I think every neighborhood has them…the problem neighbor. Those neighbors that you really wish would move far, far away…or something.

I have one of those neighbors, and I’ll go ahead and preface that all names have been changed to protect the guilty.

So several months ago, I was trying to get estimates on having my driveway torn out and redone. It’s been pushed up a lot over the years (by evil nasty gumball trees), and does not allow water to drain properly from the back yard down to the street…thus we get a lot of pooling on the back patio and garage area. But this isn’t a story about the project, so I’m going to move through the details quickly.

I finally got a reply from a contractor, Systems Paving. Two reps came out to the house to do estimates, and I worked with them for a few weeks planning the design. We planned to have the driveway, back patio, and front porch and walkway redone with interlocking paver stones, vs. cement.

The project started off, with cement tear out and ground leveling, before the pavers were placed. The work crew spent nearly a week on the project, making sure that every detail was taken care of. Unfortunately, more than one supervisor showed up for the job. Enter the problem neighbor.

In our neighborhood, we have a couple that live near my house, who like to keep tabs on what’s going on in the neighborhood. And they don’t just like to keep tabs, they like to get involved, even when it’s not appropriate.

They yelled at my next door neighbor when the frisbee that he and his daughter were playing with, accidentally went into their yard. And I don’t mean they said “please don’t let your frisbee come in our yard.” I mean yelled at them. When you look up senile, there are pictures of this couple in the dictionary.

And so the paving project was underway, and Verne…I’m going to call him Verne just for this story, although that’s not his real name, decided that he needed to come over and check on the status of the project. He wandered back and forth in front of my house, got in the way of the work crew, talked to them while they were trying to cut paving stones, and generally made a bother of himself.

You’d think it could have been as simple as that, but no. He actually had the audacity to steal sand from the work site. He got one of the work crew to load up a wheelbarrow of sand, and walk it down the street and dump it into his garage. I was beside myself. I was immediately on the phone with the job foreman letting him know about this neighbor and what he had done.

But it didn’t end there. The next day, Verne was over again. This time, right in the middle of the workers. They were walking around him trying to get to their supplies. I stepped outside and had this brief dialogue:

me: “Can I help you?”

Verne: “What? I’m just standing here. I’m on the sidewalk. You don’t want me here?”

me: “I would prefer that they are able to work undisturbed.”

Verne: “I’m on the sidewalk. What’s your problem??”

me: *silence*

I said no more, and continued to just stare at him. He shifted his eyes up and down for a few moments, then finally turned and shuffled off back to his house. Later that evening, I went to the gym. Apparently while I was gone, he wandered over and stood at the foot of the driveway, staring at David, who was in the garage working on a project.

The next day…he was back. And instead of saying anything, I simply walked out on the front porch and stared at him. He finally got the point and wandered back to his house.

The project finished, and I thought that would be the end of his for a while, and you’re perhaps thinking to yourself that I was going overboard by not wanting this person near my home…but here’s the next part of the story.

About 3 weeks ago, just before we left for Victoria, BC, we were at home and noticed two police cars in front of Verne’s house. I immediately called my neighbor to see if she knew what was going on…she hadn’t heard anything yet, but would let me know when she found out. Our little neighborhood watch system works well.

Later that night, she called to inform me that Verne had tried to strangle his wife (of 60+ years, incidentally). He wasn’t arrested, who knows what the cops said or did, but that’s what happened. A day later, the cops were back - presumably to check to make sure Verne’s wife was still alive.

We left for our trip, and came back to find out that Verne had tried to strangle his wife again, and that she had moved out and was now living with her sister.

And so…that brings us to today, and my story of domestic violence in Sacramento. Fun stuff.

This sarcastic entry was posted on Sunday, October 15th, 2006 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Generic, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.