Obnoxious Neighbors

[haveyourmile]

I posted a thread in the off topic discussion and someone recommended I ask you guys for some advice.

I'll post a part of what I originally posted

So last night I get woken up at 3am by my next door neighbor YELLING (my bedroom window is next to their front door) at one of his buddies. This goes on for a good 5 minutes until I'm frustrated enough to yell out the window "Hey keep it down!" Both the guys start laughing and one of them says "chill out. smoke some weed you ****in {insert homophobic slur}" and then they finally go inside.

At this point, I'm perplexed. We've always had a decent relationship with our neighbors...we're not friends with them but we always wave hello and say hi, and I've always been courteous to them in whatever small ways I could (take in their trash cans, found their dog when it escaped and kept it at my house until they were home, etc)

So obviously, I'm pretty irritated but willing to let it all go if I can just go back to sleep. But no. About a minute after they go inside the neighbor opens the door wide open again and yells "**** YOU {insert homophobic slur}". Again, I'm willing to let it go if that's it because I'm REALLY tired. But no, now he opens his bedroom window (which is right by the front door and thus right by my bedroom window) and starts BLASTING rap music. Okay so now I'm LIVID. I call the police non-emergency line to report a noise complaint, and get back in bed to wait for the cops who I realize may or may not show up. About 8-10 minutes after I get off the phone with dispatch, they turn the music off. 5 minutes after that I see the cops show up, go to their door, hear that there's no music, and leave. I was gonna run down and talk to the cops but I didn't want to put on clothes and deal with turning off the alarm so I just let them leave.

This is not the first time the neighbors have been loud/obnoxious. This is just the first time I've said anything. They've woken us up multiple times coming home late at night, yelling or puking outside the door. I know they're in their 2nd year of college and it's still exciting to puke everywhere so I've let it go up to this point but I'm DONE. Should I go try and talk to the guy who was yelling at me last night? Should I just let it go and hope it doesn't happen again? What about a note? I left my information with dispatch instead of remaining anonymous hoping if I call again it'll show a previous complaint. Any advice would be helpful

I feel bad that the cops showed up to no noise, and I worry if it happens again and the cops show up to no noise AGAIN, they'll stop responding to the calls. I really don't want to waste the time of cops who have bigger issues to respond to but I want to get a log of whats going on and I'd really like to not get woken up at 3am. I went over and talked to one of the roommates (the guilty party was still passed out at 1pm today) and the girl I talked to was really apologetic on behalf of her male roommate and I left my number for her and she gave me hers and I asked her to tell him to come by and talk to me or I'd come back another time. Should I call the cops to make another noise complaint if it happens again? I'm worried if I do he might retaliate by keying my car/slashing my tires or something like that. I'm a lesbian woman and QUITE offended at the homophobic slurs he was throwing at me. Would that be enough to file a complaint with PD?

Do any of you have any sound advice? I'm not trying to be whiny but my fiancee wakes up 7 days a week at 6-7am and if I am woken up at night it is nearly impossible for me to get back to sleep. I want to keep the peace, and had this happened at 11pm I wouldn't have said anything...it was the fact that it was past 3am and I was awoken from a deep sleep. Thanks for your time

[hunteran]

Not a cop, but I've been in a similar situation. First, I would go talk to them during the day when they're not drunk or high and try to deal with it in a cordial manner (be friendly, lay out your concerns, explain why you need your sleep, ect). If that doesn't work (chances are it wont), simply wait until they have a party or they're being super loud. Call in early and report a noise complaint AND tell the dispatcher that your 87 year old grandmother is staying the night and she needs her rest. If your PD is known for short response times to non emergencies, you can probably omit the grandmother part (in my case, I live in Chico and if you call in a noise complaint at 3am, they wont get there until 6am). The trick is to catch them red-handed. In Chico they get one warning and then its a hefty fine ($1500 IIRC). Chances are that they'll simmer down after they get a warning.

[alex00]

My personal opinion is that you are paying for our services (taxes) and deserve every bit of help we can give you. I work a pretty busy district that is filled with people most would not want to live next to. We also have a fair amount of good hard working folks that are forced to live next to idiots that don't respect themselves, let alone their neighbors. You may or may not be surprised to know that the majority of calls for service we get are to the same place over and over, by people that view society as owing them something without lifting a finger to contribute.

I am more than happy to respond to noise complaints for people in your position. You, like most of society, probably rarely if ever call the police. I hate when people in your position feel bad about calling us. That is what we are here for. You don't know how many times I have complainants in your position apologize profusely for ever calling us, let alone calling us once or twice. I usually tell them that calls are dispatched by priority, and as long as they call the non emergency number, to call as frequently as they feel they need us. Sure there are people that abuse the system, and houses I personally don't like going to, but it's my job. I am paid to drive where my computer tells me to, and talk to people. If it gets too busy, the priority calls get handled first.

When it comes to neighbor disputes, they are as different as the people involved. I wish there was an easy answer, but unfortunately there isn't. Some people are just rude, others are responding to a perceived wrong from the other neighbor, and some just don't know they are causing a problem. It sounds like your neighbors are only a problem when they are drinking. If that is the case, you may want to talk to them in the early afternoon, and let them know.

If the relationship is beyond repair, you should try thinking outside the box. I assume due to their age they are renters. Most tenants will sign an agreement with landlords that prohibit this type of behavior. You may try contacting the landlord and informing them of the problem. If they are breaching the rental agreement by creating a nuisance the landlord can issue a "3-day quit" for certain legal nuisances.

If the landlord is no help, and talking to the guys fail, you can consider a private person's arrest. I would only advise this as a last resort, and only accompanied by video or audio evidence taken from your property. You open yourself up to civil liability, however.

I think your best bet would be to go through the landlord, especially after making repeated calls for service to the address. Try to get the event or incident number (call number as opposed to report number) and always give the correct address for where the problem is. Some people give us an intersection, or "two houses to the right", but this won't help for tracking purposes.

The homophobic slurs alone are not going to be enough to file a crime report. Some police departments may take a report on that alone as an incident report, but it won't lead to any charges. Property damage or violence is usually required along with the slurs to make the 'hate crimes'.

Your type of situation is one of the most frustrating for me, because there is usually very little I can do, even when I hear the noise. Best case scenario is I give the guy a ticket, he gets convicted, and picks up trash for an afternoon. There is far less I can do when I don't hear the noise.

I forgot to add, that if your local police department has a 'problem oriented policing' or 'community' policing team they can be of service. Some departments have teams of officers dedicated to quality of life issues, and the like. This is the type of call our POP team would have handled before the budget killed it.

[retired]

alex gave you some excellent advice. I too, used to have the reporting party apologize for "bothering" me. Like alex, I would tell them that is what they pay us for and not to worry about it. I am sure every leo here can say the same thing.

I don't want to get you worried, but if this male neighbor is a real jerk when he is sober also, you may regret providing your phone number to his roommate. He may decide to begin calling you at all hours of the night and repeat his slurs. Now, if he does, you can, if you so choose, call the police and obtain a report for 653m pc (lewd, annoying, threatening phone calls). Realize if you do, it may go to court and you will have to testify. Only you can decide if you want to do that. If it does occur, you more than likely will eventually want to change the number to prevent further calls.

Hopefully, he won't do any of what I described and things will get worked out. I just wanted to make you aware of the possibility.

[Ron-Solo]

Also, 653m also applies to threatening or lewd text messages. Threats of physical harm may amount to a violation of 422 PC.

Also, I strongly suggest you talk to the landlord also.

[haveyourmile]

Wow! Thank you guys so much for the overwhelming support. I will follow advice laid out here and hope it doesn't get any worse. I now keep a camera with video recording capabilities right by my window, have talked to our landlord, and have started a log on my computer of activity.

I really appreciate the positive responses I've received, it means a lot to me that you guys are so overwhelmingly supportive. I can't thank you enough. I'll update if things progress...

[haveyourmile]

They're at it again. I've been up since 2am. I called police non emergency twice, and my other neighbor I guess called in too because dispatch said they had already gotten a complaint. Then my roommate downstairs came upstairs while I was in the kitchen because he couldn't sleep from the loud noise. He ended up calling too. I went over to the house once, banged on the door for a few minutes, no one heard. I went back and knocked and someone ended up coming out for a cigarette and I asked him to keep it down (he doesnt live there) and he said ok. 20 minutes later it was still going on. Then I hear my neighbor pounding on their door and he asks them to keep it down as well. Still no change.

About 0335, a cop car shows up and one guy is out front without a shirt with a beer in his hand, and two people are leaving the party (clearly intoxicated) with their bikes. The officer told the two with the bikes to walk their bikes home and told the other guy to go inside. I'm not sure why he didn't cite any of them but aright. I couldn't hear most of what the officer said to the renter when he finally came to the door but I did hear "....or someone at this residence will be paying a large fine". Not sure what the fine is, but apparently there is one (I assume for repeat offenses?)

The officer left and what do you know? They're still being loud. The music is off but the yelling and some girl screaming "OLE!" over and over is still continuing. I'm REALLY frustrated. It took the cops a long time to respond (which I completely understand) and I wish there was some other route I could take besides waiting for them to show up. Is there some sort of code enforcement I can call to report them during the day...to say start a log of some sort?

Unfortunately my camera battery was dead and I couldn't record anything. I'm exhausted and at my wits end. I guess I just keep calling the police when/if it happens again? Should I call back tonight because they're still being loud?

[bigger hammer]

In some cities the policy is that the police take a low profile approach unless someone is willing to step up, sign a complaint, be a "victim" and go to court to follow through with prosecution. I seem to recall courts ruling that the police can't be victims of "Disturbing the Peace" and so, unless someone wants to stick their neck, out all they can do is ask them the noisy party to quiet down.

Some cities have taken to limiting the number of times that the police will respond on such calls unless and until someone is willing to prosecute.

[yzErnie]

The contract city I work for has a Party Ordinance where we issue the Party Complaint Form to the home owner/leasee/renter. The first response is free then the following responses are fined and the multi response is pricey. Not sure where you live but pretty soon the responding officers will get tired of responding and take an action against the party pad.

Usually, we try to be fairly decent to the party pad because we are not against folks having some fun but repeated responses to the same place for people being unruly get our attention. Hopefully, the agency where you live has that same philosophy!!

[bigger hammer]

The contract city I work for has a Party Ordinance where we issue the Party Complaint Form to the home owner/leasee/renter. The first response is free then the following responses are fined and the multi response is pricey.

To make sure I understand, you issue this form to the person who's giving the party? If there are more responses to the same location (I'll assume that we're talking about the same incident, not another party next week) they get fined? The fines go up for more visits/request to quiet down?

Not sure where you live but pretty soon the responding officers will get tired of responding and take an action against the party pad.

What action would be taken? What violation would be charged? How mechanism is in place to make sure that you wouldn't be in a situation where someone who was pissed off at his neighbor for some other issue didn't just keep calling in a disturbance when there wasn't one?

Usually, we try to be fairly decent to the party pad because we are not against folks having some fun but repeated responses to the same place for people being unruly get our attention.

Our policy was (absent a signed complaint from a victim) was to respond to the complaint three times. The next time the person (or another person) called about the same party they were told that we'd not respond again unless someone was willing to sign a complaint.

This system worked well until a City Councilman was the complaining party. He didn't want to sign the complaint (probably afraid of losing votes or the publicity of being a party pooper). But he insisted that we respond repeatedly. We gave him a few extra passes but then refused any more visits. I was the Watch Commander who made the decision not to respond any more. The Councilman DEMANDED that we keep responding. Fortunately the Chief backed me up and the Councilman's repeated sniveling for a couple of weeks finally disappeared. But it took a threat to report it to the local papers that he was demanding special treatment, to do it.

[yzfrider]

Also, 653m also applies to threatening or lewd text messages. Threats of physical harm may amount to a violation of 422 PC.

Also, I strongly suggest you talk to the landlord also.

Because of her sexual orientation, and the slurs used, isn't there an enhancement of these crimes listed.

[AK_Guy]

Same thing happened down the street from us on consecutive weekends...the landlord booted them after the second incident, because of the $1000+ fine. Most landlords have an "opt out" in their rental language in cities that have this law (I'm in San Diego) so you can ditch the tenant ASAP and go after them for damages/fines.

I also have a rental in San Francisco. Hope you're not there, because it takes an act of Congress to move any tenants out, no matter how bad they are...

[Ron-Solo]

Because of her sexual orientation, and the slurs used, isn't there an enhancement of these crimes listed.

A few too many variables, but it is possible depending on the circumstances.

Keep calling the police and document everything as good as you can.

[chiselchst]

I hope you get this resolved soon...

I just wanted to add (IIRC), if "they/he" call you and leave a message on your voice mail that's threatening or whatever, save it! It CAN be used in a Ca court of law if it comes to that.

Good luck. I hear many folks call in to the the Lin Tillem radio show (lawyer on AM radio) with these types of problems. Lucky I have good neighbors...

[J_B]

I forgot to add, that if your local police department has a 'problem oriented policing' or 'community' policing team they can be of service. Some departments have teams of officers dedicated to quality of life issues, and the like. This is the type of call our POP team would have handled before the budget killed it.

Whhhaaaat? That's what POP is for?? Can you please drive north bound 99 & speak to ours???

I love you long time for that.