The one where I just start typing

I have no idea what I’m going to say today. As if this whole vacation thing weren’t messing with my routine enough as it is, we had a power outage last night from 6:30 pm to somewhere around 3:30 in the morning. And this morning, my little natives are absolutely insane. I’m cloistered in the basement with the computer, trying not to listen as they screech and thunder around the house like a herd of rabid hippos.

One of the benefits of last night’s blackout was that I got to sit on the back deck in the dying light of a spectacular day, trying to position my book to catch the last rays of visible light before having to go into the house and actually make conversation with Beloved. (Oh TV, how I missed your glowing face!) And while out on the back deck, I was blessed to hear in excruciating detail the innermost thoughts of the 15 year old next door and a few of his friends. Actually, I think I could have been four blocks over and still heard every detail. Apparently neither three year olds nor 15 year olds get the concept of ‘inside’ voices.

Also, the 15 year olds take just about as long as my three year old to tell a story, because every single noun has to be modified by the word “fucking”. Verbs, too. Versatile word, that “fucking”. Now, I have been accused of having a bit of a potty mouth at times, but for the love of Christ at the very least they could mix up their curses just a little bit. Show some variety. Please.

I don’t envy the woman who is this boy’s mother. In addition to him, she has an 11 year old girl and a nine year old boy and she’s recently divorced. The younger kids are sweet enough, and they like to play with my boys at the playground or in the driveway on occasion, but the oldest boy is obviously out of control. I could handle the music blaring through the walls at all hours, the smoke from the backyard that drifts into our windows, and the groups of extremely noisy teens who hang around in our shared driveway at the strangest hours… hey, I was a good kid, but we still got into trouble and I remember what it was like to be that age. But I’ve caught them doing some spectacularly stupid stuff, like standing on the end of our shared driveway and pitching beer bottles into the park across the street – the park where my kids play. And when I turned into one of those suburban mothers and came bellowing out of the house after seeing that, I woke up the next morning to see my car covered in gobs of spit. I’m just glad they didn’t take it into their heads to key the paint.

Last Saturday morning, the neighbour on the other side woke to find the downspout from her eavestrough bent and crushed, and the neighbour on the other side said she’d heard a commotion in the middle of the night and looked out to see a young man with a baseball bat smashing the hell out of it – for no discernable reason. He was part of a group of teenagers coming in and out of – guess which house? I noticed some suspiciously bat-sized dents in their garage door the next day, too.

There’s not much I can do about all this except hope he doesn’t do something incredibly stupid that puts us all at risk – like leaving a cigarette or a candle burning. I certainly don’t want to become the focus for his wrath. They just bought the house and moved in last summer, so I’m guessing they aren’t going anywhere too soon, and I’m certainly not moving, so I guess we have to live side by side and stay out of each other’s way.

Any thoughts for improving the situation, oh wise bloggy friends? Or do you have a neighbours from hell story that would make me drop to my knees and thank god for the delinquent next door?

Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

9 thoughts on “The one where I just start typing”

  1. Sorry Dani
    Although my neighbours teenager; Who’s closing in on 18; has a party once or twice a year the loud music always stops at 12. And well the burning rubber up and down the road is freakin annoying it’s only once or twice a year. Pretty good considering it could be every weekend.
    Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll move in with his dad.
    HUGS

  2. Oh Dani! There is a reason that families rarely have young children and teen age kids at the same time. They just don’t mix.
    Do you remember the crazy teens who moved in next door when we lived in the town house. Unlike you, I DID incur the wrath of the gang by calling the police regularly. Once, when I went out to scream at them at 3 am, I was warned to get inside as they had knives. My house went up for sale the next week.
    I sympathize. You can’t kill them in their sleep but you can have your kids ring their doorbell in the wee hours of the morning…repeatedly …
    not that I would EVER do that!
    Happy vacation. Maybe we can get together if you are off!

  3. I don’t know–I tend to call the police when a noise ordinance is violated, so I can only hope for your sake that this kid gets scared straight. I’m sorry to hear about the trouble, and I offer shoulder and sympathy.

  4. Exactly which day were you born on? Were we separated at birth?
    We too are having troubles with teenage delinquents in the park across the street, and I too am left wondering when I left their ranks to become the shrill harpie with the local precinct number on speed dial. Or the woman who’s willing to poke her sleeping husband in the ribs four or five times and spend twenty minutes trying to convince him to “do something” because she can’t sleep.
    I’m spending some time checking the bylaws, and on Friday I’m going to try to talk with our local councillor at the Environment Day/Canada Day celebrations to see what I can do to keep the parkette safe for kids and enjoyable for the neighbours, without becoming a nuisance myself.
    Am I naive to think that in your situation, a “mom to mom” talk will help? Or will she feel attacked and then encourage all of her spawn to work towards lowering your property value? And am I old and uncool enough to think that a talk with the perp, treating the teenage beast as if it were an intgellingent, sentient being willing to open a dialogue would at least make steps toward a compromise? Because, I’m telling you, that my husband promises me that marching across the street in my monkey pajamas and telling our own local Mr. Fuckmouth to find another place to have a toke and pitch beer bottles will result in dog shit in our mailbox.

  5. Sigh. The advantages of having a husband (a stay at home dad, and a big teddy bear) who looks like a biker is pretty much everyone stays the heck away from our place. That and the 5 mile hike to get to it helps.
    I can let him out cheap if you want! 🙂

  6. Sorry Dani, I had to move from my old neighbours just to get peace. We were too chicken to call bylaw so we just moved. We love our new neighbours though, and there are empty lots on the street still 😉
    Anna

  7. The one time I called the police to complain about a wild party some horrible neighbors were having about a decade ago, it turned out that the neighbors in question had invited the police to the party, and the police were able to get their on-duty buddies to tell them which neighbors had called in the complaint. Talk about bad luck.

  8. Crap! I wrote a message here this morning, and it’s not here. I got a funny message when I published it, but I thought it still went through.
    Grrrrrr, just pretend I wrote something terribly witty yet utterly helpful.

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