On Monday, April 14, 1997 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Vicki L Naylor wrote:
Hello,

We bought our (new) house about 4 years ago. A year or so after we did,
these... ummm, "people" (and I use the term loosely) bought the house
next door. After problems of all kinds - they buy a lot in town and
apparently think that gives them the right to have country music blaring
12 hours a day, people always over at 4:00 in the morning screaming at the
top of their lungs, etc. They tried for months to stop us from building a
fence around our yard (we were striving for some semblance of privacy)
because it ruined their "view" (ha-ha, of our yard, I guess. There are
definitely no views here, except of other houses in the subdivision)
Anyway, they have now (about a year ago) started a day"care." I use
quotes because to these people, apparently, daycare is leaving 6-10
screaming, fighting, rampaging kids in the backyard unsupervised for hours
at a time. (Incidentally, they built a fence around their yard before
starting the day"care." Hypocritical, or what? At least it gives the
kids something to kick and bounce rocks off of all day long, (but didn't
stop the kids from hitting our windows with rock-packed ice/snowballs last
winter). Anyway, my question is, is this legal? Can you just throw a
bunch of kids in the yard, ignore them, charge probably 2-3 dollars per
hour per child, call it daycare and get away with it?! I know there is
something about "licensing" a daycare, but does that actually *mean*
anything? I would have never bought this house if I'd have known this was
going to happen (like I wouldn't buy directly next to a school or factory
for the same reason). We are in Washington state, if that makes a
difference. And I am not some yucky, grumpy ol' complaining neighbor - I
am telling you, these people would drive anyone insane.

Thanks for any comments or commiserations,

- Vicki

That's the risk of living in a neighborhood. You can't control who moves in next door to you. I'm currently waiting to see who will buy the house next to me that is being sold for the third time. I've had 3 neighbors in the six years I've lived here and all of them have been nice easy to get along with people. I hope the next neighbors are just as nice because I can't up and just move if they aren't. I like my home. I like my neighborhood. It only takes one bad neighbor to change the face of the neighborhood. I don't want to be the one living next door to a difficult person. Been there. Done that. Unfortunately, just because I've already had a bad neighbor experience in the past doesn't mean it can be checked off the life lesson list as having been through this already. It could happen again. I pray that it doesn't. The older I get the less patience I have with difficult people. I do my best to get along with everyone, treating others with courtesy and respect; and I expect to be treated the same way in return. The problem is if you ever get on the bad side of a neighbor usually they are the type to retaliate because inconsiderate people don't care how their actions affect others. If you want to be happy, I advise moving. No, it isn't fair to you to have to do that but do you want to be right or happy? Life is too short to be miserable. Good luck to you.