<p>Boys, what do you do when you and H go out for the evening? I think I’d want a security system set up. Scary. I too love the havdalah service.</p>
<p>Tread carefully around these neighbors.</p>
<p>I disagree with the posters who are suggesting ways to irritate or ways to egg on those neighbors. Get a careful survey of your property, and erect whatever fences and lattice work you need to gain some privacy.</p>
<p>Google “Neighbor’s 7-year feud results in 13th criminal case”. It links to an article from the Baltimore Sun about a feud in a very upscale neighborhood which became so out of control that the street had its own special bulletin board in the county police department headquarters. Multiple complaints, accusations, court cases, calls to protective services, etc.</p>
<p>(I really do need to learn how to link to articles on this board. So sorry.)</p>
<p>^I’m with crazy. Be careful. Don’t antagonize. These people are one sandwich shy of a picnic.</p>
<p>We lived in a very upscale suburb of NYC. H had bought the house on his own, before he met me. A woman across the street went to the police and complained: there’s a pedophile moving in!</p>
<p>He is not, nor has he ever been, a pedophile. She heard “single man bought a house in the suburbs” and thought he was moving in to mess with the neighborhood kids. It would never occur to her that someone single…might want to buy a house in a nice suburb with good schools because…they might get married some day? And have kids? And it was a sound investment?</p>
<p>Then our next door neighbor (Vietnam vet; talking constantly about black helicopters before it was a joke; smoked pot; had guns and cameras outside and videotaped everyone’s activity on the block) bought and tore down a beautiful Tudor house behind us. After fooling the poor old guy who owned it that he would restore it. And they built a big boxy contemporary house and took down all the trees.</p>
<p>Now we live in a townhouse. Brick. No one can tear anything down. We don’t know our neighbors. We have very little interaction. I wish we lived in the kind of neighborhood that you see on TV – people being nice to each other (like you were); people being friendly and sharing. </p>
<p>I would lay low. The suburbs are scary. It’s the illusion of normalcy that makes people crazy.</p>
<p>Another thread that makes me really happy I am surrounded by my 102 acres of corn. H says the inconveniences of rural living are a small price to pay for NO neighbors. Just so y’all don’t get too jealous, I will say farmers are also good at passive-agressive turf battles, especially if they involve drainage.</p>
<p>S2 is a cop. I definitely think you did the right thing calling 911. Violence often escalates rapidly during neighborhood confrontations. Fences are your friends 
I also really like the anti-bark device.</p>
<p>Fight fire with fire, and until one of you cracks</p>
<p>Please clarify for us which house was invaded. I am not certain from your post and I think that others here are uncertain also. </p>
<p>Also, child protective services are not at all able to assess if a homeschooling family is actually homeschooling. Bringing this government agency into a home can truly be a nightmare for the family. They arrive with the assumption that the family is guilty of (fill in the blank) and will happy to pull the kids out of the home and then try to determine if the family is actually guilty. I have read too many cases where this agency mishandled the family.</p>
<p>“Please clarify for us which house was invaded.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Seems pretty obvious to me, because the house should have been empty. It was the 81 year old neighbor’s house.</p>
<p>Awww, I wish all of you were my neighbors! </p>
<p>We generally get along with everyone…we are quiet empty nesters and tend to be friendly to everyone. We have rather adopted our elderly neighbors because their son lives in Idaho. Another neighbor down the block and I often walk our dogs together (her first just left for college, 3 more to go for her).</p>
<p>H and I sometimes need to explain ourselves here…we are the only Jewish family in the neighborhood and Cincinnati is in the bible belt…but most people are accepting and curious and that is fine.</p>
<p>I’ve always loved Havdalah too. We don’t do it often enough. My boys loved doing Havdalah at camp and at BBYO and love doing it with their friends…S2 says he loves “the mellow” he gets from the ritual.</p>
<p>We are not going to hide from our neighbors, and we are not going to incite them either. We are just going to continue living our usual lives.</p>
<p>We have no idea what the real story is with the kids…I am just rather shocked that the parents think that WE created the situation. What were the kids doing in the elderly neighbors house, period? The police said they would be obtaining a search warrant and going through all of the boys’ houses to see if they find anything from the other area burglaries.</p>
<p>So these wacky neighbors were in the 81 year old neighbor’s house??? You were right to call 911, especially because you had just been caring for your elderly neighbor while her husband is in the hospital.</p>
<p>The other issue, that they were peering down on your kids while they enjoyed the Havdalah ritual, is simply wrong. It had nothing to do with safety or security, which is the only reason they should worry. In this country, there’s something called “Freedom of Religion”. Next time, invite them over. (Ha!)</p>
<p>If you don’t have a burglar alarm, get one and soon. In addition, you can pick up a security camera system relatively cheaply at Staples which can be accessed remotely, just to protect yourself.</p>
<p>Wow, what a story. You very much did the right, neighborly thing to call 911 when you saw the house being accessed inappropriately. That it may have caught the gang of kids in a misdeed, is a gift to the the rest of the neighborhood, if not the kids themselves, as they may just need an authority greater than their particular set of parents to set some limits. </p>
<p>This reminds me of something that came up a few days ago. My Ds friend, has been working on my bathroom. He was very well trained in home repair, as his parents own rental property. Having him around is a joy. </p>
<p>He mentioned that he does NOT like my neighbor. When I asked, he said, “she’s too nosy, and used to look in the windows when we were here in HS” I told him that I had given my neighbors full authority to stop parties, call the police, what ever seemed appropriate when my Ds were teens and I wasn’t home. I worked a few nights in my hospital job, single parent, and needed eyes besides my own. He admitted that it was rather a perfect party situation here at times. They were a good crowd, but still…</p>
<p>The point being, in my shoes, I’d thank you for your action, even if it were my kid. I’d say, stay on the side of the law, and good intent toward neighborhood safety, no matter how odd she gets. </p>
<p>Thanks for the name of the ceremony. D is now in Israel, and learning about being a Jew. Something new to ask her about.</p>
<p>Ok, so the kids were in the elderly neighbor’s house. Part of my confusion stemmed from the fact that the neighbors (of the older boys) were angry at you. Now for the life of me I can’t image why. Their son was in someone else’s house UNINVITED!!! What explanation could they possibly have for that. And how could you have known which kids were in that house? </p>
<p>Oh my goodness, of course you were right to call the police. The ‘angry neighbors’ would have been grateful if you can called 911 if you saw intruders in their home.</p>
<p>^ That was my confusion as well. I guess thinking as a logical person (which was silly of me given the nature of the neighbors), I assumed one would only be angry and expect a phone call if it was THEIR house.</p>
<p>Agree that you should not antagonize these whackos. Manking them angry won’t help. That said, you should not be a doormat. Please add the word NO to your vocabualry.</p>
<p>And you have a right to let your dog out in your yard whenever you wish. If their dogs bark excessively, call the cops if necessary. First though, if they say anything to you, let them know that your dog might give off a bad aura and their dogs should be kept indoors so they dont have to perform some purification ceremony :)</p>
<p>
They are angry because their kids got arrested as a result of OP’s actions.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter that the kids were caught red-handed doing something wrong, and that they should be angry at their kids. In their minds, it was the OP who got their kids in trouble.</p>
<p>^^ My fault for trying to look at the situation logically. </p>
<p>Sometimes you just have to shake your head in wonder. This is one of those times.</p>
<p>OP, you’re in the Cincy area, huh? We moved from there not too long ago, definitely had our share of wacky neighbors. (if you’ve been following the Outrageous Guest Requests thread, we were the ones whose neighbors wanted us to bring everything to the dad’s b’day party.) If we still lived there, we’d be friends with you … and your dog could come hang out with our dog, too. I second those who recommend a security camera of some kind, with one camera trained on the yard between your dog and the neighbors.</p>
<p>Seems like the good Christian* neighbors need to reread [Exodus</a> 20 and Deuteronomy 5](<a href=“Ten Commandments - Wikipedia”>Ten Commandments - Wikipedia), including the parts which tell them not to steal or covet anything of their neighbors.</p>
<p>*presumably, due to previously sending the kids to a Christian school.</p>
<p>Not sure about your particular neighbors, but I would not classify Cincinnati as part of the Bible Belt. The Bible Belt is generally considered to be those areas where Baptist and Evangelical Protestants dominate the religious scene–usually Texas and Oklahoma eastward, including most of the southern states (but not FL). Ohio is not a very religious state, in general, and a high percentage of the population is “unchurched.”
Ohio doesn’t even make the top 30 (of 50 states) in % of Christian adherents of any denomination.
(NY, MA, and RI are all in the top 10 due to heavily Catholic populations)</p>
<p>In the Cincinnati area, of those who are Christian adherents, 55% are Roman Catholics, 20% are Mainline Protestants, and only about 17% Evangelicals. </p>
<p>I would try not to antagonize these neighbors. Don’t call child protective services, etc. Right now they are just angry–and they ought to be ashamed-- because their kids were busted. Not your fault. You did the right thing. Let them calm down and do what you can with fences or lattice to increase your privacy. LOL to the cards, beer, and “satanic rituals.”</p>
<p>We had some break ins in the area a couple of years ago. So, when we went out of town we had my brother stop by a few times to just turn on different lights, open doors, that kind of thing. he forgot his key one day and was trying to get into a window. I know, don’t ask. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>A neighbor called the cops.</p>
<p>It took my brother a while to get us on the phone and all the rest of the rigamarole, and to get the lecture about climbing into windows. etc… </p>
<p>But, nobody was angry with the neighbor. We were thankful. Well, bro was a bit annoyed, but mostly with his own idiocy.</p>
<p>You should get a restraining order to keep them away from you, at this point. JMO. They sound a little nutty.</p>