What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Nevada
You guys probably get this kind of question a lot but every situation is a little different so...
Essentially, we have had bad neighbors since December of 09. They rent (yearly lease) and the house currently consists of a single mother with a couple high-school aged kids (about 17-18 y/o), but they invite friends over all the time especially in the middle of the night. They have drunken parties at 2am, one of which resulted in about 20 people spilling out into the street from the house getting into fights and going up onto another neighbor's driveway, and others which result in lone drunk guys stumbling around the neighborhood aimlessly. They also do stupid stuff like playing baseball with a hardball perpendicular to the street (e.g. facing the houses; luckily no broken windows YET), and they've been known to harass other neighbors as they e.g. walk down to get the mail. One guy from there even at one point told a 15 year old girl, after she asked him nicely to not smoke on her grandmother's property, that he hopes the cigarette burns her house down and flicked it on the rocks in her yard without stomping it out. Not to mention things like running a car repair business in their garage where we can't video it but can see a number of different cars coming and going, and welding with a blow-torch as well, both of which are against the CC&Rs of the HOA we live under. And other stuff I won't bore you with, but which is just as bad.
We and the other (nice) neighbors have been working with our HOA to try whatever we can to stop these neighbor's antics. Best case scenario would be to somehow get them evicted, but as I mentioned they rent and though we've also been talking to the owner (who lives with her husband in another state) about the problems her tenants have been causing, we recently discovered through a slip of her tongue that she has some sort of personal relationship with the tenants and we suspect she just recently renewed their lease (which we suspect is yearly rather than monthly). So most of the "progress" we thought we were making with her has most likely just been her stringing us along. She's also asked us to stop sending her complaint letters, though we (my family and the cooperative neighbors) are continuing to do so.
I've personally called the police on these neighbors a few times, once when I saw a number of people getting into a fight on the street, and again when one of them started swinging a sledgehammer around to threaten our very helpful and cooperative (but unarmed) HOA security officer. Others have done so too, including the security officer himself. So there are quite a few paper trails and police reports out there. One time a police officer actually arrested one of the guys there for some sort of outstanding traffic warrants or something, but he was released quickly because he was a minor. We've also been reporting every little thing they do to the HOA security office and the officer has been coming by and giving them lots of citations (especially after the sledgehammer incident). Because they're renting, all the fines have been going to the owner but for some reason as I stated we think the owner renewed their lease anyways because they're still there.
My question is this. Is there any way that we or the HOA can force the owners to evict these tenants? Or is it entirely up to the owner's discretion? And if we are able to get the owner back on our side, is there some way for her to break the lease to evict the tenants? We've been trying to take pictures and video of the things these people do, but we're not entirely sure how to use them because nothing we've captured thus far could serve as proof of them doing anything illegal--it's just things like them playing baseball towards our houses, driving these tiny motorbikes around dangerously close to our lawns (even breaking our sprinkler one time--though we can't prove it because that particular time we didn't get it on camera). And most of the actually illegal stuff they've been doing (fighting, even suspected underage drinking) has been at night and my camcorder can't record in the dark.
Should we instruct all our concerned neighbors to set up security cameras with night vision outside their homes? If so, what are we allowed to record (that could be used as evidence in case they DO do something illegal) and what aren't we allowed to record? That is, should we point the cameras to the street, or just our own yard, etc.?
THANK YOU SO MUCH for ANY help or advice you can provide! We'd even be happy with advice on how to put some sort of legal pressure on them to stop all these things they've been doing, what kinds of other things we can report them to the police for, etc.
You guys probably get this kind of question a lot but every situation is a little different so...
Essentially, we have had bad neighbors since December of 09. They rent (yearly lease) and the house currently consists of a single mother with a couple high-school aged kids (about 17-18 y/o), but they invite friends over all the time especially in the middle of the night. They have drunken parties at 2am, one of which resulted in about 20 people spilling out into the street from the house getting into fights and going up onto another neighbor's driveway, and others which result in lone drunk guys stumbling around the neighborhood aimlessly. They also do stupid stuff like playing baseball with a hardball perpendicular to the street (e.g. facing the houses; luckily no broken windows YET), and they've been known to harass other neighbors as they e.g. walk down to get the mail. One guy from there even at one point told a 15 year old girl, after she asked him nicely to not smoke on her grandmother's property, that he hopes the cigarette burns her house down and flicked it on the rocks in her yard without stomping it out. Not to mention things like running a car repair business in their garage where we can't video it but can see a number of different cars coming and going, and welding with a blow-torch as well, both of which are against the CC&Rs of the HOA we live under. And other stuff I won't bore you with, but which is just as bad.
We and the other (nice) neighbors have been working with our HOA to try whatever we can to stop these neighbor's antics. Best case scenario would be to somehow get them evicted, but as I mentioned they rent and though we've also been talking to the owner (who lives with her husband in another state) about the problems her tenants have been causing, we recently discovered through a slip of her tongue that she has some sort of personal relationship with the tenants and we suspect she just recently renewed their lease (which we suspect is yearly rather than monthly). So most of the "progress" we thought we were making with her has most likely just been her stringing us along. She's also asked us to stop sending her complaint letters, though we (my family and the cooperative neighbors) are continuing to do so.
I've personally called the police on these neighbors a few times, once when I saw a number of people getting into a fight on the street, and again when one of them started swinging a sledgehammer around to threaten our very helpful and cooperative (but unarmed) HOA security officer. Others have done so too, including the security officer himself. So there are quite a few paper trails and police reports out there. One time a police officer actually arrested one of the guys there for some sort of outstanding traffic warrants or something, but he was released quickly because he was a minor. We've also been reporting every little thing they do to the HOA security office and the officer has been coming by and giving them lots of citations (especially after the sledgehammer incident). Because they're renting, all the fines have been going to the owner but for some reason as I stated we think the owner renewed their lease anyways because they're still there.
My question is this. Is there any way that we or the HOA can force the owners to evict these tenants? Or is it entirely up to the owner's discretion? And if we are able to get the owner back on our side, is there some way for her to break the lease to evict the tenants? We've been trying to take pictures and video of the things these people do, but we're not entirely sure how to use them because nothing we've captured thus far could serve as proof of them doing anything illegal--it's just things like them playing baseball towards our houses, driving these tiny motorbikes around dangerously close to our lawns (even breaking our sprinkler one time--though we can't prove it because that particular time we didn't get it on camera). And most of the actually illegal stuff they've been doing (fighting, even suspected underage drinking) has been at night and my camcorder can't record in the dark.
Should we instruct all our concerned neighbors to set up security cameras with night vision outside their homes? If so, what are we allowed to record (that could be used as evidence in case they DO do something illegal) and what aren't we allowed to record? That is, should we point the cameras to the street, or just our own yard, etc.?
THANK YOU SO MUCH for ANY help or advice you can provide! We'd even be happy with advice on how to put some sort of legal pressure on them to stop all these things they've been doing, what kinds of other things we can report them to the police for, etc.
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