do we have any rights--rental property next door

[NHdisneylover]

Y’all do realize that neighbors like these are likely going to prevent her from selling her house. She can’t just leave it. Who would buy it?

Yes, I realize it is a possiblity, but I also understand that the OP says she has homes on either side of her which sell drugs, feels very unsafe and cannot have her young grandson visit due to the danger. it is possible she truly has no other options whatsoever---but it is also possible that she could perhaps sell, and take whatever she gets (it is paid off, so any bit is something) and buy some rural property and a trailer to live in, or some other less expensive but safer option.
If I truly believed both homes next to mine were dealing drugs and placing me in true danger and that not much of anything would be done about it, I'd give up an awful lot to move.

Then again--if I was just annoyed by loud, obnoxious behaviour, I would probably stay and find ways to cope (ear plugs, etc) and hope they moved on or settled down at some point.

Personally, I am in the things are not adding up camp.
especially in light of last year's thread.

 

[cabanafrau]

Y’all do realize that neighbors like these are likely going to prevent her from selling her house. She can’t just leave it. Who would buy it?

If that's the case will staying longer make the situation improve and make the home more livable or more marketable down the line?

 

[luvsJack]

If that's the case will staying longer make the situation improve and make the home more livable or more marketable down the line?

So what does she do? Just try to pay for two houses? She has to live somewhere.

I would be doing everything in my power to move in her situation but the reality is it’s not as easy as saying the words.

Edit: ok wait, I didn’t realize her house is paid off. Well that’s different. I would sell it for whatever I can and move. May be the only solution.

 

[piccolopat]

Or stop focusing on your neighbors in such a negative way. Keep busy in your lives and wear ear plugs so you aren’t woken at 4am. It is not great to have neighbors that have different habits or ways of living than you do, but they have the right to live in their house the way they would like. The world needs a little more acceptance and tolerance. People can get so involved in the negative.

Too bad you can't buy OPs house. I'm all for tolerance but the behavior of these neighbors goes well beyond a simple difference in lifestyle.

 

[mnrose]

So what does she do? Just try to pay for two houses? She has to live somewhere.

I would be doing everything in my power to move in her situation but the reality is it’s not as easy as saying the words.

Edit: ok wait, I didn’t realize her house is paid off. Well that’s different. I would sell it for whatever I can and move. May be the only solution.

Exactly. It seems the problem is that OP has her heart set on a certain neighborhood where houses in the style she wants are more expensive. Heck, I've got my heart set on a beach home in Malibu, but my budget doesn't allow it. She lives in Wisconsin. I guarantee you there are homes to be purchased in safe neighborhoods for less than she could sell her current home (given her estimate). If I were unhappy with my neighbors and felt unsafe, I'd sell for what I can get and get the hell out. Is it "unfair." Sure. But, life is way too damn short to live, daily according to her, in an area she deems unsafe. Why would you do that?!?!

 

[cabanafrau]

Exactly. It seems the problem is that OP has her heart set on a certain neighborhood where houses in the style she wants are more expensive. Heck, I've got my heart set on a beach home in Malibu, but my budget doesn't allow it. She lives in Wisconsin. I guarantee you there are homes to be purchased in safe neighborhoods for less than she could sell her current home (given her estimate). If I were unhappy with my neighbors and felt unsafe, I'd sell for what I can get and get the hell out. Is it "unfair." Sure. But, life is way too damn short to live, daily according to her, in an area she deems unsafe. Why would you do that?!?!

People do it all the time, probably the reason for the saying about doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome ...

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So what does she do? Just try to pay for two houses? She has to live somewhere.

I would be doing everything in my power to move in her situation but the reality is it’s not as easy as saying the words.

Edit: ok wait, I didn’t realize her house is paid off. Well that’s different. I would sell it for whatever I can and move. May be the only solution.

I agree with your sentiment regarding moving simply because for the OP it does seem easier to do so without having a mortgage but the roadblock for the OP could be not wanting what they would get if they moved but personally if it's so bad I'd at least move into a temporary housing (maybe rent rather than buy) while continuing to look around.

As for the pay two houses--it's possible depending on one's cash flow (not having a mortgage can certaintly help with that). Heck my retired neighbors up and suddenly bought a house in a neighborhood very close to ours because they liked the home so much and both of our neighborhoods have the same safeness level. They've been living in that new house since late October. Unfortunately their home hasn't sold mostly because there's too many new builds going on in the neighborhood competing with a house built in 2009 but anywho they presently own 2 nice homes (one listed presently for $448K and one they bought for $500K). Now I don't know if they had a mortgage on the home they are trying to sell or a mortgage on the new home but still.

I remember something like last year or the year before there was a woman on the news who got fed up with the drive-bys and bullets flying into her home in a not nice area on the other side of the state line from me and finally moved. That woman I'm confident did not have much cash flow to work with but one too many close calls with herself and her children prompted her to do something to have at least a bit more safety in her life.

 

[luvsJack]

Exactly. It seems the problem is that OP has her heart set on a certain neighborhood where houses in the style she wants are more expensive. Heck, I've got my heart set on a beach home in Malibu, but my budget doesn't allow it. She lives in Wisconsin. I guarantee you there are homes to be purchased in safe neighborhoods for less than she could sell her current home (given her estimate). If I were unhappy with my neighbors and felt unsafe, I'd sell for what I can get and get the hell out. Is it "unfair." Sure. But, life is way too damn short to live, daily according to her, in an area she deems unsafe. Why would you do that?!?!

Yeah I would say at this point it’s like dd and friends say “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit”. The objective should be to be safe and to have a peaceful life, not what the house looks like. Or it would be for me.

 

[Hrhpd]

Op - here is a suggestion you might not have thought of.

You have a neighborhood in mind that you are willing to relocate to. You say you can't afford it.

I understand fully that one of the perks of being semi-retired with a paid off house is the luxury of travel. However, if I was in this situation and the house next door was indeed the reason I couldn't have my grandchildren stay over, my priorities would drastically change.

You travel. You travel a lot. You went on a med cruise last year, have an Alaska cruise scheduled for September both on uber expensive DCL, you are buying annual passes and going to Disney in January and again sometime later in 2019, and that was just the first 2 pages of your posts. Yes, I am bored and recovering from surgery and am one that needs context.

It might behoove you to look at your budget and evaluate your numbers. If you suspended your travel for one year, would the vacation budget added to the resale money of your current home allow you to move to a safer neighborhood in a house closer to what you want without incurring a large mortgage? What about moving to a cheaper cruise line like RCI or Carnival?

You have options.

 

[Nancyg56]

Op - here is a suggestion you might not have thought of.

You have a neighborhood in mind that you are willing to relocate to. You say you can't afford it.

I understand fully that one of the perks of being semi-retired with a paid off house is the luxury of travel. However, if I was in this situation and the house next door was indeed the reason I couldn't have my grandchildren stay over, my priorities would drastically change.

You travel. You travel a lot. You went on a med cruise last year, have an Alaska cruise scheduled for September both on uber expensive DCL, you are buying annual passes and going to Disney in January and again sometime later in 2019, and that was just the first 2 pages of your posts. Yes, I am bored and recovering from surgery and am one that needs context.

It might behoove you to look at your budget and evaluate your numbers. If you suspended your travel for one year, would the vacation budget added to the resale money of your current home allow you to move to a safer neighborhood in a house closer to what you want? What about moving to a cheaper cruise line like RCI or Carnival?

My DH calls this line of reasoning "getting your pecking order in order". And he means it. If we could not feel safe in our fully paid home, were not able to have my DHD visit, and had drug dealers on two side, our life style would be changing drastically. We would lose the dream home and neighborhood, would go where we could afford, and get the heck out of Dodge.

 

[robinb]

I have to agree with the pp upthread that things just don't add up.

The OP says all this terrible stuff is happening on a daily basis, yet between herself AND all her neighbors, there are 2 or less calls in an entire month? The OP herself has said she has only spoken to the police once.

If it is this bad, how come the OP AND all the neighbors are not calling the police. It only takes 3 calls in a month to get the police to call the house a nuisance and yet the OP and her neighbors can't even make that very, very low threshold?

Something is not adding up...at all.

I may have missed some of her posts, but I didn't read that things were happening on a daily basis. Even if something happens on a weekly basis, it's too much. In addition, it's my sense is that they have not been calling on everything.

 

[Hrhpd]

I may have missed some of her posts, but I didn't read that things were happening on a daily basis. Even if something happens on a weekly basis, it's too much. In addition, it's my sense is that they have not been calling on everything.

If it was happening on a weekly basis, and she called once a week, she would easily make the 3 calls in a month threshold for it being a nuisance house. And that doesn't even take into account any neighbor's calls.

And if she and the neighbors are all not making these calls, is it really that bad? The OP and the rest of the neighborhood knows they need just 3 calls to get the police to act, yet they are all choosing not to call? You are making many of our points that things are not adding up. I still think it goes back to the topic sentence in her first paragraph in her original post.

Even in that post, she says she and 2 other neighbors called when the alleged rock was thrown (the 3 call threshold), yet later in the paragraph says they didn't reach the call level of the nuisance threshold. Doesn't add up.

If it is as bad as she says, she just needs to move. With her extensive vacation budget, she has plenty of options.

 

[cabanafrau]

I may have missed some of her posts, but I didn't read that things were happening on a daily basis. Even if something happens on a weekly basis, it's too much. In addition, it's my sense is that they have not been calling on everything.

Once you don't feel safe in your home, once your grandchildren aren't allowed to come over because of safety concerns, numbers of calls or incidents and who is or isn't reporting makes no difference. If it's not within OP's power to make the necessary changes to the current neighborhood the choices are to live with things as is or live somewhere else. It's neither fair nor ideal, it's simply what is.

 

[robinb]

My DH calls this line of reasoning "getting your pecking order in order". And he means it. If we could not feel safe in our fully paid home, were not able to have my DHD visit, and had drug dealers on two side, our life style would be changing drastically. We would lose the dream home and neighborhood, would go where we could afford, and get the heck out of Dodge.

This is exactly what I would do too.

@Dznypal, I really do sympathize with you. My grandparents had to move from the neighborhood they loved in Chicago because of crime and plummeting property values. I don't know which suburbs you're looking at, but what about looking outside the collar counties of Milwaukee? Do you need to stay near your part-time jobs or do you think you could find something else? You tried to see last year but this year is an even better time to sell. I would get a different realtor and put your house on the market ASAP.

I would have to agree with @Hrhpd that your travel seems much more luxurious than your finances mentioned on this thread. Back of the envelope says that you have a good $10-12K in vacations in the next 12 months. I think that you need to sit down and prioritize what you want in your life. Luxury travel for 3 weeks or safety at home, uninterrupted sleep, time with your grandkids he other 48 weeks of the year. It's something that you probably should have considered while you could cancel with no penalty.

 

[NHdisneylover]

If it was happening on a weekly basis, and she called once a week, she would easily make the 3 calls in a month threshold for it being a nuisance house. And that doesn't even take into account any neighbor's calls.

And if she and the neighbors are all not making these calls, is it really that bad? The OP and the rest of the neighborhood knows they need just 3 calls to get the police to act, yet they are all choosing not to call? You are making many of our points that things are not adding up. I still think it goes back to the topic sentence in her first paragraph in her original post.

Even in that post, she says she and 2 other neighbors called when the alleged rock was thrown (the 3 call threshold), yet later in the paragraph says they didn't reach the call level of the nuisance threshold. Doesn't add up.

If it is as bad as she says, she just needs to move. With her extensive vacation budget, she has plenty of options.

To be fair--I would guess that the three calls rule refers to three seperate incidents in which police are called to the home and also find tht the calls were for a valid reason (so they arrive and hear a loud fight, or loud music, caller took video of the neighbors peeing on their lawn and it is pretty clearly same day, etc). otherwise, it would be far too easy for someone who dislikes their neighbors for any reason whatsoever (or none at all) to call the police on Wed. and Fri. and get the houses declared a nuisance in a week just to spite them.

That said, I find the descriptions by the OP indicate far more than three times per month of reasonable reasons to call for noise or other violations--and yet, it seems that is not happening. My guess is that the OP is exaggerating the issue (for example, a 24 pack of beer for a party on a weekend, yes, people will be drinking, no that is not an abnormal amount that makes me think "drunk fest" and "bad neighbors, probably drug dealers" but that was the one specific, other than the brick, that OP gave throughout the entire thread. I kind of feel like he brick is scary but sounds like it was an isolated thing and might well have been thrown by someone not living there and no longer invited back for all any of us knows) and then OP is stretching for another specific and making a bigger issuje out of a 24 pack of beer for a party than most people would.


But, if legal going on at the neighbors' are frightening or just terribly annoying to the OP---and it is happening on both sides with no likely end in sight, then I do think moving makes the most sense---especially if what PP's found is true and OP is spending a lot on vacations which could, presumably, be shifted towards moving somewhere she'd be more comfortable.

 

[kaytieeldr]

She lives in Wisconsin. I guarantee you there are homes to be purchased in safe neighborhoods for less than she could sell her current home (given her estimate).

Second safest neighborhood in the Milwaukee area https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/7113-N-Navajo-Ave_Glendale_WI_53217_M82389-00975, https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/7170-N-Navajo-Ave_Glendale_WI_53217_M84729-76583, https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/405-W-Sugar-Ln_Glendale_WI_53217_M85422-38042 according to https://www.niche.com/places-to-live/search/safest-suburbs/m/milwaukee-metro-area/

 

[J'aime Paris]

We live in a suburb of Milwaukee and go into Milwaukee frequently. DD is also a sophmore at Marquette University in the city.
Milwaukee is struggling currently....The climate of a neighborhood can change quickly. It can also vary a great deal from one block to the next.

I feel OP should move and rent out her house. That way she can feel safer, and add to her income.

 

[weeniecat2442]

I lived in a scary neighbor situation about 4 years ago. We live in a small, east coast city and it was the first apartment my now husband and I lived in together. It was CHEAP, allowed pets and in a neighborhood I loved. The building was 4 levels with 3 apartments and the scariest basement ever. The place was MESS when we moved in but we worked HARD for weeks cleaning and painting.

Below us we had several college guys living with us. While they often came home on Tuesday nites at 2AM and BLARED their music, threw up in the drive way and shattered one of their windows into the drive way- it was nothing compared to what lived above us.

A younger couple, in their 20s with a dog and a cat. Very nice...at first. Until we heard them fighting. SCREAMING at each other. It was scary and a few times we wondered if we should call the cops. The worst thing though was how they treated their dog. It still makes me incredibly upset. Animal Control was called often, not just by us but by other neighbors. We called the landlord. Not only was this hard to listen to but these people scared us. We had our own dog and cats living there and I was scared to leave the house if we confronted them too much. The landlord was basically a slum lord so he could have cared less. There was a cute back yard that would have been awesome to hang out in but these people let their large dog poop out there and NEVER cleaned up the piles. Disgusting.

We debated moving constantly. The place was SO affordable, we had a front deck and a back sun porch, close to work and we had worked HARD to make it nice. But I felt SICK being home every day and so worried for what I might hear. The final straw was the night I came home to a notice from Animal Control on MY door! I freaked out. Called the ACO, had him come up into my apartment and went into the bedroom in the hopes that the neighbors wouldn't hear me or see the ACO van in front. I told him what was going on up there - that I was mortified to have found a notice of warning on MY door. The guy believed me and said he would be back at another time to deal with them upstairs. That night I went online and found us a new apartment. More money, and of course the normal expenses of moving but it's beautiful and SAFE!! I feel relaxed there always. I know my animals are safe. Moving was inconvenient but it was 100% necessary.

 

[Dznypal]

its interesting to read how people either misunderstand what I write--how things are worded--or write something that I didn't say and I thought I had everything written more understandable

but just to go over things--I never said this was an every day issue--theres an issue--police come--things are quite--few weeks later repeat

also both houses on either side of us are suspected drug houses--its just one theres the issues with--the people on the other side of us are tired of this too and were one that called police with the brick deal--that night there were 3 calls --3 different houses same issue--

also I didn't say I only called once--personally I have called 3 times average once per month for the last several months

on onto moving once again its not that easy--right now I only have 2 and a half days that I'm working for the whole month--not much to base a mortgage on--wheres this money suppose to come from--

also with moving we want to make sure its the right house for us--its not like buying a shirt you can return if it doesn't fit--also renting isn't an option--don't want to waste money on rent that could go for a mortgage--I know vacations are a want and not need which of course we would have to stop if we moved--

renting our house is also not an option weve seen what renters can and will do I certainly don't want our house trashed--we did have a duplex a very long time ago and didn't like being landlords

we just looked at a house on mon--pics and write up sounded great--wasn't as far from the city as we would have liked but we went with an open mind

house listed at 230000--needed new roof-new driveway ( there wasn't much left of the driveway) smelled like a kennel--yard needed a lot of landscaping and there were basement problems--water lines on walls

all this for 230000--were both in our 60s and don't want a fixer upper at our age and I'm sure they'll get offers way over asking--seen it done

as far as selling our house--we wouldn't get close to having a decent downpayment with what would get for it--

last year when it was on the market--we started at 184000 which we both was too high but agent had comps--after the 3 months were up it was down to 169000 and still no showings--so if we drop it anymore and take off the fees and commissions which is how I came up with the figures I did

say we sell for 159000 take off fees our agent says that would come down to about 10000 so we clear 149000

new house is say 230000

which leaves an 81000 mortgage

so my question is if all the money that's coming in is from both our SS (DH pension) mine is invested so I don't get a monthly pension

and the very limited part time we work that doesn't leave much to live on vacations aside

I don't want to be cash poor and house rich--or in otherwords just working for the house--and if we work too many hours then our medical insurance will go up so then we have to make sure to work enough to cover that and the mortgage

hope this clears up things better then the last time I tried

 

[Dznypal]

I appreciate the fact some of you are sending listing of houses but you can only imagine what you get for only 110000

the area is too far from where we want to move--if were going to do this its going have to be better (house wise not area wise) to what we have now

were not going to take a place and say this will do--cause like I said you cant return it