Who's your strangest neighbor??

[Zoning Goddess]

In college, I lived in a home split into 3 apartments. I was downstairs and the other downstairs tenant played Christmas music every Sunday from 9 a.m. to noon. Religiously. All year long.

Who have you lived next to/near to who is just not normal??

 

[kms]

I had neighbors who wore jackets until the end of June. They had pool, and used it in July, then stopped. It seemed they were always cold, and fearful of colds.

 

[nerudite]

I had a neighbor that broke into my house and stole and my roommate's computer to sell for drug money. I caught him coming out of our backyard when I went home early for lunch one year.

I'm not sure how bizarre that is though... so I'll think about this a little more and check back. I've had a lot of neighbors, so I should have a good selcection to pick from. I wonder how many of my neighbors would answer that I was their strangest neighbor? Hmmmmm....

 

[OhioPlanner]

One of our current next door neighbors has an antiques business. He has some pretty unusual stuff, including a stuffed squirrel that he keeps perched in the window facing the sidewalk. It kind of freaks people out.

 

[Zoning Goddess]

One of our current next door neighbors has an antiques business. He has some pretty unusual stuff, including a stuffed squirrel that he keeps perched in the window facing the sidewalk. It kind of freaks people out.

You must take a picture of the scary squirrel and post it here!

 

[Jeff]

My last apt before buying a house was a nightmare....

First downstairs neighbors were guy and girl and the guy used to get loaded and beat the girl all the time....

Next one (the final straw) was this guy, who was a little slow and probably shouldn't be living by himself, who had no job and blasted the stereo non-stop when he was awake (after 12 noon).

 

[Chet]

My upstairs neighbor and his f*ck are about 20. I call her his f*ck because they are either fighting or f*ing. In either case its loud and goes on forever. Really. I mean, at 20 you have stamina but this guy is a marvel.

I was talking to him the other day and he was complaining about how she's been nagging him constantly, and I was like "Dude why do you put up with.... oh yeah, never mind"

 

[donk]

Much like nerudite I am probably the weird neighbour in my neighbourhood. I am the youngest home owner on the street, have fixed up a house everyone said should be torn down, excercise regularily (they laugh at my cycling clothes) and listen to music really loud (neighbours can't hear it too much, as most are deaf from old age and my house is relatively sound proof).

I don't think I could live in an apartment now.

 

[Repo Man]

I used to have a girl that lived in the apartment underneath me that was very very loud in bed. I think she worked at a bar or something because she was always gettin' it on at 3 or 4 in the morning. She was so loud that it would wake me up. One night I heard another tenant yell out their window "put a pillow over her face!"

She moved out and now people are pretty normal

I seem to have more strange landlords than strange neighbors.

I had one landlord who really had it out for me. Anytime I did anything he would leave this 10 minute lecture on my answering machine about responsibility and bad behavor. I had a friend honk his horn to let me know he was there (at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday) and I got a lecture about how there are tenants sleeping at 2 in the afternoon and that it was inconsiderate to have my friend honk. I recieved about 5 or 6 different lectures for minor infractions. It got to the point where I would do things just to antagonize him like throwing junk mail with my name on it onto the floor. This guy was the biggest a-hole I have ever met. I met a girl who lived in the same building and she had a similar experience with him. She eventually got evicted because he found pine needles that fell off a christmas tree when she took it out after x-mas (they had a no real tree policy).

 

[PlannerGirl]

had this guy in an apartment next to ours *i was married at the time* it was an upscale kinda place, one of THE addresses to have kinda place. well we moved in, all happy with the new place and low and behold there is this...thumping...yes you guessed it someones bass was off the scale.

I was polite and go next door thinking the guy was used to having no one around to bother and id make intros and hed turn it down-WRONG. A guy, maybe mid 30s attractive professional sort answered the door. I intro's myself saying my husband and i had moved in next door blah blah blah could he please turn down the bass, he slamed the door in my face.

I go trotting back to my place and what happens? up goes the music to the point the pots on the stove were vibrated right off the stove! At this point husband whos heading out to work *note hes a cop* finishes dressing and goes next door.

i hear him knock on the door, the guy turns down the music and a conversation ensues-the guy is a dork (one would think the uniform would make him wise up)

Hubby comes in swears a bit and calls the office-real nice and asks them to call the guy.

the music dies after staff show up and bang on the door (seems they tried to call and he could not hear the phone)

The guy is now PISSED and screws with us for months.

hehe but i got the upper hand-i noticed quite a few cars with expired tags, flat tires etc and had a little chat with our zoning enforcement guys-seems he is running a used car lot out of his apartment!

cars all get towed, the complex throws him a few nasty grams and fines-he moves out ;-)

 

[Seabishop]

I had a neighbor in the early 90's who was an overweight man of about 30 with a wife and 2 young kids who always smelled like pee and ketchup. He claimed that he used to be a professional break dancer who's dance group once opened a big concert for New Edition. He also claimed he moved to Providence because he was wanted by mobsters in Bridgeport, CT (not too far to flee from).

He got a job at a small real estate company and then he and his family disappeared. Turns out he pretended he was the landlord of his building and "rented" a non-existant apartment to an eldery, blind Cambodian man, taking his deposit. After he was gone I got a tour of his empty apartment by friends in the same building. There were hundreds of dead roaches everywhere. I still have the bike he sold me.

 

[Chet]

an overweight man of about 30 with a wife and 2 young kids who always smelled like pee and ketchup.

Diet coke out the nose. Thanks!

 

[Seabishop]

Oh, and at our last apartment, this Vanilla Ice looking guy with orange sneakers would throw raves until dawn. You'd hear that repetitive boom - boom -boom all night. When the cops would come it would be quiet until the 3rd time we called and the cops told him to shut up. Our 4 month old was asleep across the street. We called the cops every other day about wife beaters, fighting gangs, and graffitti. The cops would never do much of anything.

After we moved out three guys were arrested a block away for murdering two other guys and cutting their hands off. They were arrested on a routine traffic stop with the hands in a plastic bag - they were planning to throw them into the Taunton River.

 

[lowlyplanner]

I had a combination strangest neighbor and landlord when I lived in Boston. We lived in a six unit building - the landlord had a ground floor unit and his elderly Chinese father had the unit underneath ours.

We used to talk to Mr. Cho out the stoop - he was a nice old guy. Then he would borrow a couple of bucks, because his son had stopped his allowance to stop him drinking. When he was lit up he would tell your fortune by looking at your forehead.

One time he told us a story about how Richard Nixon had tried to garrotte him in a parking lot in Hong Kong. I'm not making that up. I wasn't too sure what to think about that, but I did notice that he had a scar across his throat from ear to ear...

 

[Tranplanner]

I've never had any really strange neighbours (roommates, yes -neighbours, no)...not sure if maybe that makes me the strange one. We do (or did) have an amourous couple living next to us where we are now...but we think they must have broken up or something.

The one thing that bugs me right now: Every Saturday night (and only Saturday nights), around 8p.m., somebody starts tapping on the wall. I have no idea what is going on...it's not loud, but it's there. It goes away after a while. And again, only on Saturday nights.

creepy confession: I have used my telephoto lens a few times to scan the adjacent condo building... I haven't seen anything interesting though.