Got a car guy in your neighborhood?

[MotoBoat]

I have a house on the street that has been a rental since built. There have been 5 different renters in and out of it in 3 years. The last 2 years has been car guys. Guys that pull engines and rebuild for what seems like for fun. Same car, engine comes out and back in with a turbo charger installed. Constant revving, and engine computer analyzing takes place. As in everyday, most all day on weekends. During most evenings during the week. Sometimes goes on when in bed, before 10:00pm. Then that motor comes out, wheeled around in the driveway on a engine stand. Back the in the car for a repeat performance. One of the four residents completes his turbo upgrade. Another is in line, then a friend. In total 6-8 turbo conversions to date. Some conversions/add on's, to cars not worth what the cost of turbo charging!.

New house has a code enforced storm drain built into the driveway. I have seen them park over the drain. Drain antifreeze, motor oil, and transmission oil into that drain! Gas and oil sheen on driveway, roadway, and sidewalk when it rains.

Cars are way more important than yard work, to the 4 young men that reside there. In fact, the albeit small grassy yard has not been mowed the year and a half they have resided there. Nor have the gardens been weeded.

I can't think with all the motor revving, turbo exhaust bellowing noise going on. I have the thoughts of cranking up my two stroke outboard around 9am on a Saturday after one of there drunken, projectile vomiting parties. But I wouldn't want them to think I was one of them noise polluters. What would that solve?

Anyone else dealing with such shenanigans? Today, the noise started at 10am and just stopped at 12:30. But I thinks it is only because he ran out of gas. There is way more fuel burned revving and tuning in the driveway than driving.

When shooting the crap, they are super cordial, and clean cut. But foreign car, self installed turbo charged, kind of focused.

Unfortunately, the activity and disrespect to the environment, makes me less interested in being cordial.

[Amx]

I have a race car guy down the block, oval track car. They very seldom even start the car and run it in a way that I can hear it. But they have driven it down the street twice, or 3 times. I don't really gun my cars unless they are having a problem and I need a little, or a lot, of RPM to help figure it out, like fuel delivery. I also don't hotrod down the street. Don't want to piss off the neighbors.

My current neighbors have lived there a few years now. They didn't even know I had the cars until a couple years ago when I drove back home one day. They wondered who was driving down the street. I've had one car since '04, and the other since '97.

[Bodofish]

You can fix them permanently by watching. When they dump anything in the drain, call the EPA and Metro. EPA boys will be out in a matter minutes, never seen them take more than an hour. They'll go down the drain and take samples, while Metro will get samples along the system. All it really takes is a little oil in the driveway but antifreeze down the drain is a show stopper. I've done it twice to car idiots (cheap bastards) both times the offenders went away in cuffs, one returned after a couple weeks and never worked on his car in the drive again and the other went away for good, I suppose he had other issues with the court system, as his condo just went on the market and was sold in less than a week.

[Amx]

And to think many years ago we just dumped the oil anywhere we wanted. The thought was, "Back to the earth where it came from". Now we know better, or at least most of us do, or should. But there will always be those who just don't care.

[MotoBoat]

You can fix them permanently by watching. When they dump anything in the drain, call the EPA and Metro. EPA boys will be out in a matter minutes, never seen them take more than an hour. They'll go down the drain and take samples, while Metro will get samples along the system. All it really takes is a little oil in the driveway but antifreeze down the drain is a show stopper. I've done it twice to car idiots (cheap bastards) both times the offenders went away in cuffs, one returned after a couple weeks and never worked on his car in the drive again and the other went away for good, I suppose he had other issues with the court system, as his condo just went on the market and was sold in less than a week.

Found out later that two neighbors called different authorities. One had a friend at the EPA. The other called the city of shoreline. All that was done, after the fact. Was forced street and driveway clean up, by brooming on a solution several times. Recently, the wife overheard a group of boyz containing the offenders and some of there friends, grouped up outside with some hoods up. Smart off by saying "better watch out, the neighbors might call the FB(".

I never did witness any official looking EPA or Shoreline water quality personnel at the residence. I did see the clean up, each application spread out over several days. I feel they got there hands slapped. Although the offender did have to move back home with mommy and daddy, shortly after the incident.

No idea if that was a coincidence. Since the person cleaning up the mess was not one of the offenders. But his mom was the homeowner, and he one of the bachelor renters.

[Bodofish]

Yeah, gotta catch them in the act. I had video of both offenders dumping in the storm drain, they kinda had to do something.... hello? King 5?......

[racfish]

We got one too. One guy living alone has 6 pickups and 3 suv's Also a cadilac,a pinto,and a gremlin. Theres an oil trail going to the drain at the corner. Everyone complains but the city does nothing. (Typical )

[MotoBoat]

We got one too. One guy living alone has 6 pickups and 3 suv's Also a cadilac,a pinto,and a gremlin. Theres an oil trail going to the drain at the corner. Everyone complains but the city does nothing. (Typical )

Uuuuum, that is only 10 vehicles for one guy......lame! Has he got parking for a couple more? Certainly hope NOT!

[Bodofish]

We got one too. One guy living alone has 6 pickups and 3 suv's Also a cadilac,a pinto,and a gremlin. Theres an oil trail going to the drain at the corner. Everyone complains but the city does nothing. (Typical )

Don't call the City. What is the City going to do? Send a bike messenger? EPA or Metro, they work the waste water. Take pictures, take video, I'd bet there's and ordinance against having that many cars and parked on the street. And I would bet your neighborhood is not zoned for a dealership or a junkyard. I helped a buddy shut down a bunch of dismantlers that were working out of a rental on his street. Slam dunk, some went to jail for who knows what, the others were digging and replacing dirt for a couple weeks. Needless to say they moved........

[Gringo Pescador]

OK, as I read this, I thought "that sounds just like the house next to mine", Only difference is the renters of this house also does stereos and smokes a lot of pot. All summer long all you had to do is walk into my back yard to get a contact high from the smoke wafting over the fence, I even found a gram in a baggie in my yard while mowing my lawn! My theory is the crows (who LOVE thier place as they leave garbage bag out in the yard to be opened and picked through) stole the baggie and dropped in in my yard. I have a detached garage next to thier driveway, I have a little clock radio in it that I listen to while working in the garage. Many times I have had to go next door and tell em to turn it down as my walls would shake and I couldn't hear the radio inside my own garage.
I think the thing that bugs me the most os the horn honking. People pull into the driveway and start honking the horn, pull out of the dirveway and honk the horn, at all hours of the day and night. I finally had enough - I leave for work at 5:30am. The last time I heard horns after I went to bed, the next morning I pulled out of my garage at 5:30, and layed on the horn for a good 2-3 minutes before driving away. I think they got the message as I haven't heard a horn since.

[racfish]

LOL You get the horn honking but I get that bass sound that rattles the windows in my house. Thats from all young teens and older. Even though this guy lives four houses from me it still rattles the windows. Im sure this guy is a hoarder. Junk in his yard,junk in his driveway. I do feel bad for him cuz his wife passed away last year. It devestated him and his sons. Now what I have is the blood curdling screams of a 2 yo boy who loves seeing how loud he can scream. LOL.. Oh well such is life.

[Bodofish]

Yeah, I have a bunch of kids next door, they rent from an Uncle that lived in the house 6 mo. max. I don't understand the horn thing, they would all honk when they pulled up and when they left...... Now I know every one of them can text at 60wpm, what's wrong with a text. The anoying part is all their buddies come over and then they drive to do what ever it is they do on thurs, fri, sat night, beep when they arrive and then when the they all leave at 2:30 in the morning or 7:00 if they nap...... I realy don't get it. I just started using my annoyingly bright flashlight every time I heard a beep and if I had time, go out and ask if they were having a problem. They don't do it anymore.

[BentRod]

Dang! Your stories are starting to make me really appreciate my neighborhood. My few gripes are piddly compared to these. Really sorry that you have to put up with the "idiots" (you should hear what I really call them) of our society.

[Bodofish]

It was a very quiet nice place to live when I bought the house. Now I will do darn near anything to keep it that way. Sometime you just need to point out their follies and they straighten right up.

[Gringo Pescador]

Yeah, when we moved in there was a nice family that lived next door. Quiet, friendly, kept the yard up, but they bought a house and moved. The place is owned by someone that is basically just sitting on the property, they don't care about the house at all.

A couple other things I have done that seem to have helped.

I live on a fairly busy street, middle of a long straight away, many use it to avoid the lights a few blocks away on the main drag, speed limit is 35. I have invited Shoreline PD to feel free to use my driveway as a speed trap anytime they wish.

I have installed a few more motion lights around the garage, now you get anywhere near it and it lights up like the state pen on lockdown.

There is a telephone pole on the street between our two driveways, I am currently looking into what it will take to get a street light hung from it as well..

On the downside I also installed a 5' chainlink fence/gate system to park my cataraft trailer and future boat behind as I no longer trust the neighborhood.

[Amx]

The neighbor's property next door is for sale. 2 boat garage. Small back yard, larger front yard/area that would make for a great spot for BIG garage. Mobile home, '80 vintage I think.

[BentRod]

....On the downside I also installed a 5' chainlink fence/gate system to park my cataraft trailer and future boat behind as I no longer trust the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, that is the smart thing to do in ANY neighborhood these days. Thieves know no bounds. People around our neighborhood will get lax and leave their garage doors open for prolonged periods of time and it's not unusual to see an email go out saying there was a burglary due to that. Only takes a second to walk up and swipe a chainsaw or something no matter where you are. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure still holds true.

[MotoBoat]

Update to original post. Now the car guys have moved in more bachelors. Which in turn equates to more vehicles to find parking for. They now have two cars in the double garage. Working randomly on the motors of each vehicle. Two cars in the double wide driveway, working on those cars. Two more vehicles parked on the street, working on those engines. Add to that a sleep over and a recent girlfriend moved in and the street is full on there side of the block. And they are the only ones needing street parking.

So, with that in mind. They are now blocking access to the mail man. My block is a driving mail route. And although it seems lazy for the mail man to get out of the mail truck/jeep to deliver mail. He or she does not have too!.

The bank of mailboxes being blocked does not have my mailbox on it. But the other neighbors are furious. One of which is the block watch captain. Whom bought no parking signs and posted them on three sides of the wood mailbox frame. Now, being a block watch captain does have it's perks. Like, a call to the police usually gets pretty quick reaction time. Same with needing something at city hall. With that in mind. Next time one of the bachelors blocks the mail box. Before the mail man has delivered the mail. Block watch, calls city hall to inform that the mail box access by our mailman is blocked by a car.

10 minutes and the parking police troll up the street and proceed to write a 60.00 parking ticket. The amount of the ticket is revealed when I am passing by with all three dogs going for a walk, and ask what the driver is upset about. He rips all three no parking signs off of the mail box base. And tells me he does not think the lady on the corner likes him very much. I say, don't know who called to have your car ticketed. But FYI, the mail does not get delivered if a car is blocking the mail boxes on a driving route. They still park in front of the mail boxes. There learning curve is quit slow.

For the first 6mo after moving in. No music was played while they ripped into the various cars on there property or in the street. Then came the loud rap music. A few parties that resulted in outside brawls, requiring the assistance of the law.

Wife was the block watch captain. With all the extra activity across the street. She asks at the National Night Out. What it would take to get a street light on the telephone pole. located at the corner of our front yard? Two weeks later there is a nice bright LED type street light installed.

The light helps the wife, during a night of Surveillance.......LOL!

[Bodofish]

I had the mailbox problem too. The mailbox stand is in my front yard. After asking till I was blue in the face, I called the Postmaster and had a heart to heart. He had the carrier deliver notes to all on the street explaining that blocking the mailboxes is a Federal Offence and we had the right to call a tow truck if needed to clear the way. Now all I have to is point out the offending car and it's moved in under a minute.

[racfish]

I have a street light in front of my house and I love it. The city just changed out the lights to a new variety. They light up everything. I do like them.