Shocking Things My Neighbors Do

I move a lot. It seems that I'm at the point now, where if I have to stay in one area for more than a year I become restless. I enjoy the adventure of a new home, a new city, even a new state. I first moved out of my parents home when I was nineteen. Since then, in the past six years, I have moved seven times in three states. Changing homes so frequently has left me with quite a few interesting stories.

The Delano House

The Delano House, as I'll refer to it, was nearly 100 years old and located right next to a family owned burger joint. It seemed like a decent, quite neighborhood when my roommate and I first moved in, it was minutes from downtown and the traffic throughout the area was only bustling during the lunch hour. Even though my roommate and I were convinced the house was haunted we enjoyed the character our house possessed, that is, until we discovered we lived across the street from a meth house.

Being the scared twenty-year old girls we were, we reported any suspicious activity to the local police. After awhile, our meth lab neighbors discovered it was us reporting them. We didn't know what we were about to get ourselves into.

The sun was setting one Fourth of July, the traffic was heavy as people made their way downtown for the fireworks show. My roommate and I invited some people over, our plans were to sit on the front porch and watch the fireworks display. Until, our neighbors came out with bottle rockets. They screamed and shouted obscenities at us while they lit the bottle rockets and shot them straight at our front porch. We ran, dodged and low crawled until we made it into the back yard. Needless to say, we didn't report any more suspicious activity after that and as it turns out, we didn't need to. Two weeks later, a drug bust was made and the meth lab was shut down and our block returned to a peaceful safe haven.

The Trace Apartments

When I first moved into the Trace Apartments, I moved in alone, awaiting my husband's return from a deployment to Iraq. The Trace Apartment reminded me of simpler times, it was a quiet neighborhood, nestled in a heavily wooded area. It was only a few weeks after I moved in I awoke to a huddle of twenty or so college students yelling 'chug' in the parking lot below. The next day, I discovered the local college was just minutes from my new home. Which, didn't bother me any because I had just finished my college degree the previous semester and understood their needs of beer drinking to diminish their worries of stressful finals.

The parties were consistent, every Friday and Saturday night; and when my husband returned we even made an appearance or two. It was about three months into our stay at Trace Apartments when a group of guys moved in below us. They were the nicest guys you could have ever met, just a little lost on their purposeful track in life. Not only were these guys drug dealers, and possibly in a gang, but they would try to sell us stolen goods. The came to us with cameras, iPods, and plasma screen televisions. With reluctance, we always nicely declined their offer.

One morning, shortly after my husband left for work, he called me and said that someone had shot through the front windshield of his car. I was speechless as fear inculpated me. Later that night, I confirmed a bullet hole through the front windshield and a casing in the back seat. To this day, we still haven't solved the case of who or why.

The Lake House

My husband and I fell in love with the Lake House when we first laid eyes on it. It was huge, much bigger than what we needed, but it was in our price range and we figured, why not? It was in a private, gated community about fifteen miles from the nearest town. We spent many nights on the back porch or walking through the nature trails around the nearby lake. It was peaceful and connected to nature.

We put up with the old lady next to us that had a bad habit of feeding the raccoons, we had dogs, after all, that would scare them away. Our other neighbors were only there a few weekends out of every month and didn't speak English. We were snubbed by nearly everyone else in the neighborhood. We didn't take offense to it, instead we enjoyed the quietness and drama free environment. Until we found out that we were snubbed because the community was ran by a cult.

Now, don't think I'm joking here. After some research we discovered a local 'school' that taught satanic rituals and spiritual enlightenment in forms of raising the dead, mind reading, magic and time travel. Needless to say, we moved out of state shortly after, before things got weird.

The Price House

I moved into the Price House while my husband went on another deployment. It wasn't in the best of neighborhoods, but our goal was to save some money since I would possibly be unemployed for awhile. There was a school on one end of the street and an industrial area on the other end. There was a lot of traffic in the area which made me feel safe. There was nothing crazy that happened at this house, like my previous stories. I suppose it's what you would consider typical behavior of neighbors.

The neighbors to the South of me would have an occasional hour long screaming match on the front porch until one of them would pack up and leave. Their son also taught my dogs to jump the fence by throwing sticks high in the air. The neighbors behind me would have an occasional party with loud music, strobe lights, and large quantities of alcohol. My car did get egged once, but since no one knew me or knew where I live, I wrote it off as some drunk kids on a dare.

Needless to say, I lived contently with the occasional screaming match, parties, and egged car after my previous housing scares.