Hi all,

I need some advice regarding a neighbor issue. Almost three years ago a middle-aged couple moved in next door. They both have kids from previous marriages but the kids don’t live w/ them. For the first year everything was relatively okay, although it was apparent that dude was home all the time and apparently didn’t work, and dudette runs a salon out of their house.

One night dude has a couple of friends over to drink on his backyard patio which happens to be near my property line and close to my bedroom window. It started getting late and they were making noise, cussing, etc. so I asked them to break it up or else move it inside. He apologized and that was that. A few months later they had another late-night patio party. No attempt to keep the noise down. I had to get up early the next morning to travel so this time I called the police. The police show up and ask them to quiet down or break it up. After the police left the neighbors had a fit, yelling from their yard and cussing me out. I called the police again and they asked them to pipe down a second time. Dudette went inside and dude sat in his backyard and whistled on and off until about 3:00 AM in an attempt to annoy me. I let it go.

His late-night whistling was strange so I looked him up. Found out that he had a protection order served against him by his previous neighbor for “adult abuse with stalking.” Great. Next we have the dogs. They got two big dogs and decide to leave them outside from dawn until after sundown. Barking early in the morning... if I go into my backyard they pace back and forth along the fence and often bark. This is in addition to the many other annoying things that they do like running a leaf blower early every single morning including weekends, early lawn mowings, etc. Finally one day I get fed up with the dogs barking at me and I kick the fence and tell them to be quiet. Dude and dudette come out and we have a confrontation. A couple of nights later they hatch a scheme where they scratch up the back door of their house and call the police to claim that I tried to break in.

The police see immediately that they’re full of shit, take the report and that was the end of that. Now dude attempts weird forms of harassment like sitting outside late at night in the dark, doing things like making owl noises. Every few weeks he pipes up and yells insults and obscenities at night from his backyard.

The police advise that I ignore him and call them when these incidents occur, which I do, but I feel like there really isn’t much that they can do about it. The latest advice I’ve been given is to get security cams to record the crazy shit he does. Moving seems to be my best option but it amazes me how easily it is for them to harass others and get away with it. I feel that if I do what I would really like to do to try to correct the situation, I will appear to be the bad guy and face possible charges. One could chalk it up to typical neighbor problems but I think this goes beyond that because of the former protection order, attempted framing for breaking & entering, late-night harassment, etc.

If anyone has experience with these sorts of situations I sure would appreciate some advice!

Thanks,
Jimmy

Make sure to take detailed notes of all of the incidents, your contacts with the PD, and the results of those contacts.

I get the impression that you feel the police are not doing much-- though it sounds like there are at least a few legitimate complaints in there. Being someone who started his LE career in a small town, from what you said it sounds like some of the senior guys I used to work with, who couldn't be bothered with citizen complaints and did the whole "just call us but we won't do much" reply, hoping you would not call again.

Have you escalated things up the chain of command in the PD? Or spoken to your city/town hall officials?

Life is too short to deal with assholes... if you can move w/o great disruption, I'd seriously consider it.

I've been to MANY neighbor disputes in my career, some minor, some quite serious... it's the guy/gal who has a family, a job, and responsibilities that is handicapped in these situations as there is much to lose by simply kicking the shit out of the other guy when they push you... as it's just about the only thing that works... and it's NOT recommended.

There's not much you can do to a person who has little or nothing to lose... therefore it's almost impossible to influence them to change or leave you alone. Sounds like dude is a lazy sit-at-home shit bag who is abusive to whom ever he pleases... also sounds like he knows the ropes... only a near death ass kicking influences those kinds of people to stay in their own lane.

Seeing as beating him half to death is illegal and not recommended, consider moving.

Check into your states harassment laws. In Florida, it's not too difficult to catch a harassment/stalking charge... I've made/seen successful misdemeanor arrests AND PROSECUTION for things as seemingly minor as tossing cans/garbage out roadside in front of the targeted persons home, playing loud music after hours with speakers directed as a targeted persons house, to routine breaking of shrub branches/landscape belonging to the targeted person. It just takes a cop who understands the law and how to apply it. I'd stop by the local cop shop and seek information, ideas, and tips from the supervisor on duty. Video and audio recordings of your area can help in these cases.

32 years ago when I started civilian Policing and we saw such an obvious case of one neighbor harassing another, with the evidence being obvious, we'd give the offending neighbor one warning and tell him the next time we get called were going to have you sign complaints and then jail him. Hell we might have signed the complaints ourselves if he was a big enough jerk off. He knew if he fought us his first stop would be the ER and then jail and there wasnt anything he could do about it. So 99% of the time the jerk offs stopped being jerk offs and the complaining citizen could go on with his Constitutional right of living in peace and Happiness.

That was before Rodney, before million dollars ghetto lotteries, before Live Leak and You Tube, before all the shit house Lawyers on the Internet.

Now? We dont really like betting involved in this kind of thing. Sure we'll talk to the guy but he can just close his door at anytime and theres nothing we can do about it. Were not going to arrest him unless he does something really stupid and theres enough evidence. We dont like ending up on Live Leak rolling around the ground with people over trivial things like disputes and others peoples fights. We dont like getting the complaints, the law suites, the discipline, or the insults. So thats why we tell you to either move or maybe pursue a civil action and backing it with video tape/writing down every incident. If he plays music to loud then call but I doubt there will be any enforcement action taken.

But on the bright side at least your free'er now.

In my area it's easy to obtain an Order for Protective Custody for forced medical (mental) evaluation, practically guaranteed if based upon a signed statement by a family member. I've seen them issued based upon statements from non-family on occasion. You could look into that.

Like USAF77 said...in many places there isnt much that can be done when the offenses dont rise above the Felony level...We can document, and refer you to court, that's about it... Except for Shoploifting, and some Domestic Violence offenses i can't arrest on a Disorderly Persons (Misdemeanor ion the rest of the country) offense I dont witness....what we COULD do was issue a Town Summons for Noise complaints if there were multiple calls.

Thanks all for the feedback.