Tales of Crazy Neighbor, Installment #1

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter then you no doubt by now know that I have a crazy neighbor. Being as he woke me in the wee hours of the morning and has more or less resulted in my zombie-like status today, I found it only fitting to share a tale of crazy neighbor today. And fear not, I'm sure there will be plenty of new crazy neighbor stories to come.

Crazy Neighbor is a divorced, middle-aged man who looks something like a chubby and angry Rick Moranis. He is not the friendly type. When told about Crazy Neighbor, my parents seem concerned that he may some day turn into some psycho knife wielding maniac. I don't worry about this. He is neither coordinated nor forward thinking enough to pull off this plan. Plus, he has no ability to be stealthy. I'd totally see him coming.

This gives you an idea of what I'm dealing with...though he is decidedly more grumpy.

I feel it only appropriate to  introduce you to Crazy Neighbor with a story about how I first came to meet him...well, actually more of a come to know of him. I bought our current house about five years ago. The former owners never mentioned issues with said neighbor other than the fact that his kids were a bit rowdy. Obviously they were in a hurry to get out of this house and knew he would immediately kill any sale. I'm pretty sure they scheduled all of my viewings/inspections of the house around his work schedule, attempting to ensure that he wouldn't botch the deal.

So it was only after the papers were signed and it was a done deal that another neighbor (who I had already known for a few years) told me the story of what had happened the week before. We'll call this neighbor (who I really like), Bob. I had noticed as I was moving in that the neighbors across the street had a large piece of plywood installed in their den window. I thought maybe there was some sort of burglary (maybe my nice new neighborhood wasn't as safe as I had hoped), so I asked Bob about it. In hushed undertones he began the story that would set the stage for the next five years.

It is important to understand that Crazy Neighbor has a penchant for things of the motorized variety. He however is not very mechanically inclined. In this way he reminds me of my brother, who managed to destroy every car my family owned once he turned driving age and who cannot be trusted to operate any wheeled vehicle, motorized or not. But those are stories for another day.

Anyway, ol' Crazy was working in the driveway to apparently try and "fix" one of his four-wheelers. From what I gather, this was a child's four-wheeler with what I'm told was a centrifugal clutch. The centrifugal part was apparently an important detail because it was repeated by Bob several times during the story. Being that I am just one step above Crazy Neighbor in mechanical aptitude, this means nothing to me, but I generally understand the principle of a clutch. Said clutch was apparently sticking and in order to attempt to repair it, Crazy Neighbor decided to rev the engine at full open throttle to dislodge it. This is Crazy Neighbor's solution to any motorized situation. It's somewhat critical to the understanding of the level of genius we're dealing with here, but I feel that I may have given away the linchpin to the Crazy Neighbor saga. Oh well. This time his monkey skills apparently and temporarily worked. The clutch "unstuck" just long enough to pin the throttle at full bore and the four-wheeler went tearing across the street unmanned.

The ATV crossed the street, jumped the curb, mowed through some shrubbery and plowed through the front window of the neighbors' house across the street. The neighbor owning the house had just left the room after working on his computer. Sitting there a mere two minutes longer would've resulted in him being crushed by the careening vehicle. I dare say Crazy Neighbor drew a lucky straw on that one.

So this was my introduction. It became clear in how Bob told the story that this was not the sole incident in the neighborhood and that Crazy Neighbor had a bad rap. I didn't pry. I was new to the neighborhood and didn't want to be "that lady". In retrospect, perhaps I should have encouraged further gossip and then enforced my "lemon law" clause on the house. But, instead I smiled and maybe giggled some and then went back to my unpacking.

At the time I moved in, Crazy Neighbor was not divorced but instead lived in the house next door with his wife and two boys. The entire family was a piece of work. The wife ran our homeowner's association with an iron fist - trying to fill her day with itemizing the violations of others. She felt the need to point out that the homeowners on the next street over had the wrong color of decorative rock in their yard and another had *gasp* bark. In order to fully inform you how silly this was, Crazy Neighbor's house also has the wrong color of rock. Insert facepalm here. She also thwarted our idea to install a flagpole at the corner of the yard as she was concerned that the sound of the rope hitting the pole during a breeze would wake her. I think she really needed to find a hobby.

And then there were the boys. Now, in general I like kids and I can understand boys being rowdy. Fine, I have brothers, I get it. But no, these children were Satan's spawn, destroying everything in their path. They rode their bikes directly through my front lawn, taunted my dogs by shooting air soft guns at them and shot bottle rockets at the house. They also threw a baseball directly through my vinyl fence. How is this even possible? I'm pretty sure I can assert that this was not an accident. Of course their mother was oblivious when Collin went over to ask when we might expect it to be repaired. Her darling children had not informed her.

The kids were frequently chucking things over the fence and then retrieving them from our backyard without giving us notice. At first, I didn't find this to be a big deal. But one winter morning I looked out the back door to see child-sized footprints in the snow all the way across my lawn, to the other side of the yard, and near the dog kennel. There was no real understanding of why this should be. 

This leads us into our next story, as this was also when the dog taunting began. They would stand on the boat parked next to our fence, hollering at the dogs and throwing things (Cheetos, rocks, silly string, etc.). I yelled at them for this more than once. Now Piper and Harley were hardly phased and generally remained on the patio undisturbed. But once we got Sadie, it was a different story. Sadie is very protective of the yard and will go nuts when she thinks anyone might invade. I had nightmares of her mangling one of Crazy Neighbor's children for coming in the yard. So...we installed a lock on the fence. I figured if they lost something in the yard they were more than welcome to knock on the door to ask for it back. I didn't need to be sued. (As a side note, I'm pretty sure psychologists have linked cruelty to animals to psychotic behavior as adults.)

Up to this point, I had not had any face to face interactions with Crazy Neighbor himself, as he was rarely home. But around this time, Collin and I went out of town for a concert, leaving both Darian and our house in the care of Collin's mother. When we got back a new Crazy Neighbor story was awaiting us. Apparently, the demon spawn had again lost something in the backyard and discovered the lock on the gate. They took this issue to their father. Soon after, Carole received a knock at our front door.

Instead of a "Hey, my kids managed to throw something over the fence, do you mind if I go get it?", she was greeted with a "YOU LOCKED THE GATE!!" Not, your gate is locked. No, this was the gate. Now serious props to Carole, as she handles most morons fantastically. This situation was no different. She simply stared him in the face and said "Yep." Crazy Neighbor repeated the accusation and grew increasingly irate "WHY DID YOU LOCK THE GATE? YOU CAN'T LOCK THE GATE!" Carole, in her infinite wisdom replied "Actually, they can. This is private property," and promptly shut the door in crazy neighbor's face. Well played Carole, well played.

So now you know a little of what we're dealing with over here. Don't worry...the story doesn't end there. Oh no, this story is just beginning. It grows more colorful as the years go on until we reach this morning, when I woke to the sound of a revving four-wheeler at 4 a.m. Crazy Neighbor apparently felt the intense urge to load his trailer and clean the garage...with the doors open...with the ShopVac. Did I mention that this was at 4 a.m.? Oh, and this is nothing in the grand scheme of things. You have not yet seen what Crazy Neighbor is capable of.