Managing expectations.... or breaking in new neighbors

[SuperBuickGuy]

I don't see a problem but one of my neighbors mentioned that hearing our bloodhounds bay reminder her of a horror movie every time she hears them.

Vice Grip Garage has moved to Tennessee and the Facebook page announcing this has kind of devolved (oops) into 'how to meet the neighbors.'

I suggest 2 mile burnouts, burning old tires to warm yourself during summer and winter. Some else suggested the need for a Trans-Camaro on blocks.

So.... how do you properly break in the neighbors? You know you're going to be loud, maybe even a bit over the top (just a bit)... so what checks and balances do you employ to be sure their hope of a nice neighbor who brings them pie isn't so dashed that they have their own detective assigned to them for you....

[pdub]

We'd lived here about a couple weeks and one afternoon we were sitting in the living room watching the local 6:00 news when there was a big loud deep WHUMP outside. I looked out the window and yep, that was a wreck. Mrs. Superman had left her Tahoe in neutral while she ran back in the house for a few seconds and the Tahoe rolled out of their driveway into our yard and hit the oak tree that was in front of the garage (we hadn't had time yet to have the tree cut down).

There she stood looking at it. If the tree hadn't been there the Tahoe would have gone a good ways through our garage and mashed all the boxes we had not yet unpacked. I went out there giggling and she said, "Well, this is a heck of a way to meet the neighbors." That's my best "meet the neighbors" story. I've got worser stories because the house next door on the garage side was a rental when we moved in and it was a single mom with two inbred kids but we won't go there.

I don't know how to break in neighbors because I was always the one getting broke in. Ohhh wait, I DO know - the single mom had a Chihuahua tied to a tree in the back yard and it screamed every breath for hours, particularly while I was trying to go to sleep. After an ugly confrontation at her front door I learned that she'd tied the Chihuahua outside because it was infested with fleas and she didn't want it in the house. So rent a Chihuahua and tie it to a tree and ask your neighbor which she'd rather hear - a Chihuahua or a bloodhound. To me the bloodhound sounds more like vengeance than horror because I'm not the one running barefoot through the swamp trying to get away.

[DanStokes]

Early on after we moved here I went next door to our neighbor and said "Here's my phone number. Please call if I'm doing anything that's upsetting because I'm a car guy and I don't want to be THAT neighbor. BTW - there will be a shop built right here (pointing at the spot) and they won't let me put it further away from your house so I hope that will work out, too." They've been friends and wonderful neighbor ever since and they only called one time which was for a contractor who was working on the shop - he had parked across their driveway so the neighbor couldn't get out. I "corrected" the contractor on the spot.

The neighbor on the other side is far enough away from the car activities that I don't think they notice although they did erect a Fort Knox-like fence between us.

Dan

[oletrux4evr]

Well, if you can use a deadfall hoist on the tree in the front yard for an engine swap without complaint, you've got great neighbors.

[STINEY]

When we moved to our current abode our neighbors - by the time the 4th trailer load pulled in - said to each other "oh good, they are car people too" with relief. They were worried they would be "those people".

Not a chance. I keep my air compressor inside the barn and try to stop running it by midnight most evening. We did our best to make our boys do the Denice-the-Menace thing to them as much as possible over the years. Even that didn't work.

They are good friends now. Come to find out, they are even 3rd or 4th cousins to us somehow.

[studemax]

Used to have a neighbor who was cool and we helped each other when working on cars. But his kid was crazy - bought a big Rottweiler that barked continuously when chained to the back porch. One afternoon he knocked on the front door and asked if I'd seen this dog....Yes, it killed itself when it jumped over the back fence into the abandoned property and was hanging by the chain. He didn't believe me at first, but he walked around the block and found out. I was just glad to not hear the dog 24/7 anymore.

[JOES66FURY]

I try not to be offensive and try to be a good neighbor but, at the same time, the people that live around me are not the kind who would openly confront me about anything. Not that I'm a bad person, I just don't put off the "please approach me, I care what you have to say" kind of vibe

[SuperBuickGuy]

I try not to be offensive and try to be a good neighbor but, at the same time, the people that live around me are not the kind who would openly confront me about anything. Not that I'm a bad person, I just don't put off the "please approach me, I care what you have to say" kind of vibe

You coming to SEMA this year? there could be two Squatches.

[Captain]

When I moved here in 2001, to my benefit, 2 of the Existing neighbors on this "Private, Dead End, Gravel Road" have been having a TRUE FEUD for over 15+ years......
And the people I bought the place from were not really liked by ANY of the other neighbors on the Road. (When Sale negotiations stalled over the price, two of the other land owners on the road, offered the Realtor, too pay the disparity to get them to sell!!)

So, with this chaos going on......
I was Accepted with little troubles.
Still get the occasional comments about projects in the yard, but those are by the "FIB's" that have a second home up here.

[JOES66FURY]

You coming to SEMA this year? there could be two Squatches.

I wish, I don't have any money for fun. Life is kicking my ass as well as my own stupidity.

I just got served for a line of credit I didn't pay. Been trying to keep my head above water and gather the money to pay it but...

Here I am...with back taxes out the wazoo because I apparently have been filing wrong and this debacle...

I'm gonna go full sasquatch and disappear into the woods.

[stroker al]

How about a rooster, we live in city limits and chickens are ok but roosters aren’t. Made complaint in July but still hear crowing all day, supposedly it takes time for action to be taken. Wish they would move back to the country. On second thought maybe I should in-cap headers on 55 and raise hell every day.

[Dan Barlow]

I try not to give any warning. Last 2 moves I hauled the project / nonrunables over in the dead of night ant tucked them into the garage . Usually what gives me away is burning junk and the death wheels and impact wrench . At our new house , new to us that is , a neighbor across the alley heard the air tools one Saturday and came over to welcome me to the neighborhood. He has a 69 442 I'd not see till he pulled me over to see his shop .

[fatguyzinc]

Early on after we moved here I went next door to our neighbor and said "Here's my phone number. Please call if I'm doing anything that's upsetting because I'm a car guy and I don't want to be THAT neighbor...............

this right here. i did the same when i worked at a bar on #39 N.hotel st, a block up from
the chinatown police substation. on my first night at work i stopped by the station with a
card w/my number, a 'mugshot'....and a smelly $20 bag worth of mchicken sandwiches.


i let them know who i was, why i was there (high crime/drug/prostitution rate area,
cameras direct to the station everywhere.) and that if they saw me hanging around in
the clubs doorway on camera, i wasnt selling or buying drugs or trying to run or pickup
girls-i was just there to work.

it worked fantastically. always a good idea to give a heads up for a potential problem.

[SuperBuickGuy]

this right here. i did the same when i worked at a bar on #39 N.hotel st, a block up from
the chinatown police substation. on my first night at work i stopped by the station with a
card w/my number, a 'mugshot'....and a smelly $20 bag worth of mchicken sandwiches.


i let them know who i was, why i was there (high crime/drug/prostitution rate area,
cameras direct to the station everywhere.) and that if they saw me hanging around in
the clubs doorway on camera, i wasnt selling or buying drugs or trying to run or pickup
girls-i was just there to work.

it worked fantastically. always a good idea to give a heads up for a potential problem.

why McChicken?

[Loren]

I keep 'way too many dead vehicles here, cars, trucks, boats. But I'm not a neighborhood problem, everybody else is (my opinion).

Along the back fence, while we've lived here, we started with a spy-neighbor...always peering through/over the fence, we were warned by the people we bought from who liked to skinny-dip in the pool at night but couldn't because of him. We couldn't be out in the yard without his eyes through the gaps or face over the top having something to say or expertise to offer. He eventually moved to Utah to "have more space", why he would need that when his life was just focused on the property line, I don't know. Then we got a pair of gals who brought 30 animals in, with a pig pen 25 feet from our bedroom window and male goats. Male goats pee on themselves and in summertime the stench was so bad we couldn't leave the house. These gals went to the town council for approval to move in even more animals claiming we were in agreement, when we got wind we showed up at the meeting and their faces went white. They next tried to close the (dirt) road in front of their property so no one could drive past, I went to battle with them on that, and won, awhile later their marriage or whatever broke up and they moved on. Next owner, a tree trimmer who moved a dozen workers onto the property in trailers, dumping sewage where??? Rap music which I hate mostly due to typical lyrics, mariachi which I don't mind but don't need to hear every day in my own space . He dumped fantastic amounts of tree refuse on the lot, covered it over and called it fill. Anyhow, he went camping in the desert with a little worker-buddy-kid who woke up in the night freezing cold and solved the problem by moving the bbq into the toy-hauler trailer they were sleeping in, and by morning that was the end of both of them. I gotta say though, they guy could throw a party... Then the house got fixed up and flipped by some OK people who unfortunately lost their butts on the deal, and then the next people: back to spy-neighbors again. I keep a sign in a back window, "Don't Spy", it helped but doesn't affect them that much. Anywhere along the 200'+ shared fence I am at doing whatever, they are magically right there along the other side within minutes. I don't get it. I can't build a fence tight enough or high enough for this family of freaks , so I just roll my eyes and deal with it. They also wanted their section of road closed to everybody except themselves and are bitter about my not having it. I believe in free movement for folks, it's a county easement and stays open as long as I have any say. These guys really have some issues about borders, what they want for themselves and what they believe everybody else should have are two very different things.

Along the other fence we have a boy, now in his early-twenties, who was just mommy and daddy's little darling and given everything. I mean, everything. He's still basically living w/ mom, dad split long ago. The result of all their coddling was that at 18 he was a heroin user, baby-daddy and convicted felon from doing a series of hot-prowl burglaries. I lost quite a bit of stuff to him during one period due to his unique ability to scope me out, before I fixed the security system around here. He plays loud music now and then, if it's a weekday evening I go yell at him and he backs off. He seems to have mellowed out and I think maybe understands his offenses against people now, but we don't know about the drug use. I suppose I don't care.

Across the road we had wonderful neighbors until it was necessary for an adult son to come in and be a caretaker. This guy was a very lonely dude and drove us nuts, we couldn't be in the yard without him suddenly showing up to be a guest, we'd have special company over and soon he was in the middle telling his lame stories about himself and not listening to anybody else. I'd be working in the garage and the door would open, there he was to visit, again. Eventually the only way to get rid of such a guy is, after trying all the nice ways, to get so mean (i.e., be an utter a$$) that they get their feelings hurt and go away crying...but then after a while they "forgive" you, and are back. He moved away when the parents died. The new people have three pre-adolescent boys who are of-course pains in the butt, basically we have spy-neighbors on two sides now. If I have something loud to say or yell at the dogs, some little boy is over there repeating my words back for me, in his weird little tone. Is this why I paid all this money for a place to exist at?

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At this moment I can hear roosters from probably three different properties crowing. Lots of people have them around here. I actually find it to be soothing, associating it with new-day-dawning and all that.

Oh well, three cats to feed then back to listen to the roosters and doze for a bit. Lots of work to do later. Maybe I'll clean out the yard...