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Destructive Neighbor Teen
Priest
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey all - looking for some advice for how to handle a situation.
My neighbor's teen son (and friends) is less than thoughtful regarding the property of others, and I'm having trouble deciding what to do about events this week. First, some history. I live in a solid middle class neighborhood. I have been neighbors with him and his parents for 5 years now, tutored one of their other children, and have taken care of their house and pets before while they vacation. As my house has multiple occupants, my car is often on the driveway or on the side of the street. I get along very well with the child's parents. He is roughly 17 years old, the popular jock type.
24 Months ago: Car Broken Into, items stolen (Can't prove this)
20 Months ago: Several cars/houses on street vandalized with eggs (Proven, Parents know)
15 Months ago: Car hit by his while in a parked state (Parents paid for)
6 Months ago: Car hit again by friend of his (Parents paid for)
2 Months ago: Neighborhood egged again (Can't prove this)
Essentially, there is a decent track record of my car/house getting damaged in this neighborhood, some directly attributed to him, some not. Thing is, he's the only teenager in the area. This housing development was built 6 years ago, most children are 10 and below. I've only ever seen three children his age in this neighborhood, so I don't think it is too far a leap to believe that he may be responsible for the others.
Fast forward to this week. His parents have left for the week to visit their daughter, and have left him home alone. This has resulted in three unsupervised parties at his house. I'm not even watching for them - their car doors are loud enough that it catches my cat's (and therefore my) attention, and I go to the front window. It is not difficult to see their beer cans (which they leave littered in the front lawn of multiple houses on the street), and how they all climb into one vehicle and light up weed to hotbox.
Now, I'm not a prude. This is Colorado, and weed is legal here, if you're over 21, same with drinking. I'll full well admit I drank underage, but not until I was 19. I'm not sure it's my business to blow them in for that. What does bother me is the following:
1. These kids have a track record of damaging my property whenever they congregate
2. They leave beer cans in the lawns of families with young children
3. They drive off at random times, leaving me concerned as to the driver's sobriety
4. They're having parties without his parents' knowledge and consent.
Particularly on the 4th point, and my relationship with his parents, I feel obligated to inform of this, not just for their safety, but for their child's, my neighbor's children, and my car. I /really/ wanted to call the police on them last night, but decided I better come here first and make sure I'm not getting crotchety-old-man syndrome at 26.
Thanks all,
My neighbor's teen son (and friends) is less than thoughtful regarding the property of others, and I'm having trouble deciding what to do about events this week. First, some history. I live in a solid middle class neighborhood. I have been neighbors with him and his parents for 5 years now, tutored one of their other children, and have taken care of their house and pets before while they vacation. As my house has multiple occupants, my car is often on the driveway or on the side of the street. I get along very well with the child's parents. He is roughly 17 years old, the popular jock type.
24 Months ago: Car Broken Into, items stolen (Can't prove this)
20 Months ago: Several cars/houses on street vandalized with eggs (Proven, Parents know)
15 Months ago: Car hit by his while in a parked state (Parents paid for)
6 Months ago: Car hit again by friend of his (Parents paid for)
2 Months ago: Neighborhood egged again (Can't prove this)
Essentially, there is a decent track record of my car/house getting damaged in this neighborhood, some directly attributed to him, some not. Thing is, he's the only teenager in the area. This housing development was built 6 years ago, most children are 10 and below. I've only ever seen three children his age in this neighborhood, so I don't think it is too far a leap to believe that he may be responsible for the others.
Fast forward to this week. His parents have left for the week to visit their daughter, and have left him home alone. This has resulted in three unsupervised parties at his house. I'm not even watching for them - their car doors are loud enough that it catches my cat's (and therefore my) attention, and I go to the front window. It is not difficult to see their beer cans (which they leave littered in the front lawn of multiple houses on the street), and how they all climb into one vehicle and light up weed to hotbox.
Now, I'm not a prude. This is Colorado, and weed is legal here, if you're over 21, same with drinking. I'll full well admit I drank underage, but not until I was 19. I'm not sure it's my business to blow them in for that. What does bother me is the following:
1. These kids have a track record of damaging my property whenever they congregate
2. They leave beer cans in the lawns of families with young children
3. They drive off at random times, leaving me concerned as to the driver's sobriety
4. They're having parties without his parents' knowledge and consent.
Particularly on the 4th point, and my relationship with his parents, I feel obligated to inform of this, not just for their safety, but for their child's, my neighbor's children, and my car. I /really/ wanted to call the police on them last night, but decided I better come here first and make sure I'm not getting crotchety-old-man syndrome at 26.
Thanks all,
Priest on
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Posts
Also if they keep hitting your car, get the insurance involved. That creates red tape and a track record.
Get a security system.
Lock your doors and windows at night and all the time.
Call the cops. Every. Single. Time. Being loud? Call the cops. Hanging around? Call the cops (most neighborhoods have laws on the books about loitering in general especially for underage kids).
Finally let the parents know that you're getting sick of all this. You're not trying to be angry but, if push comes to shove you have no problem getting the police involved and sticking them with the damages from here on out.
Those cameras will probably pay for themselves.
I wouldn't recommend speaking to the parents, as you said, if they go on vacation, who knows what the kid will do to. It will cause a lot of tension, and nothing is documented. There is no visible proof to back your argument up.
When the cops get called often to the same house for loud noises or underage drinking, the parent(s) can be called down the station. This happened in my neighborhood, where the cops were called 32 times to this house within a 4 month span. The dad wasn't very happy when he needed to be called to the station. He did also speak to a few of us trying to figure out who called the cops. No one wanted to confess (nor did I know who really did it, but a few of us had a gut feeling) and no one wanted tension in the neighborhood. Soon after that, the parties stopped completely.
Looking for Edith Finch Pin!
While I do understand that they're breaking the law, there's a part of me that hesitates at immediately calling the cops. Maybe it's because I was a teen once too, or maybe it's because I'm a High School teacher and accustomed to doling out discipline internally so much of the time.
I do know that talking to their parents would create zero tension between them and me. We have a very good relationship (as I tutored their daughter), and they are aware of their child's destructiveness (have paid for damage to my car and other things multiple times). They're just not very good at reining him in. This is the first time there's ever been parties like this, because this is the first time they've left him alone for a week.
I admit one thing I'm concerned about is retaliation. If I call the cops, there's a reasonably decent chance he could find out I'm the one who made the report, and while I haven't been the explicit 'target' of prior shenanigans, it could make me one, thus raising the chance of property damage from 50% to 100%. Not sure if that makes sense.
He finally got arrested and that's the last I heard of him in 2 years.
There are two things that make people change behaviors: getting caught by someone with power to make their life hell, or, having to pay for it.
The parents don't seem to give a fuck about their money, so, the only thing that's going to stop the behavior is jail time now. We were all teenagers but that behavior needs to be curtailed before it escalates. Best to just stay out of the way and call the cops.
You should call the cops. Because frankly, at least one of them is probably driving after all those beers, and the consequences of that are not something you want to happen in the place where you pay to live.
When you were a teen did you go to a party and get blitzed and then take off driving in a car?
Their drinking may not directly impact you, but at 3am when one of them takes off piss drunk and blows through a red light and t-bones a car with someone in it...well I think we both can agree that does impact the innocent person in more than one way.
Drunk driving is not something "just being a teen", drunk/OWI driving is not a "boys will be boys" thing.
Call
the
fucking
cops
EDIT:
No you know what here's the deal.
If you don't want to call the cops you are now obligated that if any of these little shits takes off impaired and gets in an accident to go and tell the family of the innocent person who got hurt or killed that you're sorry that their mother/father/daughter/son/family member was hurt/killed/paralyzed and that you're the neighbor who watched the teen who did this get drunk/high and take off all week long but just sat around and didn't call the cops because you were afraid that they might key your car.
I'm sure they'll understand it.
Also: this isn't something that's happened just out of the blue. According to you it has been going on for roughly 2 years.
Also Also: If he retaliates against you just call the cops on him again. the courts tend to get less and less forgiving of people as there criminal history gets more and more verbose.
If you are fearful of reprecussions for calling do it anonymously as suggested, he would have no way of finding out who called then. When he asks who called all the officers can say is "We received an anonymous call about a disturbance".
Cameras are also a good idea too for the above stated reasons. Helps your insurance and should you ever have something happen again you will have video documentation.
Finally, speaking from a personal experience, underage drinking isn't a joke. A group of high school kids in my home town got drunk late at night at a party at a cabin. One of the kids went outside and was locked out by his "pals" as a joke. In the middle of January. Without any coat. A few hours later after one of them sobered up they went outside to find his friend in his underwear, blue and suffering from hypothermia. Sadly, he passed away on transit to the hospital. I know circumstances are very different but when you have teens and booze involved there is always a chance of something tragic occuring, it's one of the reasons why there is an established age restriction on it.
His nonsense has already wrecked your stuff twice and from what you've said it's probably going to happen again eventually.
Do you really think he'll get arrested for the first time? Even if he is arrested it sounds a lot like mommy and daddy will do the legal dance required to make sure he doesn't end up with a record.
Calling the cops does two things: Removes them being jerks to everybody else and maybe starts the kid into understanding some consequences exist.
At the very least he should learn if he's going to throw raging underage drinking parties to not be obvious about it.
Edit: Oh, and if it comes down to it with the cops or the parents or the kid, don't mention the stuff you can't prove. Believe it, take precautions based on it but trying to use it in a disagreement just opens you up as they're pretty weak.
Not surprised that kids tried another party tonight before homeowners get home from vacation. Cops came by and tagged 7-8. About 4 ran out the back door into a field, but, to be expected. All were drinking, according to PD.
Thanks all for the discussion.
a noise complaint is the time-honored way to get to people and is pretty much anonymous in a neighborhood
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
This and schuss has got the right of it.
Don't screw over the people who are in a better position to screw you over. OP, you gave them plenty of chances not to be dumbasses and they failed.
I'm less likely to call the cops on you if you leave me the hell alone. But as soon as you start costing me money, you're going to get the cops called on you for the tiniest shit.
They were quite thankful to be informed of the situation. I'm not a parent myself yet, but as a teacher, I sympathize that it is a tough job. I think they're in this situation mostly because their oldest child turned out great, and they didn't have to do much disciplining with her at all over the years, as compared to him, who only became a problem during high school.
The police in this area ascribe to the philosophy of letting the parents deal with the first offense, so no one was written up, but parents were called for all children involved. That doesn't work in a lot of communities, but it does here (for the most part). Unfortunately, he is going to have to deal with one major fallout of this - despite not being cited by police, his parents informed the school, police corroborated, and all the boys involved are no longer on the baseball team. Unfortunately that's the price you pay.
I appreciate all of your comments and opinions. In the end, you're right, it doesn't matter what my feelings are, I have a moral obligation to ensure these children's safety in absence of parental supervision, and a duty to my other neighbors to prevent further property damage.
Damn, that's a punishment that goes straight to the heart of a teenager. Spending a night in jail is almost cool (and you're too young too realize how that might jam you up in the future). Getting kicked off the sports team is rough.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Seniors too so if any of them were hoping for an athletic scholarship, sucks.