11/01/2006

Hateful Neighbors...

For the first time in my life I have friendly neighbors.

I grew up on a great block in Elmhurst, IL. It's the only home I lived at as a kid. We never moved. There were lots of kids my age. All the parents hung out. It was a blast. The only bitch was that our house was stuck right in between the two most miserable, hateful families on the block. On the one side was a middle-aged couple with no kids. They were of Scottish descent and on St. Patricks Day they would fly a red flag. I later found out that this meant they hated Irish people (there was an Irish family we were friends with living on the other side of them). They belonged to a bagpipe marching band. He carried the flag and she was trying to learn to play the pipes. Each night during the summer they would wait until we sat down to dinner to practice by marching up and down their driveway. Have you ever heard someone trying to learn bagpipes? You can probably imagine how bad it could be, kind of like the sound of a cat being raped. Then they'd have the nerve to yell at us for playing basketball in our driveway because it was too loud.

On the other side was a mother and her grown son. She was a bitter woman that would always have one complaint or another if she ran into us outside. At one point she asked my mom to pay $10 for new curtains in her garage because she said our cats had shredded them. For one, there were many "outside" cats in our neighborhood that could have done this. Second, our cats were declawed. We suspected her son was under some sort of house arrest because he only left the house to go to work and then came straight home. That's the only time we saw him outside.

How do you guys like your neighbors?

9 comments:

Cup said...

I had the best neighbors when I was a kid. Both sides. They were extensions of the family. The women sat with my mom the night of my first date, and we sat up until the wee hours after I got home to talk about our first kiss. I miss that neighborhood. Now I don't know any of my neighbors, except to say hello.

Anonymous said...

The women who lives in the house behind ours is an evil witch. SinceI have moved back to Elmhurst I've seen her acouple times and I don't think she has aged at all.

Her favorite passtimes are yelling at the kids in the neighborhood and calling the cops on her neighbors.

We do have a neighbor who plays the bagpipes, but he is in the Shannon Rovers (The bagpipe band that leads Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade.) and terribly proficiant at it. I like it when he practices in his yard, especially since it is free, he has told me he doesn't even warm up for less than $300 a gig.

Jenny Jenny Flannery said...

My neighbor, Frank, is awesome. He built a Tiki bar in his back yard, complete with 5 tons of white sand. As soon as I am within 15 feet of the place, he's off to get me a beer.

Anonymous said...

I like my neighbors now just fine. But when I was living in an apartment... well, there's plenty of posts on my blog about that...

vikkitikkitavi said...

My neighbors always seem to be old guys, and there really are only two types of old guys:
1) get-off-my-lawn old guy
2) pull-my-finger old guy

Anonymous said...

"cat being raped" bwhahahahahah

Teri said...

oh, that was me with the cat remark

Anonymous said...

I can top anybody for the most hateful neighbors! We lived next to a pyscho doctor that we had a property line dispute with (we didn't know he was pyscho at the time). Since then he has tried to kill us by messing with our cars, prescribing meds at 4 times the normal dosage. Worse, he began to maim and kill our livestock-sheep, goats, cows and horses! We tried to catch him, but he is too clever. Even caught him with nightvision goggles on!
So, finally we decided to move. Thought we had good neighbors, but didn't realize the step kids of the old guy we bought from thought they should have inherited the place. Because they have a son who is a CHP officer, they tracked down the doctor. Now the same things and worse are happening again, this time on 80 acres! They have and are doing some ruthless, unbelievable things! Including setting up my husband with the authorities. It's absolutley unbelievable. If we weren't living it, I don't know if I'd believe it! See Our Original Blog

Anonymous said...

I have a hateful neighbor. Every week on trash day she rolls her garbage cans down the street and puts them as close to my driveway as she dares. It makes it hard for the garbage man to do his job and I usually can't get back into my driveway without moving them afterwards. When I asked her politely to leave some room for my cans she babbles incoherently about how "everyone else does it". She doesn't work or contribute to society in any way that I can see, unless you consider her foul mouthed kids running around and tearing up all the other neighbors trampolines some sort of contribution to society. Her and her daughter have vandalized the street and sidewalk with multiple versions of sticky and oily goo with no accountability what so ever for their bizarre actions. I guess it could be worse, but it sure is weird that they think their behavior is acceptable. No accountabiltiy, no consideration, and unfortunately no good neighbors.