Wednesday, May 27, 2009

30 YEARS IN THE FREEZER

An 83 year old lady in the U.K. has been accused of hiding her dead mothers body in a freezer... for 30 years. Believe it or not foul play is not suspected. It is believed she was afraid of getting in trouble with the authorities, as her mother was an illegal immigrant at the time of her death, estimated at sometime in late 1970's.

Monday, May 25, 2009

WAR ON NEIGHBOUR TERROR

A crazy-ass dude from Kissimmeee, Florida with an extensive police record declared war on his neighbour, and then drove his 1992 Honda thru the wall of his neighbours home. The man was promptly beaten up by the owner of the house, who restrained him until the police arrived and escorted him to his new living quarters at the county jail.

Which all doesn't sound so bad when compared to the crazy shit that went down in Toledo, Ohio the other day. A crazy-ass dude pulled out his gun collection and starting shooting at the neighbours after determining that they were responsible for the kidnapping and murder of his parents. After a standoff with local authorities the man was shot dead by police. His parents returned from their vacation to find they were responsible for planning a funeral.

Finally in the U.K., the Southampton City Council is moving to evict Mary Plaisted from her government subsidized ground floor apartment. Plaisted, who has been dubbed "Britian's oldest neighbour from hell" is 98 and is accused of a years-long campaign of harrassment and intimidation of her neighbours. She is accussed of banging on doors and windows with her cane at all hours of the day and night and recently had her phone disconnected after calling the police over a hundred times. She is also accussed of pressing the social assistance panic button ("I've falled down and can't get up") over 500 times in one month for no reason at all.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Frannie writes:

We've been in a small quiet town about 35 min. outside of Boston for a little over 13 years. Our neighbors on one side are like an extra set of grandparents to our three kids. The people across the street keep to themselves for the most part but when we do meet up they are always really nice. However, the neighbor abutting our property on the other side has been anything but pleasant since we moved in, except for her "fake" politeness.

When we arrived our oldest was 3. He would throw his ball around the yard and sometimes it would accidentally land in her yard. He would get his ball and she would say to him from her window "you need to keep that in your yard". He was 3! When he was 5 and he was playing with his younger brother, even though I had warned them, the ball accidentally went into her yard and she opened her window and told them if they did it again she was going to call me. One sunny afternoon our kids come to the door yelling "the big man said it was OK for us to play with his girls". We went outside and found this woman's son and grandchildren in our yard. Her son was nice enough and so were the girls, but we were floored. She put on her "fake" politeness talking about how cute children are. I'm sure for her son's benefit, considering anyone hardly visits her.

A year later she started yelling at my kids who were playing behind our shed which is near the property line. She accused them of killing her grass. There was no grass there to begin with. My husband had them rake up the area and we had to ban them from playing there. When our oldest was 12 he decided he wanted to mow the lawn for allowance. We supervised and while he was out mowing he stopped to pick up a stick and she yells over that he was too young to be mowing, that was his father's job.

We eventually had a third child and decided we needed to put an addition on our home. We didn't need a variance, but the project set her off anyway. She was constantly making comments about how the construction and that the house was now too big. She started a bunch of renovation activity at her own home and then planted a series of arborvitaes along the property line. We were thrilled, and we prayed that they would grow. Unfortunately, many didn't survive the first two winters, due to the heavy snow and deer. She would water them religiously but to no avail, and most of them died.

One afternoon during a rain storm a branch from a pine tree that sits on the property line fell on one of her dear arborvitaes. A small branch was snapped off. We saw the whole thing and decided not to say anything. She came out later and called me over to ask if I could take a picture of it with MY camera and if I would submit a claim to MY homeowners insurance.

The final straw came last spring when my husband who had been gone for a week on a business trip was playing outside with our kids and she accused him of driving a piece of equipment on her property a couple of days prior and that she had the tire marks to prove it. She ignored him when he said he hadn't home, she just kept accusing him. By now she had awakened the beast from within and I came out and strung together a thread of profanities that would have made Howard Stern blush. Bad example for my kids, I know. But she hasn't bothered us since.

So flash forward to the present, we have now built a privacy screen on our deck, planted bushes on our side and removed the swing set. But here's the funny thing, for a woman who wants nothing to do with us, she rakes incessantly on the property line where dead arborvitaes stand as a testament to her stupidity. She constantly spies on us while we are in the backyard working or socializing with guests. Spying is a bad word, it makes it seem like she's sneaking a peek, but she blatantly stares with rake in hand. It's bad enough that she'll rake near our shed when my husband is inside with a friend or family member and listen to their conversation. She also watches me have drinks on the porch with my friends and family and stares at my mother-in-law while she's spending time with her grandchildren. So if she can't stand us, why does she find us so fascinating?

I think she is lonely and her arborvitaes were her only friends - Ca1v1n

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

FUN IN DETROIT

Just got back from a couple days on business in Detroit. Technically I was in Southfield, one of the suburban communities that everybody fled to when downtown Detroit went to shit. For the most part it was uneventful but I need to share a story from Sunday night.

We arrived late, roughly midnight and about 3 hours later then planned thanks to one of my co-workers forgetting her passport and having to return home. We had reservations at your typical business travel hotel. One of those places that is very nice and clean but no restaurant, no room service, no pool, etc. Purely caters to business travellers.

The thing was despite having a GPS and printouts from Google Maps, we couldn't find the place to save our life. Based on both the GPS and the maps we were in the right place but no hotel. Lots of other hotels all around but not ours. We ended up stopping at a gas station for directions. The guy inside was an idiot, telling us to drive up to 12 mile and blah blah. I knew we were close to the hotel, and I knew 12 mile was way too far. We were about to give up when a guy pulled in to buy gas.

I walked over and as I approached yelled out. Hey, do you know how to get to blah blah blah.... This was no ordinary guy. Brand new 2009 Jaguar with 20" spinner rims, decked head to toe in Sean John gear and baked out of his mind. He could barely keep his eyes open. Instead of blowing me off he was like "oh yea... yea... that is right by my place... follow me...."

So you are probably thinking that following a guy we just met, who was likely driving a car purchased with drug money, down a street where we had no idea where we were going was probably a bad idea. We thought so as well, but he seemed genuine. I can't place it. Just a feeling. He drove us right to the lobby entrance of a beautiful hotel, waved, and sped off. Problem was, it wasn't our hotel. It has a similar name, but it still was not ours.

We eventually found our hotel. The map had it on the wrong side of the freeway. We had driven within 100 meters of it twice during the 45 minutes we drove around in circles. It was around a tight corner and you couldn't see the sign from the street or the highway. We all sent emails to our corporate travel dept. and asked that they never book anybody in this hotel again.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

STUPID NEIGHBOURS VS AUTISM

Story out of San Diego I stumbled across today. A family moved into an picture perfect San Diego suburb thinking it would be good for their family and were not welcomed with open arms. Their crime? Having a child with Autism.

The Trussell's have been subject to a series of wild accusations that their child is violent and a threat to other children in the neighbourhood. Calls were made to the Police and Child Protective Services resulting in no charges, the accusations being determined as baseless.

Gary Trussell, a 25 year veteran and commercial airline pilot had his professional reputation maligned by the neighbours, who accused him of being a dangerous and unpredictable drug addict. From the evidence it seems all he did was take exception to his son being bullied by some other children in the neighbourhood and asked that his child be left alone.

When series of threats, accusations, and phone calls failed to achieve the twisted neighbours desired result they took the Trussell family to court, demanding their children be confined to their own yard. The case was tossed out and the neighbours have been ordered to pay the Trussell's legal fees. There is still justice in this world.