by "Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
Published 06/27/2017 at 11:35
by "Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
Published 06/27/2017 at 11:35
No Tags
STARS: 4
First, a little background on how my neighborhood is arranged. The houses all have their front doors on the front and their garages and driveways on the back. They are arranged so that the fronts all line up with the street and there is an alley between them where all of the garages and driveways go. This is also where trash gets picked up.
As expected, the HOA and the neighborhood facebook group are cesspools. This guy, let’s call him “Leonard” because that’s his name, is a member of both. He loves patrolling the alley and complaining about anything that might be out of place, anyone driving what he perceives to be too fast, any kids playing in the street, you get the idea. Leonard is an angry old man, probably retired, who desperately needs a hobby.
Right now, his peeve seems to be trash cans and recycle bins that can be seen outside of trash day. He literally patrols the neighborhood looking for visible trash receptacles and takes pictures of them to send to the HOA board, who sends out threatening letters to people quoting the rule that trash cans and recycle bins must be invisible except for Mondays for trash and every other Monday for recycle. Please remember that this all occurs in the alley and not the front-facing street.
Full disclosure: I have received one of the letters, with accompanying photo proving that my cans are visible. I pull them off of the street and put them behind the bushes next to my Sean Spicers, but yes, you can see them as you drive/walk by my house from behind in the alley. Many others leave their cans next to the road all week, so I consider myself in the upper third of receptacle responsibility for our neighborhood. There are some who move their cans into their yards and some who put them inside their garage, blocking one of their potential parking spots (another contentious issue in our neighborhood).
Most recently, Leonard has been complaining on the neighborhood facebook page about his next door neighbor putting their recycle bin out on a non-recycle day. Meaning, he’s complaining about garbage bins on the street in an alley on garbage day. Yes, this bin happens to be blue, but for fuck’s sake Leonard can you take a fucking breath? Jesus Christ, it’s fucking trash day, Leonard, there’s going to be trash cans on the fucking street. Just don’t look at them. Look out one of the remaining 3 sides of your house instead. Fuck, Leonard.
Sorry, where was I? Right, the neighbor. Leonard complains publicly about this neighbor (and not politely, and not in an educational way, just being a passive-aggressive dick), whose only crime, I should repeat, is getting the date wrong for recycle day. I happen to know that neighbor just moved in, so they have lots of extra stuff to recycle and they also have not learned the pickup schedule yet. Did Leonard go talk to his next-door neighbor to give them the information about the recycle schedule? No, of course not. Shit, Leonard, grow some saggy balls and confront them in person if you’re so concerned.
So, clearly Leonard is extremely concerned with the appearance of the alley, right? He doesn’t want to see anything that’s unsightly and I get that, even if his methods are ridiculous. But do you know what he parks everyday on his driveway, in plain view of everyone, day or night?
A fucking convertible PT Cruiser. That’s what I have to look at every damn day, so fuck you Leonard, and your recycle bins. Also, fuck you just a little bit, Chrysler.
I need some coffee.
"awmaster10" (awmaster10)
06/27/2017 at 11:41, STARS: 2
Try to make a case to the HOA that the PT cruiser is more unsightly than the trash receptacles.
"Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer" (smallbear94)
06/27/2017 at 11:42, STARS: 0
But in all seriousness, fuck Leonard
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 11:42, STARS: 1
That sounds like a fun project for someone with a lot more energy and time than myself.
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 11:44, STARS: 1
They look like they have some of the same DNA. The cars, I mean, not Leonard.
"awmaster10" (awmaster10)
06/27/2017 at 11:46, STARS: 7
Take them to a junkyard and show them some PT cruisers. Whens the last time you saw somebody throw a trashcan away?
"RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire" (ricerocketeer2)
06/27/2017 at 11:49, STARS: 0
I live in a townhome that shares a wall with a midnight S&M/Crossfit/glossolalia enthusiast.
"CalzoneGolem" (calzonegolem)
06/27/2017 at 11:49, STARS: 6
Whens the last time you saw somebody throw a trashcan away?
How ... how would you even do that?
"Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer" (smallbear94)
06/27/2017 at 11:50, STARS: 0
Leonard too.
"Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer" (smallbear94)
06/27/2017 at 11:51, STARS: 1
You can do anything with a big enough hammer. Though it would be far easier with a sawzall
"awmaster10" (awmaster10)
06/27/2017 at 11:51, STARS: 1
"Future next gen S2000 owner" (future-next-gen-s2000-owner)
06/27/2017 at 11:53, STARS: 7
Take a picture of the Cruiser. Post it on his door with a photoshopped note from the HOA stating please remove your trash from the street.
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 11:57, STARS: 1
Oh man, so tempting.
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 11:58, STARS: 0
Crossfit? Ew.
"unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins)" (unclevanos)
06/27/2017 at 12:00, STARS: 0
Ew
"CalzoneGolem" (calzonegolem)
06/27/2017 at 12:01, STARS: 1
Anything I can chop up and fit into a bag is ok to throw away.
"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
06/27/2017 at 12:09, STARS: 2
........yeah I need to never live anywhere with a HOA
"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
06/27/2017 at 12:12, STARS: 4
We had a guy putting out speed bumps on a private road a few years ago. Two guys actually; they decided people were driving too fast so they purchased and “installed” speed bumps. I should write a whole post about this actually...... hmm
"CaptDale - is secretly British" (captdale)
06/27/2017 at 12:19, STARS: 0
I fucking hate HOAs! Especially ones where people can do stuff online. Fuck that guy! The only HOA I have enjoyed was my grandparents’ because the people are super chill and they are the presidents and no one fucks with the presidents.
"Jay, the practical enthusiast" (jay-m)
06/27/2017 at 12:21, STARS: 0
That’s pretty crazy. Please write it up cause I want to know more about that.
"merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc" (merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc)
06/27/2017 at 12:25, STARS: 0
It’s really hard to get the trash collectors to take a trash can as actual trash. No lie, took us almost a month for me to get rid of one of our old busted cans. It was so bad that I actually cut up the next one I needed to dispose of.
"Jay, the practical enthusiast" (jay-m)
06/27/2017 at 12:28, STARS: 0
I live in the same style neighborhood. I’m on the outside of the neighborhood so there are no houses behind us, just trees. A lot of us leave our trash cans out side next to the garage (for similar reasons, they take too much space) even though it is against the HOA. Luckily we don’t have any Leonards in our neighborhood. Is there any way you can get together with your neighbors and try to change the HOA rules?
"Rico" (ricorich)
06/27/2017 at 12:41, STARS: 0
There’s only two ways I would deal with Leonard.
1) Be as nitpicky as he is and constantly report (even false report) anything on him so he can see how annoying it is.
or
2) Tell him to explicitly fuck off on Facebook and in real life and tell him if he has a fucking problem with it to come say it to my face.
I know this may upset the sensibilities of some Oppo members here but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get people to fuck off and not bother you any more.
"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
06/27/2017 at 12:48, STARS: 1
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 12:53, STARS: 1
If there’s ever any threat of real consequences like fines or something, I’ll definitely do some of those things. I could also stop reading the neighborhood facebook posts, but it’s like a car accident and it’s hard to look away.
Until then, I’ll just write unnecessarily long rants on Oppo.
"Rico" (ricorich)
06/27/2017 at 12:56, STARS: 0
Rant away!
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
06/27/2017 at 12:57, STARS: 2
The only possible solution to asshole neighbors is to bring them baked goods, be nice, then ask them to kindly stop doing whatever asshole thing they’re doing.
I did these items out of sequence with the assholes who moved in next door to my townhouse, let their kid run up and down the stairs screaming for 3 hours at a time, and spent a weekend with their subwoofer playing loudly for 14 hours a day.
I asked them multiple times that weekend to turn down the subwoofer, but said nothing about the kid, and I was ignored, so when the noise continued I complained to the landlord, who sent a letter threatening to have them evicted if we call the cops.
The noise from the kid reduced, but there were still 2+ hour long bouts of kid screaming up and down the stairs, often late at night, during the week. Finally one Saturday morning I woke up to the sound of the kid screaming, and my wife saying, “ THAT FUCKING KID ,” so I got up, went next door, and banged on the door like I was going to knock it down myself.
The dad screamed at me that I should just call the cops if I don’t like the noise, I apologized for banging so loud on the door, explained I don’t want to call the cops on him, that was the landlord’s instructions, we only reached out to the landlord after the neighbors ignored us on the subwoofer, and we don’t expect the kid to be silent but running up and down the stairs for 3 hours straight until 11 pm on a Tuesday night is not acceptable.
He looked at me like this was news to him, like sometimes he works late and it was his wife letting the kid run around screaming. After that the kid was mostly fine.
A couple months later we brought them Christmas cookies. Now they generally ignore us or occasionally wave if they see us.
Our neighbor on the other side of us is a single mom with 2 kids who have cousins in the neighborhood. Sometimes during the winter they can play around inside and make a bunch of noise, but generally we have a good relationship with them, being sociable while grilling and they’re outside also, etc. Good times.
We also brought them Christmas cookies.
Then maybe a month later, the kids were running around playing inside (this is Wisconsin, winter’s long) and it was like 10:30 pm on a Saturday, and my wife was trying to go to bed. I went next door, rang the doorbell and sheepishly said to the mom that my wife was trying to go to sleep. She was like, “I totally get it,” kinda happy like this was what she needed to get the kids to shut up. When I went back inside, I heard her go upstairs and tell the kids to quit with the racket because the neighbors can hear them.
Point is: telling neighbors to do things works much better after baked goods.
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 12:59, STARS: 1
Is there any way you can get together with your neighbors and try to change the HOA rules?
The people who actually show up to those meetings are not exactly what you’d call “reasonable.” I’ve gone once... never again.
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 13:03, STARS: 4
So I should bake him cookies and ask politely that he hide his PT Cruiser?
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
06/27/2017 at 13:11, STARS: 0
Haha nice, but no, bake him cookies and ask him nicely to stop being the recycling bin police.
I’m a firm believer that people become asshole neighbors because nobody wants to just go talk to their neighbors anymore. Instead there are bullshit HOAs and other nonsense that always make life more difficult and enable people to be shitty to each other, indirectly. People like Leonard feel like there’s some stupid small injustice and instead of sorting things out among each other they cry to the HOA, the HOA enforces their will, and they get on a power trip because they feel like the HOA is the only way to get the neighbors to quit being assholes with leaving the bins out the wrong day or whatever, and the HOA rules are on their side.
Because really, let’s say you show up on Leonard’s door step with cookies, say you want to understand what upsets him about the recycling bins, and ask if he’s willing to talk about it. He’d probably be willing to talk. I’m the kind of don’t-give-a-fuck person where after he said his piece, I’d nicely ask him if policing the bins is so important to him that it’s worth pissing off the rest of the neighborhood with nasty HOA letters. Because Leonard is already being an asshole, so the only possible change is for him to be less of an asshole.
"Bryan doesn't drive a 1M" (bryantakespictures)
06/27/2017 at 13:26, STARS: 0
Because Leonard is already being an asshole, so the only possible change is for him to be less of an asshole.
Wow, you’ve had really good luck with your cookies ;) People can always be bigger assholes, and I find your mature, rational problem solving to be distasteful and upsetting.
But of course you’re right that these problems generally escalate because nobody confronts them in person. Next HOA letter, I plan to do that. It’s been too long since the last letter, and I didn’t know at the time who was doing the “policing.”
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
06/27/2017 at 15:01, STARS: 0
You’re right, they could become more of an asshole. I guess I see it as if they’re already being an asshole, being a bit more of an asshole isn’t all that much of a change.
"Quadradeuce" (quadradeuce)
06/27/2017 at 16:46, STARS: 0
I tried this route with a problem rental property next door. Tried to be the nice neighbor, talk to the person who was causing the issue, etc. I did this for about 7 years. Eventually, I had to elevate to the landlord. Landlord tells me to call the police (even though the police start charging the landlord for calls if a property gets more than 3 calls in a year). So I call the cops when I have an issue. A couple more years go by, landlord goes bankrupt, gets foreclosed on, I buy house, I bulldoze it. Problem solved.
I’ll still always talk to someone directly first, using kindness to keep peace in the neighborhood. It usually works great. I really do want to be friends with my neighbors.
Post-script: After the bad neighbor was evicted, I started talking to everyone else on the block. Apparently he was a total dick to everyone, and all of a sudden a dark cloud was lifted. I have no idea why some people want to live like that. Just last week he rode his bike down our alley as if he was reminiscing about living there...