Weird, & irritating

I've mentioned that the young couple with the noisy trucks who used to live next door disappeared for essentially a year, with only the occasional drop-in to demonstrate they had not fled the country, and then moved out bag and baggage because (I learned from the male half of the couple) the in-laws had given them some land on which they were going to build a house (see Note of April 11, 2010). A For Sale sign went up out front, and then, after a few weeks, a group of men moved in, apparently in something approaching a fraternity house set-up (though these are not young men). They all have their own rooms -- with one of them being ensconced in the dining room -- and the kitchen is a common area.

Although this assortment of men also come equipped with trucks, these are not ferociously loud ones, and they are not left to idle for as long as 15 minutes, at twelve o'clock at night, as was the case with Patty and Matt (not their real names). So I'm not complaining about the trucks.

But here's the weird of my title. One of the fellows sits out there in his truck for hours at a time, both day and night. He turns the truck around in the driveway, so it is facing the street, and he sits. The window on the driver's side is right next to where I park my car, so sometimes in the late morning when I'm getting ready to leave for work, we'll exchange brief pleasantries. I kiddingly asked him one time if they'd thrown him out of the house, and he said no, he was just waiting for the postman to come "with his check," and then he could go cash it. That may have been the explanation for that particular time, but what about all the other times? He added at that time that he "liked to watch the traffic." Now, we do not live on a street that sees a lot of traffic, one of the things I like about it. He might see two or three cars go by in a half hour. So what's he looking at all the rest of the time? He's staring out his windshield at the wooded area that lies directly across the street from our two houses. He doesn't listen to the radio, he isn't sitting there reading the newspaper, I don't think he even smokes. Am I alone in finding this behavior odd?

Now for the irritating part. There has been some trouble with...oh, no...music from next door. Along with vehicles purposely made louder than they have to be, music played too loud, particularly the bass from rock music, is the bane of my existence. It isn't just that I don't like it; it's that it's a terrible irritant to my nerves. So here some rock musicians have moved in next door. Somebody plays the drums, and will practice for an hour or two at various times. Every now and then there seems to be a jam session, with people who don't live in the house coming over and joining in. So far none of these instances has been that loud, or late at night, or gone on for too long, so that I have not complained, and have tried not to mind too much. After all, I tell myself, musicians have to live somewhere ('though part of me is thinking, "Not in this quiet neighborhood!"), and obviously they have to practice.

However, the other night there was the unmistakable sound of an electric guitar coming at me for a good three hours. At 9:30 I went over and said to the man who answered my knock -- he of the truck-sitting -- that apparently someone was playing music? He looked blank, shrugged and said "I don't hear anything." "Well, if you were standing in my house you would hear it. Could you please tell whoever it is to turn it down? It's getting late, and he's already been practicing for several hours." "If I hear anything I'll tell him," the guys says, which tells me nothing is going to happen. And nothing does. So then I call the police and ask what time it has to be for one to be able to place a noise complaint (by this time it's about 9:45). The dispatcher tells me she can take a noise complaint, so I tell her the situation. "It's not like they're blasting their music all over the neighborhood," I say. "But I can hear it in my house, and it will make it impossible for me to get to sleep."

So in maybe ten minutes here come two police cars. Obviously a slow night for the Gardiner Police Dept. The two young officers stand in my front yard and can't hear anything, so I have them come into the house -- into my bedroom -- but of course just at that particular time the guitarist drops into one of his lengthy pauses (the music was very erratic, not constant).

Well, the police did, finally, hear the music, standing out in the narrow side yard that separates my house from the back end of my neighbors'. You could tell they didn't think it was that bad -- and it wasn't terrible, but why should I, or anyone, have to listen to somebody else's music inside their own home, for several hours, until late at night? Why should we have our peace disturbed in this way? So they knocked on the door, and asked the guy that answered (different guy, apparently the father of the young man who was doing the playing) to please stop with the music. What he ended up doing was promising it would be turned down...which, however, it wasn't, or not so you could tell. So eventually I had to go back, and knock on the door again, and blah, blah, blah.

This is actually something that really makes my heart sink, because the quietness of where I live has been one of its huge benefits, for me. I have had to deal with noise where I was living for most of my adult life, so not having to deal with it has been such a relief. And now it looks like I'm going to have to engage in that battle again.

Damn.

Neighbor Update

The latest on the neighbors with the noisy trucks and yapping dogs. (See Notes of July 3 and 9, 2008, June 13 and Nov. 28, 2009). They're moving out! Actually, what they're moving is their stuff, since they themselves have been gone for virtually all of the past eleven months. I said in my note of Nov. 28 that they were back in residence, but that proved to be true for only a short time. The mysterious white trailer remained in the driveway, but they were elsewhere, except for the very occasional appearance, usually to snowblow the driveway.

A couple of weeks ago the roaring trucks began appearing every few days, and there was much activity in the house and the yard. Eventually there were others with Matt and Patty, loading up the white trailer, which had proved to be, when opened...empty! Ach, what a disappointment. No mysterious experiments going on, no little house-on-wheels, not even a couple of motor cycles or -- much more likely in Maine -- All-Terrain Vehicles. They had an empty trailer sitting in their driveway for all these months, apparently waiting for spring weather to come so they could pack up and move out.

While they've been moving out, the presence of one of the obnoxious trucks -- the one with the license plate FIDDLER (Patty plays the violin -- how about that, a violin-playing truck driver) -- has reminded me of just how lucky I was that they were living elsewhere for most of the past year. So goddamn loud, that truck, like a locomotive idling. I got over my vague feelings of loneliness -- from not having neighbors on that side -- long ago; and it really was so wonderful not to be awakened, or kept from getting to sleep, by that damn roaring.

I keep wishing I had the physical and psychic energy to press for laws -- that were enforced -- against this kind of noise pollution. I honestly believe cars driving around with the bass on their radios tuned so loud you can hear it blocks away, and cars and pickups that are intention-ally made noisier than they need to be, are a modern scourge that negatively impacts people, whether they realize it or not. I believe our lives are made less gracious, less civilized, more nerve-wracking and stressful, by this kind of noise pollution.

What I have to hope for now is that it will take Matt and Patty a while to sell the house -- in the current market, a good possibility -- and that whoever they do sell it to will not be into stereo music with the bass turned extra loud, but will have ordinary, quiet vehicles, and cats.

All together now...

Well, one of those quintessential Maine happenings just happened: I was sitting at my computer when I noticed out the window that overlooks my tiny front yard and the parking area for my house and the house next door (not the noisy-trucks-and-mysterious-trailer house, but the every-year-there's-somebody-new-living-there house) that one of the cars from next door seemed to be posed at the very edge of its parking space, lights blazing (it was 4:30, so dark). "Coming in or going out?" I said out loud, and then, "If it's out, that's a big mistake." Since we're in the middle of our first major snow storm of the season, that has gone on all day and actually enabled me to close the library early, and take a nice long nap this afternoon.

After about a minute I realized the fellow from next door was out there with a shovel. So, o.k., whether going or coming they were obviously having trouble getting out, or in. I hesitated about a millisecond. Not because I didn't want to help -- that's the knee jerk Maine response, perhaps even, if we give our humanity half a chance, the knee-jerk human response: the weather has got someone trapped, you go try to help. No, my hesitation was because I won-dered if, by the time I got the boots, the coat, the gloves on and got out there, he'd have already taken care of the problem. But then I went ahead and put on the boots, the coat, the gloves, grabbed the shovel on my tiny front porch and walked up the slope.

Sure enough, my as-yet-nameless neighbor's wife had been trying to pull into the space without their having cleared it first, and was now stuck, betwixt and between. Nameless, his mother or mother-in-law who lives with them, and I proceeded to push and pull and rock the vehicle (stupid SUV) back out into the street, then Nameless and I proceeded to clear the space. I couldn't have kept this up long, but with the two of us doing it it wasn't too bad. We all cheered when we stood back and Mrs. Nameless managed to pull into the narrow space (between their other SUV and their smaller car [three people, three cars; this is America]). "You may not be able to get out," I called to the dark window, "But you're in." "I'm home!" she chirped. And they all thanked me as I made my way back across my snowy yard to my house.

I'm sure similar scenarios have been repeated all over New England, and the upper Midwest, during this storm. Not only do you get a good feeling from helping someone, you get the satisfaction of overcoming a difficulty, solving a problem, and doing it with others makes it that much more satisfying. And why is that? I guess because we really are social creatures...

A new mystery

Remember the neighbors with the obnoxious dogs who disappeared after tearing down the fence in their back yard? They did finally resurface, after being away for most of five months. Before they moved back in, in October, they had come by a few times, for brief periods, so I knew they had not absconded to Montana. One of those times they left a very large white trailer sitting in the driveway. It looks like the sort of thing people use to transport a race car, or maybe a couple of motor cycles.

The day I came home from work and saw the trailer in the driveway, saw that the young couple was there along with some other folks (I heard voices, did not see bodies), I thought that perhaps they now really were moving out, and were going to be using the trailer to haul away their stuff. But after an hour or so of noise, mysterious bumpings both inside and outside the trailer, the voices raised in continuous discussion, Matt, Patty et al. left, leaving the trailer behind. After that they would be away for weeks at a time, occasion-ally putting in an appearance that might include an overnight stay, might not. But the mysterious trailer was always there, taking up nearly all space in the driveway.

Since they've returned, on a more or less full-time basis -- and apparently dogless -- I've noticed that the trailer is sometimes plugged in. A heavy-duty extension cord running from the house to an outlet at the bottom corner of the trailer. The only reason I can think of for hooking this trailer up to electricity is to keep it warm. But this does not look anything like a house-trailer, and nobody ever seems to go into it. Why would they be keeping it warm? O.K, come on, what's in there?

We had what I call an interesting incident right before they re-established residency. One night at around 2 a.m. I heard noises from the little back porch that is directly across from my bedroom window. I got up and cracked a blind -- there was a light on upstairs, and in the hallway, but not in the kitchen. The back porch light, that was left burning day and night for all the months Matt and Patty were away, was on, and under it stood a man in a sweatshirt, hood pulled up. He was smoking. It was possible that it was Matt, but I couldn't see his face (and I'd never seen him smoking). I also hadn't heard either of the noisy trucks arrive. I went to the living room window and looked out -- sure enough, no truck in the driveway behind the trailer, nor any other vehicle that might have brought Matt. This was all very strange.

I hesitated about calling the police, partly because I had had them out twice in one night back in the spring when I was hearing scary noises that turned out to be squirrels in the attic (Note of April 25). I could hear them saying, 'Oh, no, it's that crazy woman on Lincoln Ave. again.' But I finally did call 9-1-1 because I didn't want to be the kind of person who "doesn't want to get involved," and so ignores sus-picious circumstances. That's not being a good neighbor. And I hated to think of the young couple, whom anyone could tell were anything but rich, coming home to find their house cleaned out.

I told the police that it was possible it was the owners, but that they had been living "elsewhere" for some time, and when they did come by it was in one of their trucks, of which there was no sign.

So the police came. Not as quickly as when I had called to say I thought there was someone in my basement, but pretty darn quick. By this time the fellow on the porch had disappeared, and the lights in the house had gone off. The young policemen went all around the house, knocked on the various doors. Then they started to get in their cars and drive away! I called out to one of them, and he strolled down to my front door to tell me all the doors were locked, and no one had answered when he knocked.

"But someone could have just locked the door from the inside," I said, visualizing a couple of young hoods hunkering down inside the darkened house until the police left. The officer agreed, but said he couldn't break down the door to find out. "If the owners come home and find the house has been broken into, then I can do something," he said. He also told me that his fellow officer had talked to the neighbors on the other side, as he knew them (Small Town, USA) and they had reported that they had seen "the owner" earlier in the evening. "They may have just gone to bed." my officer said.

So, what the heck, I had done my civic duty. Back to bed.

But there was an interesting epilogue. About ten minutes after the police left, Matt's noisy truck did pull up in the driveway. It was not turned off (even though it was 2 a.m.), but left idling in that inimitable Matt/Patty way. And while I was still staring at it -- having gotten up to make sure it was what I thought it was -- the police reappeared. Yes!! I thought, when I saw the cop get out and first flash his flashlight on the license plate of the truck, then march down the driveway to the back door. I galloped back to my bedroom, and peered briefly through the blinds -- Patty was there on the porch, being questioned by the policeman. I heard him say, "Were you here earlier?" And I heard her say "Yeah," though I couldn't hear the rest of her answer (that has been one of the frustrations in any of my attempts to eavesdrop on my neighbors: I can usually hear their voices, but can't make out most of what they say.) So at least I felt vindicated with the police. Some highly unusual goings-on had been going on, but at least the perpetrators were the owners.

But hey, these guys next door are strange.

The case of the disappearing neighbors

You remember the neighbors who kept their three dogs locked up in one room of the house for 8-10 hours every day while they were both out driving trucks? (See Note of July 3, 2008.) The neighbors whose noisy diesel pickups would come and go at unfortunate hours (12:30 at night, 5:30 in the morning)? One of whose trucks used to be left idling for at least 15 minutes – once for as long as half an hour! – in the driveway right outside my bedroom window, at those unfortunate hours?

Well, they've disappeared. When I returned from my trip to Pennsylvania both trucks were gone, as were the three dogs. And they were gone for several days. What really got my attention – after all, Matt and Patty (not their real names) could have just been at "the in-laws" (an older couple who have put in an occasional appearance, either singly or together, and who have sometimes supplied Patty with a ride when, apparently, her truck wasn't working) – what really got me wondering was: they'd torn down their fence! There used to be a fence of pointed, flat, unpainted stakes separating their back yard from mine. It was in that fenced-in back yard that the dogs would tear around, barking their heads off, whenever they were let out for a few minutes. But now the fencing stood in the middle of the yard, piled up in the shape of a small A-frame house.

The dog situation had actually gotten a little better in the couple of months before The Disappearance, at least partly because Matt, or someone, had fenced in that part of the yard that opened onto the narrow side yard, which led to the driveway and thence to the street. The only entrance used by Matt and Patty was the door leading into the kitchen, which opens off this side yard. That was where they would let the dogs out, having to be careful to corral them off to the left, to the back yard, when where the dogs really wanted to be going was to the right – the driveway, the street, freedom! Then whoever let the dogs out would have to stand guard, to make sure the dogs did not leave the yard.

But then the new fencing went in, so it was no longer necessary for a human to be standing guard; and I suspected a doggy door had also been cut into the back wall of the extension off the kitchen, that juts out toward the back yard, because the dogs were now out in the yard much more often. It was also possible that they were just being let out more often through a regular door at the back of that extension. This was a possibility because Patty's truck very often remained in the driveway all day, so perhaps she was home. And that seemed more of a possibility because she seemed to have had a baby!

The woman never looked pregnant to me. But one day as I was about to depart for work the female half of "the in-laws" came to pick her up, and when Patty came out of the house she was carrying one of those baby baskets people use these days. Before climbing into the front seat, she swung the basket into the back seat with what seemed like great casualness to me, were it indeed a baby. So I wasn't prepared to swear it was a baby. Or maybe it was someone else's baby, that she was taking care of for a while...

But not too long afterwards, when I was again out at my car, returning from someplace or about to leave for someplace, the young couple returned home in one of the trucks (the other truck being nowhere in sight. As I've mentioned before, sometimes one or the other of the trucks would disappear for a while.) Patty was driving, got out and went directly into the house; Matt got out, opened the back door, and swung out the baby basket, saying, as he did so, "Let me get my new baby."

So first there was the Mystery of the New Baby. And now there's the Mystery of the Disappearing Neighbors because, except for one very brief reappearance a few days after my return from Pennsylvania (Matt and someone else – not Patty – who seemed to sweep into the house and out again in no time; all of this heard only, as I was busy inside my house at the time), they have been gone for one solid month. This is too long for a vacation trip, especially if they have a new baby, and especially as they are obviously a struggling young couple. I would have said they'd moved, especially given the evidence of the torn-down fence, but they left the kitchen light burning (still burning after a month!), and I can see through the large kitchen window that all the furniture is still there, the clock on the wall, a big iron skillet hanging on a hook. 'Tis a puzzlement.

It's been lovely not having to listen to barking dogs, or roaring trucks. But I have to admit to a faint feeling of...is it loneliness? Having neighbors on either side offers a kind of comfort: there's somebody there. For some time now there's been nothing but an empty house and a back yard rapidly returning to its wild state.

Dogs Revisited

O.K., I did call about the dogs. About 15 minutes after I finished my last blog. I learned from the police that there had been other complaints, which rather surprised me. It has been my observation that people generally do not complain about things, except to one another, or people who can’t have any impact on the situation.

The dispatcher said they would send someone out, but as far as I know they never did; and the owners came home about 15 minutes later. A few days after that, when I spotted Matt (not his real name) actually home, and outside (he and his wife are very rarely home that they are not, from all appearances, sleeping), I did something I didn’t want to do, but that my conscience told me was the “right” thing to do.

When I went over, Matt was removing many, many huge stuffed garbage bags from the little room that is built onto the back of the kitchen which is itself built onto the back of the house. Evidently my neighbors wait even longer than I do to go dump their garbage. I asked him if he was aware that his dogs barked and howled a good deal of the time that he and Patty (not her real name) were away. He said no, but it didn’t surprise him. He then said that two of them were going to going to doggie school soon, and one of them was going to be getting some kind of injection, because it was so hyper. (What on earth could that be? A doggie tranquilizer?)

So now I made the offer that I didn’t want to make, but felt I should make. “I’d be glad to let them out every now and then, say when I get home. Maybe if they were able to get out a little more often when y’all have to be gone all day, they wouldn’t be quite so unhappy, having to stay inside.” We had already discussed the fact that yes, they were kept in “the doggie room” while Matt and Patty were at work.

Matt said he would talk to his wife about my offer, but so far no one has come knocking on my door to say, yes, that would be great if you would do that. To my secret relief. And frankly, I am now skeptical that even if they did take me up on my offer, it would really help. I’ve noticed that the dogs often start barking within 15 minutes of their owners' leaving, which puts it at maybe 20 minutes after they’ve been let out. I think they just don’t like being shut up in that room, and my God, who can blame them?

It’s hard for me to understand people having animals like this when they cannot be around to care for them properly. You may “love dogs,” but making them spend up to ten hours in one room (one hot room, these days), where they can’t (presumably) relieve themselves is very tough love indeed.

I used to feel the same way when I lived in New York City, and would see people out walking these enormous dogs. Everybody lives in an apartment in New York, and relatively few are the big, spacious abodes you see in Woody Allen movies. I would feel so sorry for all those dogs, forced to spend most of their lives in a very limited amount of space. Of course, their masters and mistresses did walk them – and nowadays they even pick up their poop! – which was at least something. But to my mind dogs, especially big dogs, need to be able to run. They need a yard to romp in, or they need to be taken to a park where they can be let off the leash for at least a little while, to go tearing around after sticks or frisbees. If you can’t provide your big dog with that, maybe you shouldn’t have your big dog. And if you are going to be gone from home for as much as ten hours almost every day of the week, maybe you shouldn't even have your little dogs.

Maybe we should ask the dogs how they feel about this.

Ethical dilemma

I’m not the kind of person who cares to have a dog. They bark, require too much care, dig up and pollute your yard (or the street -- and then you have to pick the pollution up) and have bad breath. But I like them all right. Some of them are very cute, and they’re friendly, and receptive to affection, which is pleasant. But whether or not I would want one, I certainly object to their abuse.

There is a house I pass when I take the back way to work (longer, but aggravation-free, as there is virtually no traffic, so I’m not going to get stuck behind someone who insists on driving the ridiculously low speed limit). This house has a large, unfenced yard. It also has a tiny fenced-in area, up against the garage, for the dog. Actually, it used to be two dogs, and large ones at that, stuck in this little space for most of their waking hours, and in all kinds of weather (there is a dog house in the space, that looks indecently small). I would cringe every time I saw them. Why don’t those people fence in the whole yard, or even just a larger section of it, and give their animals a modicum of freedom, I’d fume.

But this is as nothing compared to my next-door-neighbors. These are a young couple whose lives are an endless mystery to me. They both drive (very noisy) pickups sometimes. From time to time one or the other truck disappears, to be replaced by some other vehicle. But the trucks always come back.

Since I moved in, a year ago, the husband has usually left for work sometime between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. Not always at the same time. What could he do for a living that didn’t require that he leave at the same time every day, but did require that he leave before most people are even up? For most of the winter the wife, who has a commercial license (as I learned in a brief conversation with her one day) had a job delivering fuel to gas stations in the dead of night. She left for work at midnight, after letting her incredibly noisy diesel truck idle in their driveway for 10-15 minutes. Said driveway is, quite literally, right outside my bedroom window.

Well, lately, the old departure times have disappeared. Now they both seem to be gone most of the day and night. But these young people have three dogs. Whom they were wont to let out into their small back yard three or four times a day for 5-10 minutes, (during which time one of the dogs would bark non-stop). They do not walk these dogs. And now the dogs are lucky to get maybe four minutes of toilet and exercise time a couple of times a day. The rest of the time they are apparently shut up in a room on the other side of the house from me. I say apparently because every half hour or so you can hear what sounds like some very unhappy bark-bark-barking, emanating from that location. I can only thank my lucky stars that I don’t live in the house on the far side of the Dog House. That place is currently vacant, or surely the residents would complain.

Which takes me to my dilemma. Should I complain? Or, to be more accurate, should I report the situation to the police? I already know it wouldn’t do any good to say anything to the couple, although speaking directly to the person who is responsible for a situation is generally the best approach. I have had a couple of run-ins with the wife, once when I complained about the little Dog That Can’t Stop Barking, when they were outside; and once when that damn truck was allowed to idle for half an hour. In each case she was very defensive. I am sure her response now would be, we have to be at our work (I’m assuming that’s where they are), what else can we do with them? And I’ll admit I don’t relish the idea of the animals being left out in the yard for all the hours and hours the couple are gone. Not given that one very undisciplined little thing, that apparently will only not bark when the husband or wife is there watching them (as they do, whenever they let them out).

I also do not relish the idea of being at odds with my neighbors. Strained relations between neighbors is very unpleasant indeed.

Good grief.