We're in Decatur, Georgia, about 15 minutes outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We own our home and have lived here for a long time.
We have some pretty serious issues going on with neighbors that moved into the rental house next to us, about 2 years ago. Right after they moved in, they started an illegal burn barrel in the back yard on and off for 2-3 months burning wood, brush, trash, etc. It was smoking up the neighborhood and also going into our house. I asked them nicely one day if they knew that it was illegal and they said, "Yeah, I know." I snapped a photo to send to their landlord later. One of them doing the burning seemed to not want photos for some reason and acted like he was a wanted criminal or something.
They eventually started having large, drunken parties in the front and back yards with cars all over the front yard and lining the street. They are all Hispanic and most of them are men. Dozens of people at the parties. One day one of their visitors blocked our driveway with his SUV on purpose, refused to move it and acted threatening towards my mother (she was working in our front yard) while telling her that he could, "Park anywhere that he wanted." Police came out at least 5-6 times for noise ordinance violations in 2018 and also once for threats with the SUV in front of the driveway and police had to tell them to go back to their yard because they had walked down our driveway even with police there. We've had our car vandalized (broke part of the door handle and attempted to get the lock open) and that had to be repaired. I have been threatened by lots of people in their back yard before and even took a photo of them while they were doing so. We've since alarmed the car with shock sensors. I'm about to put up an 8-camera night vision security system to capture all of this stuff going on. Pondering pointing the cameras on the back of our house to capture parts of our back yard and also capture some of their back yard and the property line for all of the parties and such going on. At one point multiple police units responded to a few dozen people in the back yard having a party at midnight. They told them to shut the party down and the tenants and their visitors were "taunting" the officers by popping balloons, screaming and making even more noise. Police told me that "Code Enforcement writes fines for noise" and I later found out that police have had the ability to write citations for noise since 2010.
The rental property is owned by a "Freeport Title & Guaranty" company that apparently uses various names. There is a real-estate lawyer on the county property records with no contact info listed. I searched for his name and found him at a law office that he works for. I emailed him my complaint about all of the above last year. He forwarded that email to a shady property manager who only wants to use email and no phone contact. I sent him photos, videos, etc. He refused to acknowledge a blatant photo of the tenants and their visitors acting threatening towards me, directly burning in the yard, etc. There are at least two families living in that 2-bedroom rental house now. Initially it was just a man, his wife/girlfriend and one child. They also have 3 different vans that do pick-ups of people in the morning after 7am (I see them every day on the way to work) and drop-offs of people in the afternoon. They live at the house. Property manager denies it. The real-estate lawyer on the property records says he "doesn't have any control over the property."
The property manager said he "doesn't have a reason to evict them" with all of that going on. I wrote a 3-page letter to our county Police Services department. I have called Code Enforcement. They won't deal with criminals and they close at 5:30pm. Most issues happen later in the afternoon or night. They said that the tenants likely wouldn't let them into the property to inspect it, but that a building inspector could. Probably would need a police escort. Code Enforcement said to contact our police department and ask for stepped-up patrols of the neighborhood and also to maybe somehow watch the house. Ridiculous amounts of come-and-go traffic. I sent 11 tag numbers and vehicle descriptions to the police department and that's just a small number that visit the property.
What else can I do? Neither the real-estate lawyer or property manager are responding to anything anymore.
We have some pretty serious issues going on with neighbors that moved into the rental house next to us, about 2 years ago. Right after they moved in, they started an illegal burn barrel in the back yard on and off for 2-3 months burning wood, brush, trash, etc. It was smoking up the neighborhood and also going into our house. I asked them nicely one day if they knew that it was illegal and they said, "Yeah, I know." I snapped a photo to send to their landlord later. One of them doing the burning seemed to not want photos for some reason and acted like he was a wanted criminal or something.
They eventually started having large, drunken parties in the front and back yards with cars all over the front yard and lining the street. They are all Hispanic and most of them are men. Dozens of people at the parties. One day one of their visitors blocked our driveway with his SUV on purpose, refused to move it and acted threatening towards my mother (she was working in our front yard) while telling her that he could, "Park anywhere that he wanted." Police came out at least 5-6 times for noise ordinance violations in 2018 and also once for threats with the SUV in front of the driveway and police had to tell them to go back to their yard because they had walked down our driveway even with police there. We've had our car vandalized (broke part of the door handle and attempted to get the lock open) and that had to be repaired. I have been threatened by lots of people in their back yard before and even took a photo of them while they were doing so. We've since alarmed the car with shock sensors. I'm about to put up an 8-camera night vision security system to capture all of this stuff going on. Pondering pointing the cameras on the back of our house to capture parts of our back yard and also capture some of their back yard and the property line for all of the parties and such going on. At one point multiple police units responded to a few dozen people in the back yard having a party at midnight. They told them to shut the party down and the tenants and their visitors were "taunting" the officers by popping balloons, screaming and making even more noise. Police told me that "Code Enforcement writes fines for noise" and I later found out that police have had the ability to write citations for noise since 2010.
The rental property is owned by a "Freeport Title & Guaranty" company that apparently uses various names. There is a real-estate lawyer on the county property records with no contact info listed. I searched for his name and found him at a law office that he works for. I emailed him my complaint about all of the above last year. He forwarded that email to a shady property manager who only wants to use email and no phone contact. I sent him photos, videos, etc. He refused to acknowledge a blatant photo of the tenants and their visitors acting threatening towards me, directly burning in the yard, etc. There are at least two families living in that 2-bedroom rental house now. Initially it was just a man, his wife/girlfriend and one child. They also have 3 different vans that do pick-ups of people in the morning after 7am (I see them every day on the way to work) and drop-offs of people in the afternoon. They live at the house. Property manager denies it. The real-estate lawyer on the property records says he "doesn't have any control over the property."
The property manager said he "doesn't have a reason to evict them" with all of that going on. I wrote a 3-page letter to our county Police Services department. I have called Code Enforcement. They won't deal with criminals and they close at 5:30pm. Most issues happen later in the afternoon or night. They said that the tenants likely wouldn't let them into the property to inspect it, but that a building inspector could. Probably would need a police escort. Code Enforcement said to contact our police department and ask for stepped-up patrols of the neighborhood and also to maybe somehow watch the house. Ridiculous amounts of come-and-go traffic. I sent 11 tag numbers and vehicle descriptions to the police department and that's just a small number that visit the property.
What else can I do? Neither the real-estate lawyer or property manager are responding to anything anymore.
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