Suspicious Vehicle - Thursday Thoughts

Just one long thought (ok, rant) for today’s Thursday Thoughts...

Now, there is a long back story that I typed up to go with this but I’ll post it separately HERE if anyone cares to read. It's very long. I’m sure most people have a neighbor they don’t care for, and if you don’t consider yourself lucky. And this is the story about ours. A week ago, yes Thanksgiving Day, I'm playing with EM in the morning and I hear a doorbell, and when I look out, I see a cop car and an officer at my door, kind of startling. So of course I answer and the cop asks about the car parked next to our house (on the street on the side of the corner lot) I explained to him that it is our friend's rental car who is visiting for a week for the holiday (well more so for UCF football games but whatever). The cop was like "yea, I ran the plates and figured that is what it was considering it's Thanksgiving but someone called it in as a suspicious vehicle, so I had to come check it out" I apologized that he had to waste his time and commented that I bet it was the house right there and pointed to the nasty ladies house (which granted the car was kind of blocking her driveway). He said it was an anonymous call and was clearly pissed off that he had to do that check, especially on a Holiday. So of course, I was PISSED after this. Seriously, it's the holidays, there are a TON of cars parked on the street all over the neighborhood because everyone has people visiting. Were any other cars reported? nope. Well after the whole fence thing last year, I don't really post controversial stuff in the Community Group as I want to be friends with most of the people (and are), but I was fuming and after a few re-writes this is how the end of the story goes with my opening post and a few snippets of the comments from the group:

Me (Opening Post): Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Over the last 13 months living here in XXX we've met a lot of really great people.. however if you are the person who called the cops on the rental car parked on the street next to our house, next time, knock on our door and ask about it, we didn't park it in front of our house because of the stop sign. He said it is LEGALLY parked and we don't have to move it (we offered) - since we are done working for the week and done doing the 3 car in a 2 car drive way shuffle, we will however move it back into our driveway at some point today. So congrats, you wasted his time and whoever took the calls time. (he was so pissed he had to come ask about it) when you could have just knocked on our door and asked (or called us out here in the FB group, or private messaged us). I'm sure whoever you are didn't call the cops on EVERY car parked on the street in the neighborhood (there are a lot EVERY DAY, plus with the holidays there are even more) So I am NOT thankful for you, you wasted a cops time on a Holiday that I'm sure he'd much rather be with his family than dealing with calls like this! And if the person who called the cops isn't in this group, I apologize. I'm usually not the one to post stuff like this, but on a day you should be thankful for friends and neighbors, you pissed me off!

And these were the comments (anything highlighted in Yellow was not written, just my interjection/thoughts):

Person A: I hope we don't end up as the "neighborhood that cries wolf" especially when we really do need help. Happy Turkey Day!

Person B (the person I suspected called the cops): For all those at the HOA meeting on Monday it came up about cars on the streets in XXX. It is against HOA rules to park over night on the streets here. We all signed those docs when we bought. (yet, she parks in the street all the time, not for a long period of time, but often enough) I do know that all the cars in this development that are being left on the streets are going to be addressed by the HOA. It is becoming an issue in here. If you have over night guests that is one thing but all the cars sitting on the streets in here for days at a time is a problem.

Me: yea ours has been just for a few days while our guest is visiting and prior to that we have only ever had cars for a few hours if our driveway was full from more than a few guests while hosting a get together. I'd like to think we are all adult enough to ring each others doorbells (or even post on here like "hey whose blue car is that") but clearly some people aren't. I more so felt bad for the cop.

Person C (happens to be my MIL): Especially given we have an XXXX County Sergeant who is both close friend and family who will not make Thanksgiving Dinner again this year because he is busy keeping our streets safe - hopefully he will be doing more important work this holiday than checking up on a parked car.

A little back and forth about the HOA Meeting and even though they can try to enforce them, most likely people could sue b/c they are public streets and in our city you are allowed to street park and other people that think it’s absurd that someone called the cops.

Me: The point of my post was not to bring up HOA rules but rather to say "knock on my door if you have a problem with something related to my house/property, don't call the cops"

Person D:  I would never call the cops for something like this but navigating that corner has been a challenge with that car in that location because the house behind yours typically has 2-3 parked on the road every night. (exactly, NOT MY HOUSE, usually nasty lady’s husband’s commercial vehicle and the other house behind ours)Since the streets are not wide enough for two cars to pass by with a parked car I've had to go in reverse multiple times because just after I turn right off XXXX a car turns right at that stop sign. Not that big of a deal but could be avoided.

Another comment about the HOA rules

Person F: I suggest that, in general, we all try to play "nice" with each other and give each other a chance before turning to the police. (MY POINT EXACTLLY!)

End of story… Until Saturday night… two days later, I get a private FB message from Person B (nasty lady from the fence attack)  saying: “As you probably figured out we were the ones that called the police. That car had sat for 4 days and I had not seen anyone get in or out. The car looked like it had never even moved. I could tell that it was a rental car and I thought that it was stolen or abandoned with some of the things that gone on in JLP. If we had known that it was yours we would have addressed it with you. Where it is parked is an issue. It is directly in front of our driveway. It is rude to park in front of a neighbors drive way like that. You should move it further down towards your fence so as not to block the street at the turn area or the drive way. We would greatly appreciate you being neighborly and move it down so it is not in front of our driveway.”

Seriously?? WHY THE EFF WOULD YOU NOT KNOCK ON OUR DOOR? I don’t care what she says, she knew it belonged to our house. It had been in our driveway for 4 days before being parked on the street, and she stops at the stop sign right in front of house every day to get to her house, so that’s absolutely BS. And even if she DIDN’t know if it may belong to us, why wouldn’t you at least TRY us. She didn’t even have to knock on our door, she could have just posted a random message in the FB group asking “Anyone know whose blue car has been sitting there” (people do it all the time, “did anyone else hear that noise”, “our dog got loose, has anyone seen it” etc) or Private messaged us just like she did now. I politely replied: "We didn't know it was you but we speculated since it is no secret you don't like us. You could have definitely asked us sooner and we would have moved it - our guest will be gone tonight though so it will be gone. Being that it was next to our house I would have thought you would have at least tried asking us before resorting to the police. But doesn't matter now, what's done is done and I would hope in the future you would knock on our door or shoot us a FB message to resolve any concerns.”

And that is the end of this long drawn out story about our bitchy neighbor, until the next time. Maybe one day she'll get over our fence and satellite dish, maybe one day we could even be friendly (not friends, but friendly enough to say "Hi") but regardless she gets to stare at both the fence and dish every time she walks out her front door! And that makes me slightly happy.