Last year Pat moved from his Royal Connaught Hotel penthouse condo to a nearby small (tiny) home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Little did he know he would be entering into a Nightmare Neighbor situation.
At the time bought his house, a 564 foot house, the house next door to him was unoccupied. Apparently an elderly man owned it who had died. The house was unoccupied until a few months after Pat moved into his house. Then next door a young homeless couple took advantage of the unoccupied middle home and moved in. Apparently the woman is a relative (granddaughter?) of the deceased man whose estate still owns the house. After they moved in then began a daily stream of unsavory characters all during the day. Thus began Pat's nightmare and his other neighbor ("Sam") who owns the house on the other side of the three tiny houses (see photo).
Last month I visited Pat at his home (my photo at the begging of this blog). Pat loves his home. Pat is a minimalist. His home is perfect for him. What a shame that his peace and tranquility is destroyed by the squatters who took advantage of the abandoned home next to him.
I was schedule to visit Pat for a week. I could only stay one night at his home. The noise during the night from his next door neighbor (banging on the wall, screaming at her boyfriend, etc) kept me awake all night. The next day I went up the street and booked a room at the Hampton Inn at a total cost of almost $1,000. I had no choice, I couldn't go a week without sleep. Hell, I can't go a day without my afternoon nap.
I could visit Pat during the day because apparently his neighbors are vampires, they sleep during the day (no jobs of course), but they arise at dusk and thus begins another nightmarish evening of noise for Pat from his squatter neighbors. What a nightmare for Pat!
Pat has called the city of Hamilton numerous times along with his neighbor on the other side of the squatter couple. The city does nothing. NOTHING! Except maybe perhaps collect their salary, which they collect whether they do something or not.
I'm not a religious person (far from it) but I do thank God (or whoever) that I now live in a quiet neighborhood. Oh I've had bad neighbors over the years. Homophobic neighbors who send their kids on the border of our (me and Bill) property and yell "Fags get out!" for hours on end on a peaceful Saturday morning (I took care of that). Then I've had the noisy neighbors. The trashy neighbors. The nosey neighbors. But here, in southern coastal Delaware I have the best neighbors I could ever hope for an even better, this neighborhood is always quiet except for the occasional summer time "concert" across Route One in Hudson Fields which sometimes gets carried away with itself and goes into the night with loud speaks at full blast shouting the "MF" word (that hasn't happened for a couple years now).
Out of frustration Pat and his neighbor "Sam" (Samantha, who is also a caregiver to her husband in addition to her full-time job, she needs the sleep) have contacted the local radio station and newspaper to publicize the lack of city action against their disruptive neighbors who don't even pay to live there or taxes. Isn't that the way it often is? Good, law abiding citizens have to have their quality of life destroyed by those members of our society who are too lazy or self indulged to care how their life affects their neighbors. And what is government for anyway than to protect us not only our physical safety from crime but also out quality of life that Pat pays very high taxes? Pat is seventy-five years old but he still has to work to keep up with the expense of living in his home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The squatters next door? They pay no taxes and disturbed the whole neighborhood. What is even worse is that Pat's city government does nothing. NOTHING! What a shame! Eventually Pat will move down here to Delaware to live with me, an old man who is rapidly failing but in the meantime this is what Pat has to put up with. Maybe this newspaper article in his local Hamilton newspaper will be the beginning of a change. Hopefully.