The Half
Naked Neighbor
Neighbors
and Parking
I live in
a neighborhood that used to be very quiet and decent. The neighbors did not make a lot of noise or
disturb other neighbors. People kept to
themselves and I did not get to know any of them.
I live in
the front apartment with a window facing the street. I can see the other apartments and houses on
the street and I can watch people walking their dogs and children playing
nearby.
At first
I thought I was finally free from the noisy neighborhood that we were in before
my divorce and I could enjoy this new neighborhood with the feeling of peace
and the newly found freedom from my marriage.
Neighbors in today’s times do not get acquainted or welcome new comers
to the neighborhood. They stay away,
keep to themselves and never even say “Hi” when they see you walking by.
They are
unfriendly and unkind and unwilling to show a friendly smile. I suppose that is
the way it will be from now on.
So, my
story will show how people continue to act in the manners they portray
themselves to be, and that is not the so-called “Love thy neighbor.”
As time
went by I kept an eye on who was coming and going and moving in or out.
In the
beginning of my living here in this cramped one bedroom apartment with my young
son who was still in high school at the time I took time to drop him off at
school early in the morning. Thinking
that I could park my car anywhere on our street, I parked in front of a big
white house for only a few minutes after returning from dropping my son off at
school and when I came out of my
apartment to get into my car to go to work I noticed a scribbled note on my
windshield. The note read “Do not park
in front of our house; move your car because my wife parks here.”
Not only
was the note there, but both of the owners of the house suddenly parked both of
their cars one car in front and one car in the back totally trapping my car in
so that I could not move my car at all.
Their cars were not there when I parked earlier so this was deliberate.
I was so
angry I screamed at both of them and threatened to call the police. I have never seen these people before and
have never spoken to them at all before this. The man yelled at me to move my car and I
yelled back at him to move his truck and he refused and said his wife needed
the spot, so I yelled at him and her words they didn’t like and she had the
nerve to call my words not so Christiany and I yelled back, “what kind of
Christian blocks someone’s car in so much as to trap them in so that they can’t
even get out?” These people have never
even parked across the street nor did they have a garage or a driveway. She never walked away from the front door to
talk to me to my face and I called her chicken because she would not dare to
face me.
After my
horn blowing and yelling for several minutes , he finally moved his truck and
kept yelling at me as if it were my fault and I was the criminal.
I decided
to park there anyway and every time I tried, he would automatically park his
huge truck there just so I could not park.
So began
the beginning of not wanting to know my neighbors. I had to resort to parking down the block and
across the street from my own apartment and yet, again, I found notes on my car
telling me not to park in front of other people’s houses. This was insane and illegal and
harassment.
I spoke
with the police about it and they told me that it was harassment and I can
press charges if I knew who put the notes on my car.
Well, the
other times it happened I did not know who put the notes on my car. The feeling I got from this was that of them
being against me or people are outright mean and rude, selfish and very
un-neighborly.
By the
way, in the next few years, my son got his own car and we are allowed 1 parking
spot in our carport at the apartment, so I park on the street everyday. There is a parking rule that there is no
parking between the hours of 2 AM and 4 AM in our city.
I have to
prove to the police that I need a parking permit and they have to approve it
and it cost $80.00 per year for me to park on my own street where I live and
still struggle to find parking because of my “nice” neighbors.
I still
feel the same and I stay away from all of my neighbors.
I
continue to get the feeling that I am not welcome in my own neighborhood even
though I have lived here almost 20 years.
Parking
is still a constant problem and I am getting older and nobody cares how much I
struggle and how many times I drive around the block just to find a parking
spot. Most of the time I find one across
the street or on the next block over and walk all the way back to my apartment
with heavy bags of groceries and large baskets of laundry that I must wash at
the laundry mat once a week.
The
amount of time and all of the years I struggled through by keeping myself away
from the neighbors I hoped to gain a sense of invisibility.
I do not
always keep my invisibility quiet; I sometimes say things out loud hoping to
catch the attention of someone who actually cares about my struggling.
I also
want them to know that I am a human being and I do exist and I do need to feel
safe and welcome in my own neighborhood.
I do not feel safe or welcome to this day.
The New
Woman Next Door
There is
a house directly next door to my bedroom window. I say this because this house is the closest
to my apartment.
The first
neighbor was a man who kept to himself and was not noticeable. He did not live there long and it didn’t make
any difference to me.
Soon
after he moved out a woman moved in and she seemed to live alone. At first she didn’t bother me or my son until
she began watering her lawn late at night and the noise woke me up and so I had
to say something.
I decided
on my own to approach her after 10 PM while she was standing in the front yard
watering the lawn. I explained that the
sound of the watering was disturbing our sleep. She retaliated by yelling at me and said she
had the right to water any time she wanted to and wasn’t going to stop.
I asked
her to stop again and she responded the same way, so after that I finally
called the police to step in to stop her.
I came
home from work one day and found eggs splattered all over my bedroom window.
I found
egg shells on the ground directly under my window. I did some detective work and noticed the
angle of how the eggs landed on my window was at a slant which determined that
the eggs were thrown from her driveway and not as far away as the sidewalk or
the street.
Someone
had to walk up her driveway to throw the eggs.
I also knew that is was not a Halloween prank because it was 3 days
after Halloween and young teenagers or children were not around this
neighborhood.
I called
the police about this incident too and they told me to stay away from her and
added that it was best not to approach anybody at all, not even knock on doors
and be a good neighbor just to say hello.
Retaliation
is a major factor these days since violence is more common than not and the
fact that the police are not very helpful with anything, they believe threatening
me with jail just for calling them is supposed to stop me from calling
them. That is exactly what they did and
keep on doing. I am not allowed to ask
anybody to keep the noise down or knock on their door just to say hi.
What kind
of world are we really living in?
The woman
lived by herself for a few years and later a man moved in with her.
They did
not bother me throughout the remainder of the time they lived there.
The
Bedroom Window
While we
lived here I was able to open my bedroom window and let in fresh air and
sunlight. I could listen to the birds
and the airplanes and the rustle of the trees when the wind blew. I felt the breeze and felt alive and I could breathe
the fresh air in the Fall and enjoy the extra daylight in the Summer and see
the moon as it rose up in the East. It
was a nice feeling and a homey feeling.
It was my
window, my very own bedroom for me to enjoy my living in. After all, I was divorced and finally in my
very own apartment for the first time in my life. I was happy to have this fresh new experience
in my late adult life.
Only soon
would some mean half-naked man take all of that away from me.
We had
moved in around 2004 and life was ok except a few hiccups like the parking
experience and the noisy neighbors. Then
in 2017 “he” moved in.
The
Half-Naked Neighbor
In early
2017 my son and I were having financial struggles, but still able to manage the
rent for this apartment. I had a
brother who lived up in Northern California so one day I decided to go up there
to try to live with him and look for a job just to get away from the Los
Angeles area.
In the
meantime, my son found some roommates he could share the apartment with.
While I
was up North, I was having some difficulty finding work and the town was very
small so jobs were scarce.
That idea
went down the drain so I decided to return home. I was only gone a few months so everything
was the same.
I was
back in my bedroom, still looking for work and home everyday since I was
unemployed.
I noticed
the woman next door was still living there so I wasn’t worried about any
changes.
About a
month after my return, I saw what looked like a moving truck parked outside the
house next door.
As I
looked outside I was shocked to see that the man who had been living there had
already moved out.
Within a
day the woman was gone too.
This was
strange. They moved out in such a
hurry.
Wow! Before the week was over, there was a strange
man moving in the house and there wasn’t even a for sale sign or a for rent
sign.
He showed
up out of nowhere. “Did he kick her
out?” I asked my son. He was just as
surprised as I was and wondered the same.
I was
outside and heard the man talking to some people and he was introducing himself
as the owner of the house and that he just moved back from Seattle.
He saw me
and said his name was Mark and he was there to fix up the house for his
parents. I answered politely by
introducing myself and welcoming him to the neighborhood.
Little
did I know that that was a mistake. But
try to be a good neighbor. Why bother?
I do know
a few of the people in the apartment building that we live in so we were able
to exchange information from time to time about what is going on and how things
are in our lives.
Some had
already met Mark and formed an opinion of him and it was not positive
information.
I saw
Mark outside of his house every day and he was usually half-naked. He often only wore a pair of very short
shorts and never wore a shirt.
He slowly
began to fix up his house and he was often on the phone talking very loud to
someone about repairing something.
The other
neighbors who lived next to him or across the street were getting acquainted
with him as he told everyone he met that he was there to fix up the house for
his parents.
My
neighbors were getting the scoop on him as well. They found out that he was a former policeman
and a former fireman. Strange that he
was former of both occupations.
Why was
he really here? Why didn’t he work?
I guessed
he didn’t work because he was home all the time.
It was
none of my business but mysterious all the more.
We heard
him working day and night. He did
everything himself. He began to get
very noisy and bothersome.
Now he
had several cars and a very long driveway that he could park all of them
in. He decided that he would park his
pickup truck on the street and he took the front spot directly in front of my
apartment.
We
thought he would change parking spots when he drove it sometimes but he never
did.
He took
that spot and would not give it up. He
exchanged the spot with his other cars sometimes and while he did not park
there my son or I or another person would try to park there. When we did this he deliberately parked his
car in front of my son’s car and blocks him in so that he could not get it out
at all. He parked in his driveway with the back of the car sticking out onto
the street. (Supposed to be illegal, but
hey, cops didn’t care) My son knocked on
his door and asked him to move his car and he refused and threatened him and
called my son a name that is not a name anyone would like to mention in today’s
ugly world.
My son
had to carefully squeeze out of the parking spot so that he could go to work.
At any rate he had to get out no matter what.
This
caused us concern for our safety and we called the police about it and they
would not do anything but ask him to move his car. He reluctantly moved it later.
After
talking to the neighbors I found out that he had pointed a gun at another neighbor
and threatened that person for trespassing.
He put up a no trespassing sign on his lawn so now the police say that
he can shoot anyone who comes onto his property uninvited.
He
continues to park his truck in the same spot and added another car to his
driveway and occasionally blasts his music from this other car, which is a
convertible and he parks it directly next to my bedroom window.
He stays up very late every night fixing
something and talking outside on his phone next to my window. This truly is unbelievable and annoying. I have called the police on him several times
and they refuse to do anything but ask him ever so politely to keep quiet and
turn down the music.
I told
the police that I notice that he put up a camera and a light directly facing my
window. They said it is not illegal and
I can put up a camera too.
That is
not the point. The point is that he is
allowed to do this and he is spying on my privacy by doing this intentionally
and getting away with it. The light goes
on several times most nights and shines very brightly into my window.
I am not
allowed my privacy or my health or safety in my own home and now I am suffering
without being able to open my window or open my blinds to look outside at all.
As long
as he lives there I cannot live life in peace and healthy with fresh air and
sunshine because he is allowed to destroy it.
I have to
keep my window completely closed and blacked out. I cannot enjoy my life the way I did before
he came.
I am a
prisoner in my own bedroom and the police let him do it.
He
continues after 6 years to fix his house , dress half-naked , park wherever he
chooses, threaten others and myself and my son, play his loud music and spy on
me and shine his bright light into my blacked out window and talk very loudly
on the phone outside his house constantly .
The man never shuts up nor has he ever worn a shirt with his skimpy
little shorts.
I had
brief conversations with 2 or 3 neighbors from across the street and they do
not like him and tell me to stay away from him, he is a very bad man.
No joke,
this man is nuts and needs to be locked up.
But according to the police he can do anything he pleases including
dressing indecent everyday.
By the
way, he even parked a NYFD fire truck in front of my apartment for about a
year. A real New York Fire Department
truck actually from New York, sitting right
here in California. Maybe it was a 9-11 souvenir. (JK)
Today he
is still working on his yard in 2023 and he even planted two fire hydrants in
his front yard and the rest of the yard is covered in black plastic.
To end,
there is a large banner hanging from his porch that reads: F’ Biden.
Does this
mean he is a nice half naked neighbor?
The End
