Need your advice on how to handle a neighbor

[galonuscct]

The backstory:
My daughter is date a kid (he just turned 18) who has a car (2009 Honda Accord) and he's dropped the suspension and completely deleted the cats and muffler. It is LOUD - fucking annoyingly loud. I told the kid, if you keep driving this car into our neighborhood loudly (he can drive is slowly and it probably is "legal" from a db perspective), someone is going to call the cops.
A neighbor who is a close friend texted me to ask if the loud car was coming to my house. I said "yup" its my daughters BF. He offered to pay to buy him a muffler, and I said you could make him that offer, but he likes it loud. The conversation ended.

Yesterday the kid gets pulled over by a State Trooper outside our neighborhood and my daughter is in the car. The neighbor is with the State Trooper - so he not only complained to the cops, but also worked with them to nail the kid.

I'm pissed. Not because he called the cops. I'm pissed that he didn't tell me - "Julian - heads up....I'm done with this kid and I'm calling the cops tomorrow". Either in person, call me, text me, send me a FB message (yes we are friends on FB), send me a Nextdoor message, leave an anonymous note in my mailbox, Call the HOA president and have him call me - SO MANY way he could have be spineless and got me that message - but he was a pathetic prick and didn't.

So....am I out of line thinking he should have given the kid an opportunity to know he was calling the cops?

This poor kid now has 3 tickets and 2 warnings. Turns out, he's in the process of buying this car from a friend, and the friend (employee of his mom) said it was plated legally - lied. The plate isn't for that car-so got a ticket for that. A Ticket for driving on an expired permit (he has a DMV test appointment for Monday....couldn't get one sooner due to covid). Ticket for illegal window tint. Warning for tire tread and a warning for the exhaust. Now the kid can't get to work as he can't drive the car. Has hundreds of dollars in tickets (talked to the cop who said if he goes to court and says he's fixed them all - they should waive the tickets (operative word---SHOULD). Cop was really nice- talked to him for a while.

I am tempted to post the following on FB:

Dear neighbors, my humble apologies for the loud car you've heard for the last couple of months. This was my daughter's boyfriend and he likes loud cars. I hate them! He won't be driving it in our neighborhood any longer as one or more of my wonderful neighbors called the police on him. In the future, please do me and the rest of our neighbor's children and their friends the common courtesy of letting them know you are mad as hell and are going to call the police BEFORE you call them. I would do this for your children of their friends.

In order of maturity/level of comfort, I would start at the top and work your way down:

1. Go to the neighbors house in person and talk to the parents.
2. Call the neighbors house (our number is in the directory)
3. Text the neighbor
4. Send the neighbor a message on FB, Nextdoor etc.
5. Leave an anonymous note in the neighbors mailbox
6. Call the HOA president or board member and have them relay the message.
7. Don't give the kid any warning and just call the cops like a spineless pussy.

OK....I might need to reword #7.....but right now it sure makes the point.

Feedback.....???

Shouldn't you take your own advice and talk the cop caller first, before you post on FB?

 

[the MfM]

Lol. A Facebook rant will fix it!

 

[the MfM]

@zipper are you available to house sit for a couple weeks? I bought 16 acres next to a town park. Apparently people in the subdivision on the far side of my dock think they should just walk through my yard to get the park whenever they want.

It needs to end but i promised my wife I’d be nice. I think word of a fist fight or ambush would really help slow down the trespass.

 

[RiverRat]

I didn’t read any responses past your initial post Julian…. I was a kid not that long ago, 25ish years I guess. Is his loud exhaust annoying? Hell yeah probably. But seriously, fuck that neighbor for somehow getting him pulled over. Regardless if he mentioned something covertly to you or not. If this kid is decent and will eventually grow out of this noise phase( I was a 16 year old with a loud ass stereo showing up to my girlfriend’s house( who I’ve now been married to for 16 years)) the thirty seconds or a minute of noise pollution your neighbors have to endure every so often doesn’t matter.

 

[Julian]

Shouldn't you take your own advice and talk the cop caller first, before you post on FB?

We talked...the FB post was just me getting my anger out in a virtual post here!

I'm over the whole thing....and this guy likely won't ever admit his ahole move fully. I'll take his partial apology and just move on. Every year the guy gets stranger....plenty of other neighbors who are sane.

 

[drewkaree]

@zipper are you available to house sit for a couple weeks? I bought 16 acres next to a town park. Apparently people in the subdivision on the far side of my dock think they should just walk through my yard to get the park whenever they want.

It needs to end but i promised my wife I’d be nice. I think word of a fist fight or ambush would really help slow down the trespass.

"OMG, I was digging a hole to make a decorative something-or-other, and whoever lived here before must have buried bear traps all over here for some insane reason!"

*holding a shovel with a busted handle, wearing shoes torn out on the sides*

?

 

[zipper]

"OMG, I was digging a hole to make a decorative something-or-other, and whoever lived here before must have buried bear traps all over here for some insane reason!"

*holding a shovel with a busted handle, wearing shoes torn out on the sides*

?

WOW! I'm busted. Lol Well they don't make wooden handles like they used to and I do need a new pair of Top Siders. Bear traps are passe'. I would recommend finding a cow or chicken farmer. Your new property will likely need some grass Fertilizer, because of the poor shape of the grass due to constant trespass. Have them bring their Honey wagon and spread some FRESH fertilizer along and all around the path. The grass will grow better and I guarantee they stop taking that shortcut.

 

[the MfM]

I was thinking a pair of swans would work. But now that I looked up pricing I might have to go red neck and get a dozen guinea hens.

though the YouTube videos of a pair of swans running off the neighbors might offset the initial investment?

 

[zipper]

Some Geese will do the same thing.

 

[Murf'n'surf]

@zipper are you available to house sit for a couple weeks? I bought 16 acres next to a town park. Apparently people in the subdivision on the far side of my dock think they should just walk through my yard to get the park whenever they want.

It needs to end but i promised my wife I’d be nice. I think word of a fist fight or ambush would really help slow down the trespass.

Motion activated sprinklers will cure that trespass issue.

 

[drewkaree]

You could be living in this neighborhood ?

 

[AZMark]

I was thinking a pair of swans would work. But now that I looked up pricing I might have to go red neck and get a dozen guinea hens.

We had one of those move into our yard last winter. Most obnoxious animal I’ve ever heard. Don’t do that to yourself.

 

[the MfM]

Motion activated sprinklers will cure that trespass issue.

Not a bad idea but I think the neighbors would just have their kids play in it on the way to the park.

 

[dnicholas47]

Sounds like you have patched up things with the neighbor. Make sure the BF brings proof of the license test, new car, etc. to court. Usually on a first time offense (where I live anyway) the worst he would end up with is 1 non-moving charge so it won’t mess with the license going forward.

 

[Murf'n'surf]

Not a bad idea but I think the neighbors would just have their kids play in it on the way to the park.

Hit them with a little bit of this stuff then.....

https://www.amazon.com/Liquid-Ass-Mister/dp/B000OCEWGW?th=1

 

[BlkGS]

My take, as the guy with the very loud cars.

1) it's not your kid that was the issue. It's the guy she's dating.
2) I know my loud ass cars put me in the cross hairs, as we grow up we learn to make ourselves less conspicuous. This kid just got his harsh lesson
3) your neighbor doesn't need to beg you to do something about it. He went and texted you about it vs calling the cops the first time it happened. You basically told him "he won't change it", so cops was his only option in his mind.
4) your daughter needs to find a better guy. Accords are for losers, she needs to date a guy who has a COOL car that's loud, lol. Gotta have standards.

Overall, I wouldn't sweat it too much. It's not your problem, and honestly, the days of whole town parenting are so far gone, you can't expect that kind of wholesome approach anymore. I have a friend who was literally unloading his moving truck to move in, and neighbors down the road he had never met called the cops saying he was being too loud. People suck now.

 

[BlkGS]

I was thinking a pair of swans would work. But now that I looked up pricing I might have to go red neck and get a dozen guinea hens.

though the YouTube videos of a pair of swans running off the neighbors might offset the initial investment?

From experience, Guinea find ways to get themselves killed. Get chickens.

 

[Ronnie]

So it took me an hour to read all the posts in this thread and i found myself liking and agreeing with conflicting posts. For context I’ve had a bad neighbor complain about the access driveway installed in my front yard. He complained to compliance for the city and I ended up spending $5k to replace the concrete with grasscrete (think thin cinder blocks with plenty of holes for grass to grow out of), he often called the cops on the first day I parked my truck, boat and trailer in the street in front of my house (the cops would mark the tires that day and give me a ticket if I didn’t move it after three days, never got a ticket), once he called just after I parked and left to eat lunch. He ended up moving after i called code compliance on him once for having junk leaching something green into the gutter. I also have a next door neighbor that I love. We are friends but now my wife and I are thinking of selling our home and he recently installed a ghetto looking garden / planter box in his front yard, I’m sure that is not going to help where selling my home is concerned but I don’t know if I will talk to him about it. What would I say, “please tear that shit out until after I sell and I will pay you a TBD amount of cash”?

at the same time my son just bought a hot hatch back (Mazda 3 speed or speed 3), a six speed 4 cylinder turbo with a straight pipe. It’s loud as hell especially in the morning. I didn’t know what having a straight pipe meant until we went to transfer title to his his name. Of course it don’t pass smog (even though registration was just issued 5 weeks earlier, the previous owner must have known someone at the dmv or a smog shop owner). The tech told us the cats are gone,so are the resonators and the blow off valve needs to be plastic not metal. It also needs to have itw
Oem tune restored. If did a quick search and estimate it would cost $3k to $4k to make it street legal. Now my kid is at college near San Diego. Sometimes delivering food to huge estates in very affluent neighborhoods. I told him to be cool but pretty sure that’s not going to stick. Registration expires in august so he is going to have to deal with this before the next school year. Sometimes I wish he would get a fix it ticket but reality eventually hits me (I’m going to ended up paying to fix it at least in part either directly or through my wife) and I pray for the opposite.

If was was the neighbor in julian’s case I would have done the same thing but would have added in the text or ended it with, “Julian if you are not going to do anything about this I will, soon.” Before calling the cops to let them do what they do, if anything. I took a pic of a guy towing a shopping cart full of stolen catalytic converters with a bicycle just a mile away from my home. I talked to a local cop about it and he said it’s good i didn’t call them as they would not have gone out to find, fine or arrest the guy for a simple property crime.

 

[BlkGS]

So it took me an hour to read all the posts in this thread and i found myself liking and agreeing with conflicting posts. For context I’ve had a bad neighbor complain about the access driveway installed in my front yard. He complained to compliance for the city and I ended up spending $5k to replace the concrete with grasscrete (think thin cinder blocks with plenty of holes for grass to grow out of), he often called the cops on the first day I parked my truck, boat and trailer in the street in front of my house (the cops would mark the tires that day and give me a ticket if I didn’t move it after three days, never got a ticket), once he called just after I parked and left to eat lunch. He ended up moving after i called code compliance on him once for having junk leaching something green into the gutter. I also have a next door neighbor that I love. We are friends but now my wife and I are thinking of selling our home and he recently installed a ghetto looking garden / planter box in his front yard, I’m sure that is not going to help where selling my home is concerned but I don’t know if I will talk to him about it. What would I say, “please tear that shit out until after I sell and I will pay you a TBD amount of cash”?

at the same time my son just bought a hot hatch back (Mazda 3 speed or speed 3), a six speed 4 cylinder turbo with a straight pipe. It’s loud as hell especially in the morning. I didn’t know what having a straight pipe meant until we went to transfer title to his his name. Of course it don’t pass smog (even though registration was just issued 5 weeks earlier, the previous owner must have known someone at the dmv or a smog shop owner). The tech told us the cats are gone,so are the resonators and the blow off valve needs to be plastic not metal. It also needs to have itw
Oem tune restored. If did a quick search and estimate it would cost $3k to $4k to make it street legal. Now my kid is at college near San Diego. Sometimes delivering food to huge estates in very affluent neighborhoods. I told him to be cool but pretty sure that’s not going to stick. Registration expires in august so he is going to have to deal with this before the next school year. Sometimes I wish he would get a fix it ticket but reality eventually hits me (I’m going to ended up paying to fix it at least in part either directly or through my wife) and I pray for the opposite.

If was was the neighbor in julian’s case I would have done the same thing but would have added in the text or ended it with, “Julian if you are not going to do anything about this I will, soon.” Before calling the cops to let them do what they do, if anything. I took a pic of a guy towing a shopping cart full of stolen catalytic converters with a bicycle just a mile away from my home. I talked to a local cop about it and he said it’s good i didn’t call them as they would not have gone out to find, fine or arrest the guy for a simple property crime.

If it's any consolation, the speed 3 was known for having a notoriously unreliable motor, so it'll probably blow up anyways.

 

[Ronnie]

@BIk

If it's any consolation, the speed 3 was known for having a notoriously unreliable motor, so it'll probably blow up anyways.

actually the thought had crossed my mind, in that it’s got over 100k miles on its original turbo and may not have been maintained properly to begin with. I would “loan” my son my wife’s and my spare car if he needed it on the condition that he either sells or fixes his within 6 months, if he didn’t it goes on Craigslist or face book market place as a mechanics special/dirt cheap.