A continuation of Tales From The Hood…
Gun Fire Too Close To Home
The other night we were sitting on our sofa watching television when we heard really loud gun fire outside a home 3 houses up the street from us. It was so loud that it sounded like it was in the same room with us. I flew off the sofa and plastered my body flat against the floor. David ran over to the window to see what was happening. All the while I am screaming, “Get out of the window! Get out of the window!”
David saw two Hispanic teenagers running up the street, right past our house. We assume it was a gang related incident. No one was hurt but it definately scared me.
Selling Crack Across The Street
My sweet neighbor from across the street saw me in my yard and came over to talk. She asked me if I had seen a green Buick parked in front of her house. I told her I had but admitted that I hadn’t really paid much attention to it. She told me that I needed to start paying more attention because the man was selling crack from his car. This woman lives directly across the street from us!
She handed me a slip of paper with the car’s license plate number written on it. She asked if I would call the police on her behalf since her English is not that clear. I called the police department for our area directly. The officer who took my call wanted to know how my neighbor knew for sure the man was selling crack? I explained that it is happening in front of her house so she was able to observe the transactions and it was pretty obvious the man wasn’t selling Avon.
The officer told me to call 911 the next time we saw the car because the police would need to catch the man in the act of selling crack. At this point I became frustrated and asked if the officer could at least run the license plate number. He did and said it was registered to a Buick. The officer again requested for me to tell my neighbor to call 911 the next time she saw the vehicle.
The whole exchange was infuriating. I can see why most of my neighbors are of the opinion that the police don’t care. The car hasn’t been back since I reported it to the police. I almost wonder if someone at the police department tipped off the crack dealer?
The Attempted Burglary 4 Hours After We Left Town
Last summer David and I flew to D.C. for a vacation. Our flight was right before noon. We usually schedule an early morning flight so that we can leave our house under the cover of darkness but that didn’t work out this time. The taxi picked us up and took us to the airport. Four hours after we left town we received a call from our alarm company letting us know that an alarm screen had been tripped.
The police responded about 45 minutes after the alarm company contacted them. Of course, by this time there was no intruder to be caught. They filed it as a false alarm and the city of Los Angeles stuck us with a $115 fine.
When we got back in town a few days later I called the police department to file a report. They sent out an officer who basically said there was nothing he could do because there were no witnesses or any evidence. He believed that someone in our area had observed us leaving and did try to enter through the kitchen window because it is shielded from the street. The officer said the alarm served its purpose and scared the would-be burglar off.
It wasn’t stated but the innuendo was that $115 is probably a small price to pay when being faced with having our house broken into. I see his point of view but I’m angry because it WASN’T A FALSE ALARM.
The other incidents were people coming into our neighborhood and doing illegal activities. The people who actually live here are hardworking. They take care of their houses, manicure their lawns and generally make great neighbors. I am most bothered that someone who actually lives near us is either tipping off a friend or is willing to steal from us directly, i.e. is generally not a great neighbor.
Most of the time our area is a quiet, peaceful transitional neighborhood. Hopefully, the negative elements will completely transition on out of here.
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You just described my worst fear of certain undesirable people watching us leave and then trying to get into our house. We had a woman- crack addict & prostitute that was always hanging out in front of her apt. building and she would see us leave. That would make me really uncomfortable. We don’t have an alarm system, but Steve works out of the house and we are homebodies, but when we would go out and be seen leaving- esp. for a trip- I hated that. Fortunately she was kicked out and we have no more loiterers.
I was be really mad about the so-called false alarm- what a scam and how irksome. But it must give you some peace of mind. When we buy that flat screen TV, I think we might reactivate our ADT.
I hope the negative stuff fades away for you guys- believe me I know the feeling!
Yikes! I can relate. I sold my studio in the nicest area of DC and bought a townhouse in an “up and coming” area of DC. Sometimes it’s great, but sometimes I wish gentrification would work it’s magic a little faster, like when a couple of people (I assume drug dealers) were shot and killed a block from my place.
Still, even though the real estate market looks like it’s topping out, even some of the rental buildings are wising up and fixing up their buildings to they can rent to yuppies instead of crackheads and drama mamas.
I think I can understand how home ownership makes people republicans. I somtetimes find myself saying things like “we should lock up all the drug dealers and throw away the key” or “why is that pothole there? Where do my taxes go?”.
I only have one thing to say:
http://www.chowchow.org/
My Mom raised chows. We got one from a litter, female. We chose her because when you picked her up she tried to bite you
Wonderful dog. We’re Caucasian and lived in a neighborhood that was primarily becoming African-American, and even more importantly, ghetto. The cops would set up vans across the street to photograph and monitor the drug deals at the end of our block sometimes.
One night someone tried to break into my kid’s bedroom while we were in the house – I heard him fiddling with the window. I had my wife flip the light on while I was standing by the window, and he looked like a deer caught in headlights. I ran, opened the back door and let the dog out…
That kid looked just like a basketball player when he hurdled our fence to get out before the dog got him.
A Chow may not be the right dog for you, but properly trained, cared for and socialized they make great pets. If not socialized, they do become very territorial and aggressive. She doesn’t like black men, but otherwise anybody can come in the house invited and she is at ease. We have to put her out back when certain friends come over, because she really doesn’t like black people after living in that neighborhood. I think part is that the neighborhood gangs terrorized her and threw rocks at her when she was in the back yard.
But, she is and always has been an INDOOR dog. A “guard” dog can’t protect the house if it’s not in the house, not to mention it’s just not good for the dog to stay outside all the time.
Chows are also a very lazy breed – mostly she like to lay on the cool tile by the front door and lounge around. The kids of course play with her around an hour each day, but otherwise she just lays around, and bark at the mailman before he even gets on our block.
Ditto the sold my former house in a yuppie neighborhood to move to an up and coming hood story. Most of the time I don’t mind my new hood.
A couple of years ago, I had two delivery men for Marshall Fields steal my purse (and identity) while delivering furniture. I knew the purse was gone immediatley while they were still at my house. I called the police (twice). They told me they did not file reports on “that kind of thing.” I finally went down the precinct and insisted that they file a report….even though the officer told me not a thing would be done after the report was filed. I think they were concerned that their crime statistics would rise. Last summer I also had someone break into my garage after observing me leave town….like we need that stress.
I think criminals spot areas where smaller crime is not dealt with and move in….and this brings even bigger crime. We now have gang violence where we have never seen it before – last week a gun battle in two cars ended up at my (former) grocery store. My whole opinion of the local police (and mayor) has changed.
Insist on filing police those written reports even if they whine.
I have a house that I am remodeling, its in a quiet, middle class neighborhood. This summer I had taken the gutters off to clean and paint, they went missing two days later. Not a big deal, but still annoying. Then when it started getting colder out in October, I closed the house up, a day later, someone broke in through a window and stole all of my tools. Funny because all summer it was so hot I had the windows open, I was never bothered. Then two weeks later they broke in again, this time I had taken my tools home with me, so there was nothing to steal……..I found out one of my neighbors down the street stole the gutters, he recycles and apparently thought that anything outside my house was fair game. I’m wondering if he’s the same one who took the tools….regardless, its sad when you can’t even trust your neighbors.
I agree with what stucco house said. If the police don’t do anything about it, it only gets worse. There was an article in the Washington Post the other day about a group of kids who bulglarized their old neighborhood (which was now full of yuppies) because they knew it so well. They would do sometimes 5 burglaries a day and the police didn’t catch them for years. (DC police are notoriously incompetent. THey solve less than 1/2 of murders committed here. Compare that with 95% solve rate for Japan). It was only an alert citizen who snapped a pic of them with a digital camera that eventually got them caught. The one who cooperated with prosecutors got only a 4 year sentence (with time off for good behavior and minus time served, I’m sure). And they wonder why people are sick of the way the criminal justice system works. Too bad they hadn’t been caught with a marijuana cigarette. I’m sure they would tack on 20 years more for that…gotta’ get your priorities straight!
We had someone break in to out apartment (before we bought our house), and Deb walked in on the guy. She tried to grab the bag of stuff out of his hands (not a good idea btw). He got away, she called 911, and they came right away. They knew who he was by the description, and had her look at a photo line up. They took prints, and caught the guy a few days later. He got 2 years in the end, which isn’t much considering this guy was probably doing 5 or more B&e’s a day. We’ve been lucky so far in the new neighbourhood. There are quite a few hookers a few blocks away, they just keep moving up and down the street, from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
There are probably more than a few neighbors who pray you guys stay on despite the crime. Its a sad situation and one my wife and I share with you. My neighbors watched this neighborhood go downhill and we, like you are rehabbing a 1920 Bungalow and the happiest people are our neighbors because we’ve injected life back onto the street. The more people are out and about, talking to neighbors, eventually the less crime there will be. Good Luck, and I recommend you get a bigger dog than those adorable corgis. I know, they bark and alert you, but they won’t keep an aggresor out. Funny, I don’t know you, but feel invested and worry about you. Boy the internet is weird… haha
wow, am I ever grateful for the west palm beach police department right now. Just last week we had some random guy that knocked on a door down the street and the neigbor vine warned me not to go to the door and the police were out in about 5 minutes. We get police out to file reports on stolen bicycles when we don’t even know for sure when they went missing. You should protest at the city level for better enforcment. Ours is great. We have regular patrols and they remind everyone, if it looks out of place, it probably is. You know your ‘hood. We have an alarm of course but the city takes every little theft very seriuosly. They want every one reported and documented to help them determine how to set the patrol. This reminds me to take some holiday treat to the police station!!! Merry Christmas.
I used to live in the South End of Boston when it was “transitioning” from hard core ghetto. We lived on the “garden level” (basement) of a really cool brownstone. One night I woke up and swore that I heard our sliding glass door rattling… but since our back yard was completely fenced in by a 10 ft tall fence, I did not get too nervous. The next morning I found three cigerette butts in the vicinity of the door… I was pretty freaked out and never slept very well there ever again.