threating and intimidation from new neighbor

[whittibo]

What is the name of your state? California

Hello. I have a new neighbor just putting a house on the property. since the first day they visited the property, they have let their dogs roam everywhere. I complained to animal control enough times for them to finally contact the owners. but when we spoke to the owners about it, they were irate and wouldn't do anything. finally the sheriffs office and animal control both contacted the man. the dog issue has been fine since then (a month ago)

but now.. last Saturday night, the man (mike) and 3 other men were on the property camping in a fort they have, and drinking shooting guns, driving their quad all over and using profusely foul language. after 4 hours, and at 9pm, my husband finally hollered over and asked them to keep it down because we were putting our kids to be.. (we have 3 young girls) Mike yells back that he doesn't care, and we blew it when we called the sheriffs on him, and now he's gonna finish this.. and told my husband he was coming over to kick his A**.

we called the sheriffs again.. and after an hour they finally arrived, we told them what was happening, and they went up to talk to Mike. Mike got irate with the police and was subsequently put under arrest for public intoxication.. at that point, mike resisted arrest and a fight broke out where he was finally restrained and hauled off.

our fear is, he threatened us before the police came, and even WHILE the police were here. he clearly has no respect for anyone including the law. we have started a journal with all the problems/dates/details and have gotten animal control reports and the police reports.. but this man could easily retaliate against us.

it seems to me there should be some law protecting my civil rights to not be intimidated and threatened by my neighbor. (a man who didn't have a problem getting physical with a police officer ) we went out and bought all new locks/deadbolts for our house and additional security lights. we have never had to lock our house and we have been here for 13 years. now I am afraid to let my kids out of the house. we live on 10 acres in the country and now have to worry about our security.

I also bought a digital voice recorder so I can record the next episode. I had 'thought' I had this one on tape, but later found out our radio doesn't record?!

we had to wait till the police report was complete before we can file a restraining order against him because we don't even know his full name! they haven't even moved in yet and already had problems with all 3 neighbors and the police!

what can I do to protect myself.. isn't he violating my civil rights somehow? intimidation can't be legal is it??

and there is constant foul language from them.. so bad, many times we have had to send our girls in the house to keep them from hearing it. is that legal? why should we have to hide locked up in our house?? please help!!! any advice is welcome~!

 

[dequeendistress]

File a TRO.

 

[whittibo]

File a TRO.

could you tell me what a TRO is? I did a search and couldn't find anything.. thanks much!

 

[whittibo]

AH HA! I found out what a TRO is. My husband had gone to the sheriff's today to get the papers to file a restraining order... and in the packet, it refers to the order as a TRO.. learn something new every day..

I am wondering if we should hire a lawyer for this? it looks pretty in depth?!

Also, upon getting the sheriff's report of the arrest, we found that we weren't mentioned at ALL. my husband went back in to file an inclusion. He gave the report officer all the info and then left.. she called me later to tell me that she can't do the inclusion because we weren't mentioned in the report. so she filed a new report that states he threatened us.. apparently that is a violation of the patriot act?! and she said he needs to be sited for that, that it's a crime! so why didn't the officer report that at all? should I call the arresting officer and ask?

so we can pick up the new report tomorrow, and take it down and get the temporary restraining order, and then they will set a court date and we have to have him served with the papers... but I am wondering what he can be held liable for? we have paid almost $400 for security items to keep ourselves safe from him... can we make him pay for those? (locks/lights/voice recorder).

anyway.. this is so new to us, we are like gold fish swiming in the ocean.. just lost in a big world of unknown.. it's really depressing we have to live in fear of this man.. and losing sleep over it and having my husband sleep with a shotgun next to him.. why should we have to do that?

anyway.. any advice would be greatly appreciated.. help this gold fish get back to the bowl..

 

[Souix]

I feel for you my dear, but you might get better answers if you posted in the correct forum.

 

[CMA1]

TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER. The words hold so much power. I don't want to scare you, but if the police can't restrain this guy when they are right in front of him, how are they going to do it using a piece of paper? He's not going to look at it and say, "Wow, they really don't like me. I better stay away." Odds are he is going to become more upset and seek retaliation as soon as he gets home. Call the police as soon as he does anything. If he looks at you funny, gestures toward you, talks to you, talks at you, threatens the air around you, call the police and have him arrested again. After he's arrested three times for violating a TRO, he goes to jail. If his wife is approachable, get her in counseling at this time and tell her to get a divorce!!! If your husband has to shoot him, make sure (Mike?) is in your home so it is considered self defense. DO NOT let your husband outside with a gun no matter what is said. Judges do more than police. If you go to court over the TRO, genuinely express your concern for your family. DO NOT hold back. Cry if you feel like it. The judge may mandate that he has to move at least temporarily. The most you can hope for is that he gets drunk, wanders into the street and gets hit by a deisel truck. Problem solved.

 

[Souix]

Well in that case, maybe this could be a real estate law answer. About 11 years ago when we moved into our 10 acres out in the country we had a dispute with our jerk neighbor because the guy we bought our place from was supposed to clear the fence lines so the neighbor could put fencing in. Well our seller never cleared the lines and so this jerk got mad at us for it. Anyway, I was a Realtor back then too and I got a call from the neighbor on the other side of him wanting to sell their 30 acres. So I sold the 30 acres on the other side of the jerk neighbor to the County, and they set about making that property a rock quarry. The jerk didn't like it, so he moved his piece of trailer trash off his land, sold his place to the County too and we never had to deal with him again. The County has been great neighbors . So maybe the OP should just get a real estate license and cause something to happen in the neighborhood like I did. Its a long shot, but what the heck.

 

[whittibo]

Thank you for your replies! I guess now that I think about it, this wasn't probably the best forum for this, but I was thinking "neighbor" and that led me to the real estate portion..

anyway, you guys have given great advice anyway. I think our whole problem is we just don't understand any of this. Like I thought that since the guy got out of jail, it was done/over.. he severed his time. Well.. apparently he hasn't yet been CHARGED with his crime. He still has to go to court to a hearing.. so that made me feel better. I thought he got off the hook scott free. (a little naive about the criminal side of life)

The good thing is that these people haven't even moved in the house yet. when we called the Animal Control on them, and the AC officer contacted the property owner (the 64 year old mom) she got irate and said "those people are causing so many problems we don't even want to move up there now. we are thinking of putting it on the market when it's complete".. (the problem we were causing is that we didn't want their dog on our property and scaring our children.. gosh.. we ARE horrible people aren't we?)

my thought to that is.. "OH LORD PLEASE!!!"

The family is a mom 64, son 39, his son 15, and another grandchild 17. We know for sure the 39 yo son and the 15 yo grandson have both been in trouble with the law before. tells ya how dysfunctional this family is. meanwhile, we are a very conservative Christian family.. with 3 young girls that we home school because we don't want them exposed to negative social influences more often then not..

the funny side of this whole story is that we have been praying for "our neighbors" for almost a year now. since that property sold and we knew someone was going to move there.. every night we pray for who ever they were.. hoping for some nice older Christian lady who would love some "surrogate grandchildren".

I also thought about why the officer wouldn't have put us in the report. and honestly, I think he was trying to protect us. by claiming they were only there to investigate loud noise, and not stating WHO complained, our hands are clean.. BUT, see I think the guy dug himself a grave when he threatened us, and that would do more good to get him in trouble for as MUCH as possible. now he has been arrested for public intoxication & resisting arrest.. and now add threatening violence/terrorist threat to the mix, and I think he's in some hot water!

I don't understand something about the TRO. it says we have to have him served with the papers. how do we do that. He currently resides about 2 hours away from us, and I don't know a living soul I would send down to his house! I guess we'll have 10 days before the court date to do it, and maybe he'll show his face around here before then? but as of today, my husband should have the TRO in place and a court date set for the permanent one.

 

[nextwife]

Hire a process server in HIS area.

FYI, non-Christians can be wonderful neighbors, too. I have neighbors who would never dream of acting in the manner you describe who are Jewish, for example. Being Christian is not a prerequisite to being able to act in a responsible, considerate, and neighborly manner.

Your neighbors are immature jerks. They came in all religions.

 

[whittibo]

Hire a process server in HIS area.

FYI, non-Christians can be wonderful neighbors, too. I have neighbors who would never dream of acting in the manner you describe who are Jewish, for example. Being Christian is not a prerequisite to being able to act in a responsible, considerate, and neighborly manner.

Your neighbors are immature jerks. They came in all religions.

ABSOLUTELY!! I couldn't agree more. I know Christians that would act this way.. and I know atheists that would never dream of it! but I am just in shock that someone can have such total disrespect for everyone around them. I am also in shock that nobody else around here has stood up to them. they currently only have 2 others that share property lines.. and one of those is already got his own felony.. (spousal abuse) so I think he just wants to keep out of everything. the other neighbor I think is living on his property in an illegally built "shack/house".. so they certainly don't want to bring the law over to their house.

see, we are out in the country.. and before we moved in here, these people had these little shacks and lived here with generators.. so there are only a handful of them left, the old timers.. but they keep to themselves..

and thanks for the processor info. I guess I was thinking we had to have someone, like a friend do it?! I know WE can't.. which I wouldn't anyway.. so today I'll find a processor in that other city! I wonder if the sheriff's office in that area would have a list of them.. or are they just listed in the phone book..

 

[HomeGuru]

Contact the courts, the local Bar Association or look in the yellow pages.

 

[whittibo]

update and additional questions, hope someone can help?!

we filed for the TRO and the judge granted it yesterday and we filed it with our local sheriff's office. today we'll take it down to HIS local sheriff's office and have them serve him. apparently it would have been free for us because we were threatened, but nobody knew for sure and the box never got checked, so we might have to pay them.. but that's OK.. what ever it takes.

now a couple questions..
1. since his property is closer to us then the mandated 300 yards that we asked for, does that mean he can't even be on the property since it's not his residence yet? can the permanent restraining order keep him from moving in this house once it's finished or is that up to the judge to decide? his house is closer then 300 yards to our house. it's closer then 100 yards from our property line. WE have to drive through his property to GET to our house!

2. we didn't hire an attorney but notice that we CAN and have him pay the attorney fees? what if he doesn't have any money, then will we essentially be responsible? do we NEED an attorney at this point?

3. we filed a complaint/record of incident with the sheriff's dept alleging this mans threats. it's our understanding that the DA can/should follow up on it but doesn't have to.. is there any way we can MAKE them follow up? will that get us anywhere?

4. can/will the judge award us any of our costs involved in this? like the extra security items we purchased and all the costs for the records etc. or is that solely up to the judge? we have about $600 into this thus far. it would be a nice thought to think he would have to pay for it. or would that be a small claims court issue? or a civil issue that would be addressed by the DA if/when they press charges?

hope someone here can help.. or maybe a moderator can move this to the correct forum where others can advise me? Thanks so much!

 

[HomeGuru]

update and additional questions, hope someone can help?!

we filed for the TRO and the judge granted it yesterday and we filed it with our local sheriff's office. today we'll take it down to HIS local sheriff's office and have them serve him. apparently it would have been free for us because we were threatened, but nobody knew for sure and the box never got checked, so we might have to pay them.. but that's OK.. what ever it takes.

now a couple questions..
1. since his property is closer to us then the mandated 300 yards that we asked for, does that mean he can't even be on the property since it's not his residence yet? can the permanent restraining order keep him from moving in this house once it's finished or is that up to the judge to decide? his house is closer then 300 yards to our house. it's closer then 100 yards from our property line. WE have to drive through his property to GET to our house!

2. we didn't hire an attorney but notice that we CAN and have him pay the attorney fees? what if he doesn't have any money, then will we essentially be responsible? do we NEED an attorney at this point?

3. we filed a complaint/record of incident with the sheriff's dept alleging this mans threats. it's our understanding that the DA can/should follow up on it but doesn't have to.. is there any way we can MAKE them follow up? will that get us anywhere?

4. can/will the judge award us any of our costs involved in this? like the extra security items we purchased and all the costs for the records etc. or is that solely up to the judge? we have about $600 into this thus far. it would be a nice thought to think he would have to pay for it. or would that be a small claims court issue? or a civil issue that would be addressed by the DA if/when they press charges?

hope someone here can help.. or maybe a moderator can move this to the correct forum where others can advise me? Thanks so much!

**A: your questions have nothing to do with real estate law and should be posted in another forum.