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New neighbor moves in brings rift raft with him

fire suppressor

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2008
Messages
870
Location
Kitsap County
Well it finally happened my little quiet respectable home got a new neighbor and boy did I notice some changes over night. Party's all hours of the night, bass that will rattle the doors of your car, a "funny smell" wafting around outside, foot traffic constantly coming and going, cars constantly in and out, really weird unstable people loitering outside, verbal arguments all hours of the day, a always full trash dumpster. Unfortunately my side arm and home defense shot gun are no longer for show they are required to feel confident walking outside and checking my mail. I tried talking to the landlord he has the same concerns and suspensions I do but says he need proof before he can act. I was urged to call the police to start a paper trail. I know you can't keep your good neighbors for ever but man what a difference
 

Wolfebane

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2010
Messages
113
Location
Whidbey Island
What I'd like to know is why did the landlord rent to them in the first place if he has his suspicions. Unless there is some sort of "must rent" law on the books or something that I don't know about.
 

amlevin

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2007
Messages
5,937
Location
North of Seattle, Washington, USA
Take your landlord's advice and call the Police when it warrants. Be sure to also send complaints to the landlord. If the behavior of the "neighbor" becomes unbearable, and he's refused to act on the complaints, it could be justification to break your lease if necessary. If enough people complain to the police about the noise, and they show up in response, they too may smell the "funny smell" themselves. Enough complaints and someone will act. Get your other "quiet" neighbors involved as well.

Just for information sake, there are laws about excessive noise, usually after 11PM and before 7AM. Check local ordinances as they are usually the ones enforced in situations like yours.
 

PistolPackingMomma

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2011
Messages
1,884
Location
SC
Start documenting dates and times of events. When we lived in an apartment complex, we had similar neighbors move in beside us. I looked much more credible (not that it was hard, compared to them) than our new neighbors when I could hand our landlord several pages of documented disturbance, confrontations, etc. It finally got to the point where I told the landlord "It's either them or us. Let me know if I need to start packing." The next week they were evicted. It helped that other tenants complained, so definitely get your neighbors to chime in.
 

j4l

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
1,835
Location
fl
I can totally relate. About 10 yr.s ago, I very deliberately moved into an apartment complex that was a little more than I could afford,really- in an effort to avoid such riff-raff. A couple yrs went by just fine and comfy-but then property management changed, and they began taking in Section8s and lower-rents.
And in came the flood. Almost overnight the place was infested with all sorts of degenerates who trashed the place, partied all night, and fought all the time with one another.
Luckily a friend of mine had a place he was wanting to rent/sell waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out in the country. I moved ASAP.

Check local ordinances, but you will need to have a valid reason to call the cops (too loud, actual fights breaking out, obvious drug use/dealing,etc.) before anything will come of it. Do it too often, and cops just wont bother coming around, and will just sort of blow you off, or take their sweet time getting there. And, it wont take the other folks any time at all to figure out who's calling the cops on em (since you will soon be out-numbered,now that the barbarians are at the gates) which will lead to all manner of other possible problems.

Hate to say it, but best bet may be to begin looking for a new place, if at all possible. You may resolve these immediate problems, with this particular neighbor, but once these types of infestations begin, they rarely reverse themselves.
 
Last edited:

Trigger Dr

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2007
Messages
2,760
Location
Wa, ,
We just finished the same scenario. Bad neighbors, chop shop in the garage, drugs, you name it it happened. Start a log book of vehicle descriptions, license plates, dates, times, occupants etc. keep a separate copy and give one to the local leo. Do not give just 1 or 2 numbers, get a list of 10-15. This estalishes a pattern that can justify a closer look by leo. It took us 7 months to finally get rid of them and the property is still a mess.
 

Difdi

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
987
Location
Seattle, Washington, USA
I experienced this sort of thing from the other end a few years back. I'd just moved into an apartment, and one of my neighbors starts filing almost-daily noise complaints against me.

Among his complaints were blaring TV and music at all hours of the night and day, people stomping around constantly (his apartment was directly below mine), screaming children, weird rumbling noises and odd popping noises. The popping noises thing was the only one I figure might have been me (I play first-person shooters), so I started turning the volume down when playing with my XBox. The rest I either couldn't hear at all, or were obviously coming from somewhere else (for example, the apartment management was refinishing the roof around the time I moved in). Aside from needing a TV for my XBox, I almost never turned it on, and the only music player I owned at the time had no speakers, only earbuds.

Then I started hearing an inexplicable noise. I'd be laying in bed, falling asleep. The entire apartment as dead quiet as it ever gets, just the refrigerator hum keeping it from being perfect silence. Then BAM BAM BAM! This odd and very loud banging noise would resound through the building. It never persisted long enough to pinpoint it. I was thinking air hammer in the pipes, and it took me several days of it to figure out. It only happened late in the evening. Eventually I decided to sit up and wait for it, to try to pinpoint it. As it happened, it was my downstairs neighbor banging on his ceiling with a broom handle. Mind you, at the time it happened, the banging was the ONLY loud noise; When the old coot wasn't banging away, the loudest noise was a quiet refrigerator hum from the kitchen. Having figured it out, I waited for him to start pounding again, and pounded back. The next day, he was waiting at the manager's office when it opened, to deliver a "him or me" ultimatum.

It never occurred to the man to ASK if I was the source of the noise. Or to wonder if the construction crews might have had something to do with it. I managed to get it settled through the manager as a go-between, and didn't even meet the complainer until a few months later. Turns out the guy is almost completely deaf (!!!), wears a huge hearing aid in each ear, and even with them on, has great difficulty hearing a normal conversational tone from three feet away, he gets by with lip reading most of the time.

To this day, I truly believe he was somehow getting radio reception on the hearing aid. It's the only way to explain the loud TV and music issue he had.
 
Last edited:

Metalhead47

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2009
Messages
2,800
Location
South Whidbey, Washington, USA
I can totally relate. About 10 yr.s ago, I very deliberately moved into an apartment complex that was a little more than I could afford,really- in an effort to avoid such riff-raff. A couple yrs went by just fine and comfy-but then property management changed, and they began taking in Section8s and lower-rents.
And in came the flood. Almost overnight the place was infested with all sorts of degenerates who trashed the place, partied all night, and fought all the time with one another.
Luckily a friend of mine had a place he was wanting to rent/sell waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out in the country. I moved ASAP.

Check local ordinances, but you will need to have a valid reason to call the cops (too loud, actual fights breaking out, obvious drug use/dealing,etc.) before anything will come of it. Do it too often, and cops just wont bother coming around, and will just sort of blow you off, or take their sweet time getting there. And, it wont take the other folks any time at all to figure out who's calling the cops on em (since you will soon be out-numbered,now that the barbarians are at the gates) which will lead to all manner of other possible problems.

Hate to say it, but best bet may be to begin looking for a new place, if at all possible. You may resolve these immediate problems, with this particular neighbor, but once these types of infestations begin, they rarely reverse themselves.

You should be more understanding. Remember,

[SINGSONG]
They aaaaare the 99%!
[/SINGSONG]
 

amlevin

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2007
Messages
5,937
Location
North of Seattle, Washington, USA
Of course there is always the "super soaker" squirt gun filled with Butyric Acid. Just "hose down" the areas under their windows, near their front door, or anywhere where the breeze would blow their way. It smells like rancid butter or extremely bad B.O. Just make sure you don't spill any on yourself and you dispose of the Squirt Gun quickly. Some quick work in the wee hours of the morning could maybe have them move on if all else fails. Then again, the stench may just be normal to them. Then just get a couple of gallons of Deer urine scent and repeat.
 

pat

Regular Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
22
Location
, ,
new Neighbors

You didn't say if this was apt or a single family house.You might have some leverage with landlord.
We lived thru 3 yrs of BS that you are now going thru.
We live in Unincorp King County. We were told by LE that if we were in a incorp city the problem neighbors would of been gone by now. We had pic's, license plate numbers, logs we kept etc...Nothing really helped.
King County police made their twice a week presentance. They hauled away who ever had a warrant, but the person was back usually within 3 days. Burning insulation off wires in backyard stunk like #%@@. After all we did and all the good neighbors did nothing helped.
What finally did worked was the code complaince office. For all the rats, trash, junk etc. Code complaince closed the place down as uninhabitable and gave them so time to bring structure into code complaince, which they didn't have the work ethic or money or brains.

One thing that did help in the beginning was when we meet at the mailbox one day and after simple intro's I informed him that we have had no thefts in our neighborhood and if any happened I now where to start looking. He was so concerned about one of his buds doing something that he actually watched our place when we were at work. Yes the druggies watching out house---sounds funny but true. He even called us on vacation one year telling us the house was OK. Get a safety doposit box at bank, and not a portable safe that can be carried away. They know how long they have until you get home or have their buds watching the street while they are inside your place. Don't keep extra firearms around.
I would give it no more than 3 months for the landlord to get them out. If no,t you move. I know, not fair, but that is the way it is in a society where the bad guys have all their rights.
In King County we have "JILS" (jail inmate lookup service) were you can look up just how many times they were a customer at jail. Maybe your area also has that service. You can tell from past crimes what they are into.
Something else sounds funny but he invited me to his "graduation" from drug rehab, I went thinking this would be a turning point and he would get on the road to something good. It wasn't, situation got worse. He felt so sorry for other druggies that he started a place to "just spend" the night for his classmates (fellow druggies)
 

TechnoWeenie

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2007
Messages
2,084
Location
, ,
Talk to them.

If they play dumb, put a camera on a tripod in your front yard... make sure they see you.. pointed at their driveway and/or front door.
 

fire suppressor

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 13, 2008
Messages
870
Location
Kitsap County
The new neighbors are annoying but they seem to into there own extra curricular activities to be much of a issue. My main concern are the weird people hanging out outside. I don't want this to come out wrong I never carry to intimate people I do not believe in that but I have noticed when I open carry outside everyone is sure to give me my personal space that's a added bonus
 

amzbrady

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2009
Messages
3,521
Location
Marysville, Washington, USA
Didnt they pass a law in this state that allows police to enter a home without search warrant if they smell maryjuwanna? If this is one of the funny smell lofting about from the nieghbor, just call the police and let them deal with it. Maybe they will be arrested and lose their job, then not be able to pay rent, then they can occupy elsewhere.
 
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