I own a home in a declining area...

[Marie Withelidua]

My apologies in advance for being verbose, but the details are necessary. I've been living in my home for 7+ years and I've seen the neighborhood change with some property owners renting out their homes instead of selling them.

In that span of time, I have dealt with and encountered a slew of issues from many of the renters - the noise ordinance issue being the biggest complaint, based on many of the culprits blasting loud music from their cars at all hours of the day and night, with no regard for the time of day and who they were disturbing.

Yes, I have called, the police - along with other neighbors, but being that I have lived the closest - with the culprits either living beside me, across from me and now adjacent to my bedroom windows as the others have either moved or stopped.

The other issues have been lessened, like the previous renters shooting as they have moved, but all of this tension has been building. The main culprit, which are the renters living adjacent to my bedroom windows: are what I presume to be family of 8 to 10 people: an old man, an older woman, another woman in her 30's and another woman, a man, 3 toddlers and 2 high school aged kids - all living in a 3 bedroom/2 bath home. How? I don't know how that's allowed as it should be illegal.

The adults constantly party in the front yard. They have cookouts in the front yard. They have get-togethers - all in the front yard regularly. The noise is constant. I would not care what they did - if it did not affect my right to the quiet enjoyment of my home. Me and my family have either had to plan our sleep around when they would stop partying in their front yard, which is adjacent to our bedrooms.

Also being awakened by them has been spectacular - nothing beats being jarred awake at 6:15am by a toddlers screaming at the top of their lungs horse playing in the front yard. After they awakened all of us at 2:'35am while they were being loud while they were drinking and hanging out in the usual place - in the front yard.

All of them collect some type of government assistance, so I am surprised that this is being allowed as far as this many people living in one house. I thought there were guidelines in place for how many people were allowed to rent a house?

I have ended up asking them to keep down by having to shout out of my window, because of the time of night and the noise.

However, when I was awakened at 2:35am, this had been building for over a year of being awakened so many times or having to wait for them to stop their festivities in the front yard and to quiet down - I snapped. I went outside after I called the cops and both times the officers went by, they'd be quiet, so the officers wouldn't hear them being loud.

They keep the lights in the front off while they're "hanging out" so that makes it difficult for officers to see what's going on until they get up on the house - by that time, they have quieted down long enough for the officers not to see or hear anything.

I got tired of the 30+ calls regarding their noise not making a difference in how much noise they consistently made daily and out of a week - they would average at least 4 nights out of the week to be a complete and utter nuisance.

So after being awakened at 2:35am and seeing their usual ploys, I went to stand where they could see me and proceeded to stand there for five minutes before they realized that I was standing there.

The old man asked: "are you okay?" To which my reply was that I would have been fine if I were still asleep. The man then asked if they were being loud. I replied that I enjoyed being jarred awake at 2:35 and coming out of the house in my pajamas. They never once said: hey sorry for waking you. They really do assume that they're entitled to be as noisy and loud as they want to.

So that led to being jarred awake at 6:15am by the toddlers and then them being excessively loud during the early morning thereafter. I snapped again and proceeded to yell out the window, which got their attention. I told them how loud they always have been and they're not the only ones that live here. The one lady threatened to hit me with a brick, which I told her if she wanted to go that route. She also said "we're gonna have a party" and I said "good, I'll come too."

The nuisance and abatement officer is involved, but they have limited resources and he is pretty much a one man show in handling these issues. The owner of the property is useless as he does not care what they do as long as they send him the rent check. He does not even live in the same state and the most response that I've gotten from him are nasty responses.

I own and am contemplating selling, but my plight is that none of them work, so they're home hanging out, being loud all the time. I know educated buyers study the neighborhood before they buy. I am dreading that they'll be just as much of a thorn if I sell.

In the interim, I halfway thought about trying to approach the one lady that I exchanged words to try to smooth things over, but I don't know if that will resolve anything at this point. It's been over a year with these same ongoing issues. Your thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.