When we first moved onto our street 35-some years back, it was the sort of neighborhood in which there was a traditional singing of Christmas carols while walking behind the borough fire truck, and then refreshments were served in a two-car garage.
Neighbors visited and interacted throughout the year, beyond the passing nod. You actually knew names, and other details about the neighbors. Not any more.
These days, the ‘hood has devolved into something less social.
I’m not totally against that. Neighbors are an accident of geography. If you have similar tastes and philosophical leanings, you get along. If not, you avoid the neighbors.
My problem arises when the peculiarities of the neighbors infringe on my peace and happiness.
It seems there are more and more of these annoyances daily.
For a few years there has been a game played on the street I call simply “The Parking Grab,” in which many neighbors feel compelled to tie up as many on-street parking spaces as possible, leaving their garages and driveways unoccupied by their vehicles.
It’s poor manners, but perfectly legal. What isn’t perfectly legal is a deranged neighbor cursing out my son a couple of years back for having the temerity to park IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE, because said neighbor wanted that space for his wife.
The error of his position was pointed out to him and his wife, and punctuated afterward with a few no trespassing signs on my property to keep his progeny from treating my yard like a playground.
They now leave me alone and I ignore them. It’s bliss, if only they didn’t feel the need to acquire two dogs who bark each and every time they are put outside, which is about five times a day.
Many times in the past few years we’ve had drug dealers and drug users living in the ‘hood. Fortunately, they’ve moved on, to be replaced by better behaved residents in many, but not all, cases.
A relatively recent addition to the neighborhood apparently operates under the delusion that grass mows itself. It’s not that he seems to be too busy with anything like a job to find time to mow the grass.
In an amusing incident Mr. I Don’t Mow leaned out his second story window and yelled to a neighbor kid who was mowing grass the other day. My wife and I both saw it and thought he might be going to offer the kid a few bucks to take on his overgrown yard while he was at it.
Nope. The neighbor was telling the kid, for no apparent reason, that he had a lawnmower arriving the next day and would tackle his jungle soon. That was two days ago and counting.
What happened on the mower delivery front isn’t clear. What is clear is this guy, who lives with a woman and child, sure has time to scream maniacally as he plays video games at all hours. This is readily apparent because the windows are open, even in the winter.
Meanwhile, some people up the block are incensed because new arrivals on their end have little or no respect for property rights, feeling free to pile garbage on the land of others, not to mention taking the liberty to visit the neighbors’ yards without benefit of being invited to do so.
My wife, who makes periodic forays out to visit her friends in the ‘hood, reports that one neighbor of the newcomers found his construction of what used to be called a “spite” fence back in the day delayed due to the skyrocketing price of lumber and a shortage of funds.
The neighbors on the other side of the offending newcomers have the police number on speed dial, the better to report transgressions by the recent arrivals, as well as to call out a young driver from closer to my house who doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of stop signs, or speed limit signs,
Also close to me is a house whose teenage male has friends who keep mistaking our otherwise quiet residential block for the burnout box at a dragstrip.
I pointed out to the neighborhood kid a few months back – ironically while I was monitoring a guy who’d had too much to drink (he’s being charged by the DA) and took out a car and a neighbor’s small tree/bush as he careened down the street at about 9 a.m. – that if his friends wanted to prove how healthy their cars are, I could get out my Mustang GT, we could go to a grudge night at a dragstrip, and we could race for some cash.
So far, no takers. Regardless, they were advised to take their tire-melting antics somewhere where it doesn’t disturb the peace, lest the police need to be contacted.
Not that our police force would do anything. They make a point of ignoring a family that’s been driving a Jeep Cherokee sporting an inspection sticker that expired in May — 2019. No, it is not an antique exempt from inspection.
The police say they can’t watch vigilantly to catch the driver(s) in the act. I say since they are not exactly policing a hotbed of shootings, rapes, murders, robberies or other felonies, perhaps they should spend a little time trying to get a long-running scofflaw off the streets.
Just Saturday, while returning home from a pizza run, said vehicle pulled out of a side street behind me, so I got a quick video and am weighing asking the police whether they are willing to watch it and then to do something now. Probably not.
It occurs to me that if such a decline in behavior, social niceties and law-abiding behavior is evident in this formerly pleasant middle-class neighborhood, one wonders how bad things must be elsewhere. Probably I don’t want to know.
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