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There Goes the Neighborhood
When my brother and sister-in-law got married, they each owned a condo. Property prices were still terrible, so instead of selling the second one, they decided to rent it out. Last week, their tenants informed them that they would not renew the lease.
The problem is not the condo; it’s the neighbors. The unit next door was just bought by — not to put too fine a point on it — a thug. A big guy who doesn’t appear to have a steady job, plays loud music at all hours, and lets his three pit bulls run without a leash. He’s often seen smoking joints that look more like cigars. When politely asked to turn down the music or leash his dogs, he becomes aggressive and threatening. The tenants decided that the condo is a nice place, but it’s just easier to move than to deal with the neighbor.
My brother is concerned, of course, that the problem doesn’t go away when he finds new tenants. The police say they can’t do anything unless and until they get a call about a specific complaint (i.e., while an incident is in progress). But the tenants don’t want trouble, which they fear they’d invite if the guy knew they called the cops. Ditto the condo association manager — she’s scared of the guy so she keeps her head down too.
The only thing my brother was able to come up with was animal control. He determined the guy’s dogs are not licensed, lodged a complaint, and in a week or so the thug will get a visit. He’ll have a week to get his dogs licensed, and it’s unlikely the dogs have their shots or that he will comply with authority. Then the guy will be fined. And then — who knows? It’s not much, but it’s just about all the recourse my brother has at this point.
Jon thinks this kind of thing is overreach, and maybe it is. If you think Al Capone’s prosecution for tax evasion was worse for the law than Al Capone’s activities, then I can see where you’d dislike this approach. But what are the alternatives? What would you suggest?
Published in General
In one case the person complied with authority, voluntarily. In the other case you say the guy will not comply with authority.
The other case didn’t involve a weed-addled thug, either.
Radley Balko often tweets about police abuse of power (carelessly raiding the wrong homes) and puppycide. You say these dogs are unleashed? Are they behaving aggressively off the owner’s property? There are animal control officers in your brother’s jurisdiction, no?
So… if I were your brother, and I were adventurous, I’d camp out in that condo for a while without advertising my presence and with the police number on speed dial. If there’s a noise ordinance and he’s playing music at all hours, you should be able to make a call and have them get there during the incident. Maybe the dogs, too. With pit bulls, you’d think that would bother more neighbors than just the condo next door.
Your brother and sister-in-law have my sympathies. It would be as hard to sell it as it is to rent it out.
I haven’t any idea how this problem could be solved. Licensing the dogs isn’t going to help.
There are some breeds that people are unnerved to be around.
One of my neighbors rescued a pit bull, and it got loose a few times in the neighborhood, ultimately biting someone else’s dog. The neighbors sued her, and I think she had to send the dog off to live somewhere else.
I love dogs and have had three, but I’m very very nervous around pit bulls, doberman pinschers, rottweilers, and even a few German shepherds.
I don’t know what could be done, especially since so many people say the dogs are not innately dangerous to people.
In my ideal society, those paid to maintain order wouldn’t be limited the same way police seem to.
Dr. Walter E. Williams would no doubt suggest a wine contract.
Retail lawyers try to deal with these situations a lot. There is probably a set of bylaws governing the condo association. Look for a violation thereof (if so, demand action by the president of the association), or a violation of nuisance laws.
If the thug is a tenant, approach the owner of the unit.
The problem is that the guy is a thug, and cost / benefit ratio to your brother will not work out. As a tenant, I faced this myself and moved. One of my friends faced it as a homeowner and sold (with disclosure, of course).
What exactly is meant by “wine contract”? I’m not familiar with the phrase, and googling it together with Dr Walter E Williams’s name isn’t producing obvious results.
It’s when you go downtown, find a wino, and offer him a bottle of Ripple to take care of the problem for you.
Yes, but someone has to call to complain as he is taking them out unleashed. No one is willing to do so because all the neighbors fear his volatile temper.
It does, but they are all afraid of this thug.
I kinda wonder whether, in some past time, police would be more in tune with a neighborhood and have more latitude to deal with trouble. Or whether this is the kind of situation in which the fictional Don Corleone scoffs at small-l liberal order and justice.
I’m sure there are many. My brother has spoken with folks at the condo association, and they’re so afraid of this guy they are refusing to get involved.
The thug is the new owner of his unit.
I agree. There goes the neighborhood….
Retail Lawyer’s advice makes a lot of sense, SoS. Is the guy renting from another owner, or has he bought it? That is the first step, and then your brother will know whom to approach.
Of course, he could always rent the condo out to a single Marine. Again, problem will be solved quickly.
Back In the day when we rented houses we ran across situations with tenants like this that would not go. We used to break out the back windows, throw some trash around and call the health inspector. For $100 the health inspector would condemn the home as unlivable and they would have to leave. A month later we would clean the place up and fix the windows and rent it out again. I doubt you could do that now a days.
Equating the two cases is an overreach.
They don’t have to approach him. Move right to correspondence from the attorney. And then right to eviction once he presumably fails to comply.
Or, go approach him in a small group and make a complaint to the police if he issues threats. There’s witnesses. Civilization can’t be allowed to collapse simply because this guy is menacing.
Equating which two cases?
Yeah, go rent My Bodyguard for tips.
Arahant
Midget Faded Rattlesnake:
Arahant:Dr. Walter E. Williams would no doubt suggest a wine contract.
What exactly is meant by “wine contract”? I’m not familiar with the phrase, and googling it together with Dr Walter E Williams’s name isn’t producing obvious results.
It’s when you go downtown, find a wino, and offer him a bottle of Ripple to take care of the problem for you.
*****
Or, there is a certain Member here who might be talked into it, if you can catch her on a day when she feels like the college isn’t paying her enough. Or him. It could be a him.
But is s/he fairly local to where SoS’ brother lives? If one has to add in airfare, one might as well just call Uncle Guido and do it right.
I am reminded of this e-mail I wrote in Apr 2004.
tbc.
Now you’re being sexist, Arahant.
In all seriousness, though, SoS, the only way you’re going to tackle this, at the level of what he’s doing, is to get all the neighbors together to keep up constant vigilance and observation and make him miserable. I liked the idea of using the condo’s rules against him, though. Didn’t he have to sign some kind of contract when he moved in?
Are you sure they were real dogs and not spirits? ;^D
continued
There was also a postscript. The next day or so I was telling a colleague at work about this, and she mentioned an acquaintance from the area who was missing a couple of dogs, and then a lightbulb may have lit up because she clammed up. And the dogs were never seen wandering the neighborhood again.
Well, you can call Auntie Serafina, too. She can do the job better than Uncle Guido anyway. But she charges much more.
This reminds me of a topic Jon Gabriel brought up a long time ago about whether there should be a rule against talking on cell phones on a plane. He said something along the lines of, “if he’s bothering me, I would ask him to stop.”
Ha.
The thing is, no one confronts misbehaving people anymore. Everyone keeps their heads down. It’s a wimpy game-theory thing where everyone is in “you first” mode. Whether it’s thugs with sub-woofers or incessantly barking dogs, everyone just puts up with it.
Many years ago I had season tickets to the local college basketball games. There was a guy every game who constantly and loudly rode the refs from near the back row. (“Travel! Travel! He Traveled! Are you blind, ref! He Traveled!“) Finally I had enough and yelled at the guy. He was twice my size. We exchanged heated words for a minute or two and returned to our seats. You know who I was mad at? Everyone else in the section. No one backed me up. No one said a word. We were all season ticket holders; we all had to put up with this idiot, and no one backed me up. (There was a really old man who grinned, nodded his head and mouthed something like “amen” as I listed off the guy’s crimes. He was sitting near in the same row as the guy. He may have been his relative. God bless him.)
Around here, we call it the “3S” rule.
As a animal lover I hate to see these kinds of stories. It sounds as though the dogs are doomed.
Whatever happens to them, I hope someone puts eventually puts the owner on a leash. Preferably one with a choke chain.
SoS, you asked what we would suggest.
I would suggest that the neighbors make a list of ‘annoying behaviors’ that may extend from things like“talking on a cell phone in a public place” on one end, to things like “letting dangerous and aggressive dogs run unleashed and uncontrolled around me, my spouse and my children,” on the other, and that they decide at what point along the continuum they are going to stiffen their spines and use all legal means at their disposal to address the problem.
Because sticking their heads in the sand won’t make it go away.