Page last edited on August 28,
2002
In
case you're wondering, this Web page is about my next-door
neighbors. Since my neighbors have been driving
me crazy and no amount of civilized reasoning and/or
negotiations have worked - I have decided to
dedicate a small corner of cyber-space to them.
My
family and friends are constantly asking me to tell
them the "latest" thing my neighbor has
done so this page will save me from repeating myself.
Besides, I thought it would be fun. Everything
you read here is entirely true, that's what makes
it so funny. Enjoy!
Background:
My
neighbors moved into the house next to ours in October
1997. It’s a brand new neighborhood with new
houses. Everyone’s house looks beautiful but
that’s about to change. The new neighbors seem
like normal people until shortly after they move in
(more later).
First,
let me say that my redneck neighbor is not destitute
or under-privileged. The guy owns a business,
drives VERY nice new cars, he just doesn’t care about
his house. In order to protect the ignorant,
we’ll call him John Doe # 8 or JD8 for short .
October
1997 - They are here!
Well,
it should have been a sign of things to come but my
neighbors move into their brand new house. Inventory:
1 artificial Christmas tree, clothes, stereo system,
TV, no furniture). The Christmas tree is nicely
decorated (remember, it's October). We can tell
what the tree looks like because the windows have
no miniblinds so at night, you can see right into
the house as you drive up. They have also decided
to wrap some strands of Christmas lights around their
front porch railing. I guess there's no electric
outlet nearby because they never turn these lights
on.
October
1997 - 1st Home beautification project
It's
dark outside, I'm standing in front of my house and
my neighbor does the following: He gets in his car, drives
it up to the house on the other side of my house (this
house is still being built). He backs his car
up to the construction site and opens the trunk.
He calmly proceeds to load up the trunk with bricks
and 2x4s. Pretty clever, huh?
The
following night, at around 9:00pm he decides it's
time to build a mailbox post. It's very nice.
He used the stolen 2x4s from the previous night.
It looks like it's made out of 2x4s except he didn't
steal any that were long enough so he nails a couple
of them together to get the correct height - I mean,
it has to look just right! The mailbox post
is not very sturdy so he braces it with an additional
2x4 (at an angle). Click
here to see the mailbox (no bracing 2x4
though).
He
uses the bricks as edging for his flower beds.
They look nice. Especially with the newly planted
bamboo trees and the ten gallon fish tank (no fish,
just water).
November
1997 - The fence!
I
wake up to my wife telling me, "Hey, it looks
like JD8 is working on a fence".
Well I don't think much of it until she tells me that
he's trying to build a fence around the entire house
(front and back) and that the fence is going to be
chain-link. We have some "covenant rules"
that prohibit you from putting up a silver chain-link
fence. Also, you cannot have any fence go past
the back of your house. By now, I am freaking
out. I can see the property value falling faster
than his mailbox post.
Anyway,
I get to work and at 9:01AM I call our builder.
I explain the situation to him and he agrees to pay
JD8 a visit before the concrete around the metal posts
dries. Sure enough, I get home after work and
the posts around the front of the house are laying
on the street. Not exactly what I expected but
at least they're out of the ground. Tragedy
is averted for now.
A
few days later I realize he's not putting up chain-link
but "chicken wire". Call # 2 to the
builder. While talking on the phone, the builder
starts referring to the neighbor
in a less-than-amicable fashion – someone else on
my side!
By
that afternoon, the fence is chain-link again.
The top of the fence looks like a wave (he didn't
want to spend the 6 bucks on a level), and the sides
look like an S. Very crafty guy. Total
estimated fence cost: $250.00 - but wait! --
He didn't set all the metal posts in concrete!
Actual cost: $62.50. You get the idea
here.
Sometime
after the fence
Well,
it's time to give Cujo the Rottweiler a home.
The dog's actual name is Lucky. The dog quickly
learns how to jump the fence. Once tied to a
chain, he also learns that if he barks for a long
time, people will come out to see him. Unfortunately,
for about the first two weeks, he wants to be "seen"
late at night. Apparently, JD8 doesn't play
the "let's-see-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-the-dog"
game. I'm the only game participant. After
throwing a few rocks Cujo's way, he decides he'd rather
sleep at night.
Something
else needs to be mentioned. Since JD8’s business
is booming, he decides he doesn't have time to feed
"Not-so-Lucky". Instead, he breaks
open a 50 lb. bag of dog food in the middle of his
storage closet and Cujo goes in there whenever he's
hungry. Unfortunately for Cujo, the ants like
dog food too.
Sometime
after the dog
All
work and no play is cramping JD8’s lifestyle!
It's time to get in shape. We wake up early
on a Saturday morning to the sounds of a bouncing
basketball. He's put a basketball goal about
15 feet from our bedroom window.
Mom
moves in!
Nothing
wrong here. Mom seems like a very nice lady.
Unfortunately, my wife wakes me up to bad news again.
"Something weird is happening at JD8’s house.
His dog is chasing some chickens around the back yard."
Unfortunate indeed. Just as I peek out
the bathroom window, I see JD8’s mom come out and
throw some chicken feed in the middle of the yard.
About nine chickens gather around, frantically pecking
at the food but Cujo crashes in and spoils the moment.
My morning is spoiled as well.
Remember
the old "covenant rules" of our neighborhood?
Well, there's a sentence in there about livestock
(fancy word for chickens and goats). We don’t
live in the country – we live in the city. After
a quick phone call to our city's "Special enforcement"
folks, they promise to come out and give JD8 a warning.
The chickens are gone within a couple days.
Can you say chicken feast?
Shortly after this, JD8 decides that
maybe the city folks don't like chickens. My
wife thinks she hears Canadian geese behind
our house. It's geese alright. JD8 has
enclosed the wooden deck behind his house with some
more chain-link fence and is now raising geese right
on the deck! The geese disappear weeks after
without the intervention of the fine folks at Special
Enforcement. Maybe they flew away.
Mom
decides she can't be without her feathery friends
and moves back home shortly after.
Party
number one
It's
Tuesday morning, about 2:00am. My wife and I
wake up to what feels like a small tremor. It's
JD8’s stereo, AKA the Bass Machine. All we hear
is this bass rumble (it's making our bedroom windows
rattle), and what sounds like a very poor male singer.
Every song has the same monotone male singer.
Well, amusement quickly turns to annoyance and anger.
I decide to go ask them to turn it down.
I
knock on the door. Get ready for this image.
The door opens, JD8 is holding a beer. There's
a working disco ball hanging on their ceiling fan.
There's a guy in the background standing in
front of a big screen TV (holding a microphone).
The words to George Michael's "Careless Whisper"
slowly scroll to the music. You guessed it!
It's a Karaoke Party!!! It takes all my strength
to not laugh and remain "angry". I
ask them to turn it down. The music stops for
tonight.
2nd
home beautification project
JD8
decides to put up rain gutters in front of his carport.
Unfortunately he doesn't buy a piece long enough for
the width of the carport. Instead, he buys two
pieces. They're about ten feet long. He
wedges the two pieces together by hand and proceeds
to nail the now larger piece directly onto the carport.
Once again, things don't go as planned for JD8 and
he realizes the middle of the rain gutter is sagging
-- right where the two pieces join. Having no
time to consult his engineer friends, he comes up
with the answer -- he ties a piece of a wire coat
hanger around the middle of the rain gutter.
For the finishing touch, he ties the coat hanger around
a nail he's nailed onto the carport roof shingles.
The nail is not nailed all the way into the shingles.
About an inch of the nail remains above the shingles
with the coat hanger wire neatly wrapped around it.
Bob Vila would love this guy.
The
Rock
This
has to do with another home improvement project.
There's no way to describe this project. It
is quite simple. He wants to put a rock in his
flower bed. The weird part is how the rock is
placed there. When I describe this to my friends
at work, I call it the "one legged table".
I know it's hard to picture it. To see it, click
here.
Party
number two
This
party follows the pattern of the first party except
I didn't feel the urge to laugh. The scenario
is the same. It's a weeknight, it's about 1:00AM
and the party is going strong. I decide to again
go speak to JD8 about the problem. I knock
on the door and soon realize that the music is so
loud that they can't hear the doorbell or my knocking.
It's very cold outside and I'm VERY angry by now.
The only thing I can do is to wait for the
song to end so I can pound on the door hard enough
for them to hear me. As predicted, the song
ends, I bang on the door and in a few seconds, JD8
is standing there, holding a beer, smiling at me.
I explain my concerns to JD8 and he apologizes several
hundred times. I shake my head and return home.
Same
night, but it's now 3:00am. The music is back
and with authority. It wakes us up again and
this time I'm ready to kill somebody. Instead,
I call the police. The funny thing is that when
the police officer arrives, JD8 can't hear the
officer knocking on the door. By now, my wife
and I are glued to the window hoping to see some police
brutality (yeah it's bad). The officer proceeds
to walk around the house shining his flashlight into
the windows hoping to get a glimpse of what's happening
inside.
As
the officer is walking back towards the front of the
house, JD8 opens the door and sees the police car.
He panics and slams the door shut. The officer
sees the light shining on the front lawn and runs
to the front door. The officer starts pounding
on the door, and shouting. After about thirty
seconds, the door opens and the cop goes inside the
house. We can hear the officer screaming for
them to turn the music off. Sweet!
I
meet the officer by his car and he tells me to call
him back if I hear anything so he can take everyone
to jail. It was beautiful.
The
Structure
In
case you have not noticed by now, JD8’s favorite hobby
is to build things poorly. His next project
is yet unnamed. All my friends call it the chicken
coop. There are several theories as to what
this building really is. The theories include:
chicken coop, two-story deck, two-story chicken coop,
work shop, shed, etc. It would be easier for you to
see
it than for me to describe it.
Once thing is certain, it is HUGE. Unfortunately
for JD8, I called the city and he has been asked by
the fine folks at "code enforcement" to
stop building whatever that is. He needs to
get a building permit. Luckily for the neighborhood,
that thing will not meet building code regardless
of what it is.
The
lawn mower
After
living here about 8 months, JD8 decides to buy a lawn
mower. Unfortunately for my wife and I, JD8
is too excited about his new purchase. He's
so excited that he decides he needs to cut the lawn.
The only problem is that once again, the entire neighborhood
is asleep. It's midnight! This is the
only time I curse at my neighbor
but I do not know what else to do. He explains
he is "testing" the lawn mower. I
don't think he understands my point. He seems
to think I'm upset that he is cutting his lawn.
The fact that he is making entirely too much noise
never crosses his mind.
Miscellaneous
Pictures
This
is a picture of part of JD8’s back
yard. This is the part that connects
our property. Check out the workmanship of his
chain-link fence!
No
words can say enough here. JD8 also likes to
work on his car. Since this picture
was taken, he poured the contents of the oil pan into
a hole in his yard.
Labor
Day Party
Fortunately
for us, we were not home on Labor Day weekend.
However, two of my other neighbors tell me that JD8
and friends had a knock-out-drag-out fist fight in
the middle of the street. The time, of course,
about 2:00AM. I can't tell you much about it
except that the police showed up and got things under
control. I presume somebody was on the Karaoke
machine singing "Everybody was Kung Fu fighting"
and things got out of hand after that.
Late
night project
Just
when you think JD8 will take a breather, things get
going again. This time, it's about 11:00pm and
he decides his carport is not complete. It's
missing something – something other than a car.
JD8 is putting together a pool table. It's positioned
directly in the center of his carport - where else
do you put a pool
table, right? I have to point out
that this happened long before the Drew Carry show
so he didn’t get the idea from there. BTW –
you can check out the rain gutters on that last picture.
Back
to the story. Of course, he is hammering, dropping
things, and just making a whole lot of noise.
I decide to just open the window and "ask"
JD8 to keep it down. Apparently, "keeping
it down" is a relative term. The project
continues.
To
make a long story short, it's now 1:00am and the banging
and hammering is still going on. I decide to
call the police. Before the cops get here, one
of JD8’s friends decides it's not too late in the
evening to race his car's engine and burn some rubber
all the way up the street. It's just wholesome
fun!
The
policeman arrives and I explain the situation.
I also tell him this time we ARE definitely going
to court over this. He goes over to JD8’s house
and after about 15 minutes, motions me to come over.
It becomes evident that the cop has mentioned somebody
is going to jail because the entire household is out
of the house frantically apologizing, and trying to
shake my hand.
The
cop explains that it is up to me to decide whether
or not they get to spend a night downtown. I'm
guessing that the JD8 crew is picturing some third-world-country
type jail because they are quite frantic.
I
tell them that "this time" I won't let the
police take them to jail. However, the "next
time" we have a problem, "some damn body"
is going to jail. The police officer agrees
and gives me his business
card. He asks me to specifically
request his presence the next time I need the police
out here. He tells them he doesn't want to be
back. They are still nodding, waving, and shaking
hands.
Back
Yard Accident?
Well,
after many months of inactivity, JD8 surpasses his
previous antics. I come home from work to the
sight of a smoking back yard. It turns out that
it was winter time and the grass was dried-up(dormant)
– JD8 threw a lit cigarette out his back door and
you can imagine the rest. Here are two pictures
of the end-result. Luckily for us, the fire
stayed far from our property. Unfortunately,
the grass didn’t burn long enough to take the wooden
structure down. The privacy fence you see in
the pictures separates his yard from the property
behind our houses. That fence was about two
weeks old. Here are the pictures: (Picture
one) (Picture
two).
Hibachi
Hell
After
a long hiatus, JD8 comes back strong. One early
morning (around 5:15am), I wake up to the sound of
voices. My wife is wide awake - peeking out
of our bedroom miniblinds. She tells me there
are a few fire department trucks outside. Apparently,
a neighbor (from the apartment buildings behind our subdivision)
was on his way to work (he's a soldier) and noticed
a fire behind JD8’s house. He jumped over the
privacy fence, woke JD8 up, and called the fire department
.
I
proceeded to go out there to get the scoop on what
had happened. It turns out that JD8 had left
a Hibachi grill on top of his wooden picnic table.
Unfortunately, the picnic table was sitting
on top of his wooden deck. To make a long story
short, the table and a big part of the deck went up
in flames.
Of
course, you want to see the pictures!
Exhibit
A Exhibit
B Exhibit
C
Check out the chain link fence around
the deck. That's where the geese used to live.
Neighborhood
thugs
In
case you don't remember, long ago, JD8 had placed
a basketball goal right outside our bedroom window.
Unfortunately for JD8, some neighborhood thugs put
a couple bricks through the back-board. Unfortunately
for me, the same bricks also took a chunk off the
side of my house.
JD8
decides to move the basketball goal to the curb to
be picked up by our city's waste disposal specialists
(garbage men). Well, from the look of JD8’s
house, the garbage men aren't sure if it's really
garbage so they never pick it up. The broken
basketball goal sits by the curb for several months
when JD8 decides to put it back on his driveway.
He does not use it again. Here
is a picture of the basketball goal.
See the Christmas lights in the background?
This picture was taken in the summer.
Home-grown
fish?
I
really don't know what to make of this one.
JD8 has done stuff like this before. Again,
like many of JD8’s antics, this one has to do with
his never-ending love for home-improvement.
The premise is simple, the flower bed by the mailbox
is missing something.... hmmmmmmmm, a
fish tank of course! No fish, just some
green water.
Latest
Home Improvements
Since
there are a few of these, I'll just bunch them together.
The first in this array of home beautification efforts
has to do with the old mailbox (the one made with
2x4's). JD8 decides to use the old stolen bricks
and build a brick mailbox. It's really nice.
However, he uses his old white plastic mailbox and
leaves the flag attached to it instead of attaching
a flag to the bricks (it makes the mailbox flag inoperable
– it stays up). Of course, worried about mail
fraud or perhaps the anthrax scare, JD8 protects his
mail with a Jesus Christ statue on top of the mailbox.
Check out the handy work.
Mailbox
front
Mailbox
back
Mailbox
statue
Notice
the realty sign by the mailbox. That's right
- this beautiful, well-taken-care-of home could be
all yours. PLEASE buy it. I beg you. (No
the house has not sold).
Apparently
the fish tank by the mailbox is not conducive to the
preservation of carbon-based life forms. JD8
decides his next project will be a pond. Luckily
for the neighborhood, he places the pond in his back
yard. The actual construction of the pond is
actually the best-looking project so far (it really
is). However, JD8 had to add his personal touch
to it and screwed everything up. JD8 decides
to add a waterfall to the pond. He proceeds
to remove a section of rain-gutters from the carport
in order to get the waterfall effect. Here are
the pictures. Pond
1 Pond
2
The
next project is a weird one. JD8 wanted to plant
some spices. Again, he could choose to use normal
plant pots to grow these. Instead, he buys several
of those blue, child-size swimming pools (you know,
the round ones that are about a foot deep) and fills
them up with top soil. The look really nice
- especially sitting next to the smelly pond.
Pools
1 Pools
2
This
next project occurred long before the September 11
events. JD8 decides to put up an American flag
in front of his house. I don’t mind that he’s
putting up a flag. However, the JD8 School of
Home Improvement (not yet an accredited learning institution)
states that the flag pole needs to be taller than
your house. Small aircraft, beware!
Flag
pole
Flag
pole update
I
have to admit that I'm impressed that JD8 has taken
the time to replace the American flag with a new one
since the old one was looking a little dirty.
In this unprecedented set of pictures, we get to see
JD8's handy work as it happens!! I actually
took these pictures while he did the work. The
quality of the pictures is really bad because I had
to take the pictures through the window screen and
with the camera flash disabled. Otherwise, my
cover would have been blown. Note that he uses
his Chevy Suburban to stand on (rather than using
a ladder) and that the flag is upside down!!
JD8 is awesome. Of course, he figures out that
the flag is upside down and fixes it. The pictures
tell the story. Again, sorry about the
poor picture quality. Picture
1 Picture
2 Picture
3 Picture
4
Web
site is famous!!
On
April 12, 2002, cable channel TechTV did a small feature
about this website on their show called The
Screen Savers. (Note: You can check
the original
site for links to videos of the Screen
Savers production. We have removed those links because
the movies caused some folks' computers to crash.)
Backyard
update
I'm
finally getting to update the page after numerous
requests. The latest backyard project is a lovely
utility shed/storage building. Of course, JD8
finds a way to add his personal touch to this project.
Luckily for all of us, no treated lumber was used
in this project so the
thing will rot and collapse soon. And
of course, what fun is a new shed unless it has some
pets living under it? Oh, I bet you're picturing
a dog under there. Think again. Pic
1 Pic
2 Pic
3 Pic
4 Pic
5.
Thank
God for taxes
Yes,
you are reading that correctly. Taxes can be
a good thing. Apparently JD8's pigs were annoying
somebody else in the neighborhood and I'm guessing
a phone call or two were made. Probably because
the pigs were free to roam the neighborhood.
I took most of the pig pictures in my front yard.
To
make this short - as I pulled into my driveway today,
I noticed the fine folks of our city's animal control
department fetching some pigs. It took them
a while but being the professionals
they are, they got the job done. - I didn't realize
pigs could run that fast.
And
that is all so far.
