MetaChat - *sigh* it's that time of year again...

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

13 August 2010

*sigh* it's that time of year again... →[More:]

The house next door to Chez lfr is a rental. We live in a pretty nice neighbourhood, mixed demographic, but still close enough to campus that we have the odd batch of undergrads-in-a-rental here and there.

Lately I've noticed that the new crop of undergrad ladies who've moved in next door have taken to parking their assortment of jankety heaps in front of our place, no big deal in the grand scheme, but sort of WTF since there's no shortage of street parking anywhere else. Oh, okay now I get it-- you want to leave space for all of YOUR friends to park, no worries about whether we ever bother to have people over. Which is again, no big deal, since most of our friends ride bikes to our place, come thru the side gate, and park them in the backyard or on our patio.

But I must admit, I'm feeling increasingly uncharitable in general towards this year's crop of tenants; they are already proving to be rude and loud and silly. Within the span of a week, they've already managed to throw two annoying parties, and as anyone who knows me can tell you, it takes a LOT of party to annoy me. These also appear to be your stereotypical worst species of undergrad parties, with obnoxious drunken loud dudes and beer pong and puke in the bushes and shrieky badness until all hours of the wee AM. One assumes Bad Things could, conceivably, be going on as well.

This morning (it's trash day) I went out to start the timer on the rose garden sprinklers, and the neighbour-across-the-street's bin is perched atop one of the aforementioned jankety heaps. Which, of course, is parked in front of our property.

the mister is livid. I scurried out and moved it back to the kerb, in my slippers and PJs, before the trash guys came. See, we both like Neighbour-Across-The-Street, a lot. He brings us cucumbers and plumbing advice, and takes his adorable little white mop of a dog for rides in the basket of his bike. And, while we don't think he'd really mind, and I'm sure it's just Thoughtless Kids Being Pranky, this is just seriously rude. The trash guys won't pick up a bin that's not at the kerb. And, it's OUR goddamn house you're doing this in front of, you silly undergrad wenches.

*sigh*

Get off my lawn? You damn kids?

post by: lonefrontranger at: 08:24 | 14 comments

Call the landlord! We had really good results on that with our noisy-neighbor problem. I talked to them briefly first, but it was the landlord call, and resulting letter of warning, that seemed to hit home.

posted by Miko 13 August | 08:38

Absolutely, landlord. And maybe give the cops a ring next time you hear them playing beer pong at ass o'clock. I guarantee, if they catch someone drinking who is underage, that'll put a kibosh on their partying ways, at least temporarily.

I don't wanna sound like a meanie, I actually think that this is part of the undergraduate learning curve. Some kids just need to get busted before they realize that they are not alone in the world, and that their actions actually *shocker!* affect other people.

posted by msali 13 August | 08:50

what, you mean I shouldn't go leave a passive-aggressive note under the windshield wiper?

haha, thanks Miko, I was just explaining to the mister how beating on their door in a rage at 7AM was unlikely to produce meaningful results, since we've already been by once to say "hi, we're your neighbours, can you maybe rein it in a little?"

I was mostly just venting and sort of pondering how I've now become That Crotchety Old Neighbour Lady.

Tracking down the landlord is definitely the next step. Typical undergrad house, it's an absentee campus slumlord, but hopefully if I wave the "underage drinking" and/or "significant date rape potential" card that may produce some results.

bah. why can't they just get really really stoned and play loud reggae and juggle fire until all hours, like ordinary Boulder college students?

posted by lonefrontranger 13 August | 08:58

In the last property management company I worked at, the company would put a sticker on the main door of a property that said something like: managed by: the company name, with address and phone number. That way, we could be contacted if there was an emergency. Or if the neighbours wanted to complain about the tenants! However, if it is a private rental, it might be harder to track down the landlord. Municipal tax records, maybe?

posted by Savannah 13 August | 09:14

cheers, Savannah, I'll look for something like that. I'm suspecting it's a private rental and complaints to the city maybe our only recourse; granted this is strictly conjecture based upon the 2" thick trees growing out of the house foundations, random rusting bits of junk strewn about the backyard, collapsed driveway concrete, and general lack of any sort of visible maintenance.

posted by lonefrontranger 13 August | 09:42

Ugh, I hate renters! I am actually a renter myself, but the house next to me has been empty for over a year and a half, and the guy who used to live in the other half of my duplex just used it as a crash pad occasionally. But students have moved into both those empty places recently, which means I'll be fighting for the parking spot in front of my building (I like that spot not just b/c it's right in front, but b/c it's the start of a row, and I CAN'T PARALLEL PARK. Like, at all). I've been wanting to move forever for a variety of reasons, but parking may finally give me the push I need. Or just cause a lot of angry muttering (my usual MO).

posted by leesh 13 August | 10:00

I feel your pain and, I have no idea what to do. I am coping with a similar problem - I did go through city tax records and find the landlord's name and address so I'm contemplating a lengthy anonymous letter. I think it's more or less all you can do. Gah.

posted by mygothlaundry 13 August | 10:40

To them, you and mr lfr may as well be 65 years old.

The house next to us is for sale, and we are praying that someone buys it that will live in it, and not one of the slumlords that own other property in our neighborhood.

posted by danf 13 August | 10:59

Erg, I feel for you, lfr. We have renters next door who are pretty nasty too. They play the most god awful music in the whole world (no, really, it's horrifyingly self-made bad) loudly for many hours. With every window in my house closed, and the TV turned up loudly, I cannot hear the movie I am watching over their crap. Calls to the police haven't produced any results (this has been going on for almost two years) as the police are too busy to come for a noise violation.

Their landlord ignores our calls.

I've been working with the city who have sent both the renters and landlords a letter stating that they need to knock it off, and I'm super hopeful it will help (but I know that as soon as it's been a short while it will start up again).

They've literally stolen packages from me, and I've caught them at it. That's when I realized that I am going to do everything possible to get them to move on - if I have to get their house declared a nuisance, I will. Maybe the landlord will notice then. He and his family live about three miles away and I certainly hope no one in his neighborhood treat his kids the way we are being treat. Blah.

So stupid of them - we are really laid back people about stuff normally. We went over and introduced ourselves when we moved in; we started out by asking them to just turn it down a bit, and maybe not put the speaker out the window pointed at our house (!!!!). So we really didn't want to have to take it to where it is now.

Thank goodness the woman on the other side of us is the sweetest most awesome person ever. She randomly shows up with mole sauce for us, from her mom's recipe! And cookies! She's great.

posted by Sil 13 August | 12:10

Definitely call the police. Hopefully they are not too understaffed and will respond. I wonder if there is any way to register a complaint with the school that they are going to?

A young person living on their own for the first time with all of their young friends can have a... remarkably short memory. It will probably take a while for them to get the message.

There was this one time that I went upstairs to complain about noise and the undergraduates there had cleared out all their living room furniture and were playing beer pong in a haze of pot smoke and the floor slick with beer. Apparently I yelled so loudly that I could be heard back downstairs.

If the campus police include your area in their patrol, a call to them could get the students a call from the cops to their dean.

posted by halonine 13 August | 13:54

hi halo!

Boulder is essentially full of rich white people, the school is considered a "public Ivy" (whatever-the-hell-that-means), and in general the cops here have very little to do besides write traffic tickets and hassle the homeless on the Pearl St. Mall, so I'm betting they'd be johnny-on-the-spot for this sort of thing. Dunno about the campus cops / dean angles, since this is pretty far off-campus in the housing scheme of things, but I can always look into that.

posted by lonefrontranger 13 August | 14:43

jankety

Oh my god yes. New word. Marry me.

posted by CitrusFreak12 13 August | 23:43

Sil, one of the contributions to a rotten neighbor collection published about 15 years ago described how someone whose neighbors were stealing filled some containers with her body waste, sealed them up and mailed them to herself. She never had a package stolen after that.

posted by brujita 14 August | 04:16

CitrusFreak12!!! um, you may have to discuss that with the mister. I'll gladly send you a lovely assortment of daft college girls if you like! oh wait, you probably have plenty of those where you are, nevermind...

brujita, that reminds me of the guys who put moldy food in the office fridge to deter lunch thieves.

posted by lonefrontranger 14 August | 10:35

← Happy Birthday By The Grace Of God! || Friday 3-point update →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN