Well, folks, I’ve got a new place. We’ll be moving to Waltham next month, leaving scenic, historic Revere Beach behind. We’d been talking about finding a new place to live, but really hadn’t looked seriously. It’s hard to leave such a cheap apartment with everything included, but the family next door provided us with the motivation to get the hell out of there.
See, we live next door to the worst human beings on the planet. Just horrible, horrible people. I could spend all day describing their savage ways, but instead I’ll just give you the highlights:
- 7:30 am Basketball camp- We share a driveway with these knuckle-dragging mouth breathers, and they decided it was a good idea to put a basketball hoop there. They also thought it would be nice to invite all their childrens’ friends to come over and play basketball at 7:30 in the morning. If you’ve ever been around children, you probably know that they tend to be noisy. They tend to scream. And one of them tends to both scream and cry when he’s not given the ball enough.
- Wall-shaking, picture-breaking madness- As a byproduct of the Under 10 Year-Old Revere Beach Morning Basketball Camp, there’s the constant slamming of basketballs against our wall. It’s now gotten to the point where they do it so hard that they knock pictures off our wall. Now, let me be clear: it’s not just the children, it’s also the father. He goes out with the children to teach them how to play, but he’s really teaching them how to live life in a way that completely ignores the fact that other people are around. He’s teaching them a healthy disrespect for anyone, and he’s doing a great job at it. Though I’ve asked both the children and the father “Can you please stop bouncing the ball against my wall?” multiple times, they just continue doing it. Usually they either apologize first or say “it wasn’t on purpose”. They then just keep on doing it.
- Let the neighbors clean up the dog shit- Not long ago, this family of apes bought a dog. It’s a puggle that barks constantly. Rather than trying to train the dog, the family of the year instead took the path of least resistance. That involves chaining the dog to their balcony and just letting it bark for hours while they go off to do whatever it is they do. When the dog is not on their balcony, they bring it to our front yard, chain it up there and leave him to shit everywhere. It’s always a pleasant experience when I go out to get our mail.
- The final straw- Last week the subhumans finally did it. We saw it coming, and there was nothing we could do about it. After Randi got her car back from the shop (someone mysteriously broke her tail light), she heard the doorbell ring. It was the mother and three children. She said “the boys have something they have to tell you.” Then one of them somehow mustered the cognitive ability to say “we were playing ball and we broke your window”.
Yep, that was their story.
Later on, the father came to the door and changed the story to say that they were instead throwing rocks in the air and hitting them with a baseball bat. Mind you, this is in our driveway. He then informed Randi that it wasn’t his kid that did it. It was one of their friends, and he doesn’t know which one. When the insurance company called them to find out what happened, the story became “Our kids were outside and saw some of their friends hitting rocks with a bat, and her window got smashed.”
Here’s what the window looked like:
This all took place last week. Just two days ago I went out to my car and guess what? Their children were back outside playing baseball, aiming directly at the row of cars behind our building.
If I believed I could actually convince the father that his parenting style was sub-par, and that his children were making life absolutely miserable for us….well, I’d talk to him. But I just don’t think there’s any way that would work. I honestly believe that if you moved his dinner plate an inch in any direction, he would starve to death.
So, goodbye, Revere. We had some good times, now didn’t we? Off to historic Waltham where I’ll have a less than 5 minute commute and some semblance of sanity.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Jimmy Hoffa // Jun 10, 2009 at 10:02 am
We HAVE to leave some presents behind. Buried treasure. SOMETHING for them. Give it some thought.
2 kajana // Jun 10, 2009 at 12:11 pm
i lived in Waltham for 4 years and enjoyed it however, one day the neighbors kids decided to see if they could use the open sun roof on my car as a basket, with rocks being the ball. (They were not very good shots either) Morale of story, don’t live near kids unless you have your own.
3 Dinah // Jun 10, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Waltham’s great, I’ve lived there for 12 years and love it.
Though I guess all it takes is one bad neighbor.
I feel bad for that poor dog!
4 Ollie // Jun 10, 2009 at 3:25 pm
You sound like the proverbial grumpy old coot that all the neighborhood kids love to hate. Kids have a sixth sense for this sort of thing, and you can’t move away from it.
5 Randi // Jun 10, 2009 at 9:32 pm
It’s not about being grumpy and hating kids. In fact it has very little to do with the kids. We hate the parents for being so irresponsible in their parenting. The parents have set no boundaries for their kids and actually encourage bad behavior. The kids have no consequences for negative actions.
When the father came over to tell me that he was “sorry” about the whole car back window incident, he just told me to “Call my insurance company, and they should take care of it, and it wasn’t my kid.” Really, it’s just that easy huh? That just shows their complete disrespect for anyone other than themselves, and that’s what we’re moving away from.
6 Randi // Jun 10, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I also bet that if anyone reading this post had their neighbor come over and tell them that their kids had broken the back window of their car while playing baseball with ROCKS, their reaction wouldn’t be “That’s okay, kids will be kids!!!” It’s pretty hypocritical for people to say that were just being “grumpy” when our property is being damaged and we’re being inconvenienced when the parents of the child responsible basically say, fix it yourself, it wasn’t my kid.
7 Matt // Jun 11, 2009 at 9:40 am
If you want to stay you should put speakers outside and play either classical / country music or there is apparently this sound that kids can hear that adults can not and it drives them crazy. Play that and the kids will go away. Google ‘Mosquito’ Repels Youths’ you cant go wrong!
8 J. // Jun 11, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Fucking Germans. Nothing changes.
9 Kristen // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I’m curious if Ollie happens to have the same type of children mentioned above. How can you dismiss personal property being damaged with a simple line like “grumpy old coot”? How does that relate? Please explain. The only type of person that would see no harm in that is the type of person who would neglect not only their dog by chaining it to a deck but also their children by not teaching them right from wrong and owning up to damage they’ve caused. Obviously they knew they had done something because the mother had them come over. The only obvious conclusion I draw is that the father realize the cost of the damage and determined that he didn’t want to pay for what his children had destroyed. You can’t admit wrong doing and then retract when it becomes inconvenient for you. Own up to your mistakes and become a decent human being.
10 Kate L. // Jun 19, 2009 at 10:14 am
Enjoy Waltham- we are around the corner in Watertown and love it- great area! Congrats!
11 So // Aug 6, 2009 at 8:57 pm
You’re doing the right thing. It’s something even bigger than the neighbors-from-hell. It’s Revere. And I grew up here, and moved back to take care of my widowed, elderly parent at this time. Revere has got to contain some of the most ignorant-acting, uneducated, homophobic, angry, disrespectful, rude, and nutcase slobs in Eastern Mass. Do yourselves a favor and enjoy your move, your decision to do it, and your new life. Nobody and nothing will ever change in Revere, because 3 generations of most families there all sit on their front stairs, and each does exactly as the generation before it, never changes, never moves, never cares. That’s Revere’s sad motto.
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