Years ago, in a self-help book, I read about a Chicago-area man who unknowingly bought a house on an O'Hare flight path. Though miles from the airport, planes droned right above his roof. Of course, this upset him very much. Every time he heard the screaming engines it compounded his humiliation, discomfort and anxiety. One day, however, he decided to seize the day: He got a bucket of white paint, a ladder, climbed onto his roof and wrote in big letters "Welcome to Cleveland!"
The moral of the story, I'm guessing, is that if someone parks his boat in front of your house, if your neighbor's car alarm goes off repeatedly at 2 a.m., or if a local teen occasionally micturates upon your lawn, realize that the frustration is, you know, all in your head.
Just don't say that on the AOL message boards: In their cantankerous Neighbors From Hell forum, folks are hashing out all kinds of issues. From the mundane ("my neighbor has a hedge that extends into my yard a good foot or more that she does not trim") to the worrisome ("my neighbor secretly listens to my phone calls") to the downright frightening ("my neighbor lays on a hammock in my front yard ... nude!").
For those who need the visual, they've put together a sildeshow of favorites, including the neighbor who runs a cabinet-making business from his garage.
According to the accuser, "The vibrations from all the saws go through our windows, on our floor and into our bed. The noise and vibrations never stop. They have a 24/7 business, so every four or five hours is pickup time; vans drive in and take the cabinets all day and all night long."
But the point, I think, of the "Welcome to Cleveland" story is that, to achieve a happy neighborhood, the mental game must first be won. Sure, having a chop-shop next door or a 6-Foot Self-Inflating Lawn Snowglobe across the street (in April) can be totally annoying. A touch of the Zen approach, though -- with the following adjustments in perspective -- and you'll seize back the neighborhood in no time.
Problem: My neighbor runs a cabinet-making business from his garage and the vibrations make my bed shake.
Solution: Free massaging bed
Problem: My neighbor parks his 43-foot cruising yachts on either side of the street.
Solution: I have beach-front property.
Problem: My neighbor lays on a hammock in my front yard ... nude!
Solution: I don't need cable anymore.
B. Brandon Barker is the author of the novel Operation EMU.
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Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
4-04-2007 @ 9:31AM
scott and you're not! said...
i lived in a norman rockwell picturesque neighborhood called seminole heights in tampa florida. brick streets, big pretty trees, a river nearby, and most of the homes are 1920's era bungalows. the neighbs were charming, mostly older folks. i had a larger home and a double lot. life was not bad, at all, for the first 12 years...i was in my paradise. i got along great with all the neighbs, being that i'm a carpenter, with a special talent for older homes. we as a whole, were friendly, caring, and for ever lending the helping hand that anyone would need. then a few years ago, when most of the elders started kicking off, and properties started changing hands, and greed was shifting into high gear, everything changed. 1st, the city of tampa okayed a lot to be split, and a double-wide trailer was moved onto the vacant half....directly across the street from my pristine 1924, 2000 sq ft bungalow! ok? not so bad? the proud new owners of this eye sore are 2 fat& black lesbians, from chicago. ok? not so bad? they have a very large, ugly camper-style van they leave parked in the street strategically centered in between the two entrances to my circular driveway, rendering it ineffective and basically useless. ok? not so bad?, for five years...then one night, as i am taking the trash out to the curb, with my faithful companion, fido, at my side, and i'm singing "the old gray mare" to him, this fat, black, G-O-rilla looking lesbian jumps out from behind her ugly van and starts screeming at me to come across the street so she can beat the hell out of me! i simply laughed at her and went back in my home. she stayed out there for a good half hour yelling obsinities about all us "sorry white people"! the next day a hillsborough county sheriff's deputy sdhowed up at my home to deliver a temporary restraining order, requiring i stay 300 feet away from ( not her) but her "butt buddy" (who was no where around during the incident) at all times, until a court hearing. i asked the deputy how this might be accomplished, being the with the right-of-way, street, and home set backs, her house was 50 feet from mine. she said she didn't know, but, i'd better stay away. from that day these people called the police several times a day, saying they had me on "tape" doing one thing or another to violate the restraining order, and the police were constantly threatening me with jail. in tampa, the police don't play. how ever, to this day, they won't admit it, they never saw anything on "tape"...the cameras were the FAKE kind people buy. when a police woman says she THINKS she saw something on the tape, she's full of BS! if she did she would have taken me to jail right then! ( YES, some tampa cops will LIE!) finally, court day arrives. this woman has me accused of 7 instances of violence...for each and every accusation i had an alibi or witness. i showed up to court with 7 witnesses (ligit). now this particular judge is THE smartest person on this entire earth. nation wide, every one knows who this guy is. those poor folks out in brandon whose baby came up missing and were persecuted by the authorities for years over secretly taped conversations in their home, and the case FINALLY thrown out of court because absolutely NO ONE ON EARTH could understand a single mumble on these recordings...this judge, at that time, was the lead prosecutor in that case, and said he understood every word on those tapes! so what did the courts do? they made him a county JUDGE!!!soooo, upon arrival to the court room, (1) none of the witnesses were allowed in, at all! 2, the judge looked me straight in the eye and warned me to NOT say one word in his court room, if i did, he would lock me up for 5 months and 29 days, for contempt of court! then asked me if i understood him, i just nodded. from there this fat, black, judge proceded to flirting with my accuser. a few minutes later, he granted the restraining order for a year. a few days later, and after the normal "several" cop visits aday, the police beat on my door, at 1:30 in the morning, waking me and my family, and took me to jail. the reason? the woman said she heard her dog bark, looked out her window, and saw me run into my yard! the police's contention? the angle at which the fake cameras are set would not have shown me because the big, ugly van would block the view! and, they wouldn't believe my wife and children!( oh well, don't do court of any kind in tampa, other than a parking ticket, without a lawyer) i was held in jail for 5 days without bail, and when bail was granted it was high, and i wasn't allowed to go to my home, for any reason other than to get tools, and, only with a police escort. sooo, while i wasn't allowed at my home, i still had daily visits by the police, and i was 15 miles from my home! the woman called them every day to report i was just in her yard "a minute ago". so the police would come by where i was staying, check my cars to find they hadn't even been cranked (cold) that day!, and other than that, there is no way possible to get from my home, to where i'm staying, 15 miles away, in 10 minutes...helicopter? next door to an air force base?...don't think sooo...so i hired a lawyer to take it to a jury trial(thousands of dollars in legal fees). over the months, and numerous preliminary hearings, these people are swearing that i'm simply "outfoxing" the police, that i must have help, that they're absolutely scared for their lives. my lawyer in the mean time is showing where these people are simply LIARS, TO NO AVAIL. finally trial day comes, in mid july, and it's time to pick a jury. the prosecutor steps up to the plate to try to get another postponement. when the judge lady asked why, he had to tell the truth...he said the victims had to run off to chicago for an emergency "GRADUATION" ceremony for a nephew who just graduated! the judge lady had to be stern with me thru the whole proccess, she's the head state attorney's wife. when the prosecutor told her what he did, she said "i am flabberghasted! these people have wanted this man sent to prison for as long as possible?! they're scared for their lives?! and a "graduation" in mid july?! MR SCOTT! YOU MAY GO HOME TO YOUR FAMILY!, AND THE COURT TRULY APOLOGIZES FOR THIS!"...this is just one installment. this covers "burn and windy"..."floorrinse" and "semen" have a story all their own. i could do a book on the neighbors from hell, how ever, floorrinse and semen are "frencheneese garbage". ps, i have a very good case to sue for all kinds of civil rights issues, but an empty judgement is no good.
4-05-2007 @ 9:52AM
scott and you\\\'re not! said...
i'm scott and you're not! add-on to #62. everything in 62 plus floorrinse and robert lived next door. robert is a world class good guy! he's also an artist and an art critic. while i lived there i started building a dawg house ( a place for me, my tools, my friends, my dog, my "studio" etc.) it was 12' wide, 30' long, and a real 2 stories. robert wanted one just like it. a 1 car garage down stairs and his studio up stairs. b-4 i was done w/mine, robert started visiting that big art colony in new mexico. he came back off his trip in a pickup/w/camper. the back door of the house was locked, and his key didn't fit. he rang the door bell and floorrinse cracked the door open and told him she didn't have time to deal w/him. robert, being a little bewildered, and a good guy told her he'd be in his camper. that's when floorrinse informed him that she didn't want his truck in "her yard". he retorted "your yard?" she said "yes, remember?, you put this property in my name in case any thing happened to you in your journey," and added "you have no legal claims to this property, what-so-ever!. get off my property or i'll call the police!". the next day she asked me when i was going to start "her" studio. i informed her i heard the day b-4's whole conversation, and that i'd never do anything 4 her again. from there the snit hit the fan w/ all the trimmings. i had planted a bamboo hedge 10 years prior(fern leaf). i was on my front porch doing coffee and news paper, unbeknownced to her. she had a visitor and the person wanted to know about "her" beautiful bamboo. i listened to floorinse explain, in great detail, how she worked for 10 years, making "her" hedge look so good. finally, the lady asked floorrinse if she could get some cuttings. floorrinse then further exposed her ignorance with "yes, i'll get my scissors", when she went to hacking at my bamboo i startled the both,"floorrinse! r u cutting MY bamboo?!" and the lies started coming out of her mouth about me to this other person. i politely told this person if she wanted cuttings to back up her car, i'd give her all she wants. i got my gas powered cutters and droppeds the hedge to waist high (from 12'). then the woman asked if i was going to harm floorrinse. i told her no, that she must be reading stephen king stories. in the mean time floorrinse called the police. the cops told her it was my hedge, plainly on my property and griped at her for calling them. go back to burn and windy, floorrinse and burn had never ever spoken to each other (in 5 years) b-4 then. burn walked over for 30seconds and left. in the mean time floorrinse told the cops she didn't want me on her property. the cop told me that, i said okay. the cop left. then floorrinse said something nasty, so i called the tool rental and had them deliver a backhoe. i totally removed all traces of the hedge and dumped it. the next day, the sheriff's delivered to me a temporary restraining order. i got the lawyer (again) and took care of that "tootsweet"! not long after that, the FBI (yes the real FBI) calls me and the french consolate called them. some one had sent floorrinse some photos of dogs getting it on. she said that would be me. i had to do polygraph and dna tests to prove myself, again! not too long after that, a friend of mine was in a local resturante and over heard floorrinse telling someone a story of how she and a neighbor had schemed to get a neighbor thrown out of their neighborhood so they could buy the property on the cheaps so they could develope it. my friend didn't know it was floorrinse, or me. out of the clear blue, after she told me about this incredible story, floorrinse walked out in her yard and my friend told me that THAT was the woman that she had just seen and overheard while she was at lunch. oh, semen? floorrinse's mother...right there with her all the while...neighbors from hell!!!!
4-08-2007 @ 3:52AM
Chris Sheehan said...
For 17 years we have lived in a quiet township. Then a bitch and her asshole husband moved in across the street. All she did is keep having kids and then started whinning that she had to have a home business doing graphics so she could stay home with all her kids. He is a truck driver that had applied for a permint and does nothing but abuse it. He does what ever he wants and ignores the permit. They have the trustees of Guilford Twp. twisted right around there little finger and they get what ever they want. It's a shame to put your live into a home and have some little twit dictate to the twp. what she wants and obtain all kinds of variences to run a commercial business in a residential neighborhood. The whole haven of them live on this road and so they think they run the world. We'll see!! What go's around comes around.
Chris