter was dating a black man and got pregnant. Parents were angry because a) she was preggers and b) he was black, so they forced her to break up with him. I DO know that the in the asian culture most girls do what their mothers tell them to do about romantic relationships, and she did break up with him.

Brother won't happy, apparently, and he drove his car under the 2nd floor balcony and climbed up to the third, broke into the bedroom window, stabbed Papa Asian in the throat, stabbed Mama Asian in the stomach, and took off. Mama clutched her belly and stumbled down to my apartment, woke me up, and I had to call the police. Papa died before the ambulance even got there.