We have new neighbors. All I can say is, we want our old ones back…

Of all the things they could do to create a wrong first impression with us, they had to pick repeatedly parking in front of our driveway...

Nice, people. Real nice.

I had even bought them a pie… And they still insist on being obnoxious, ig-nint, a-holes.

Go on… just keep ignoring our warnings... See where it gets you…

To no surprise of anyone, they are a Puerto Rican family. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a Puerto Rican family, its just that the South Side is ALL Puerto Rican, except for a bunch of blacks and a small handful of whites.

Seems to be 6 of them living in that house, which is funny because the previous family of 5 moved out in search of more room. But I guess they don’t mind being squished together. The first person I counted was a 30 year-old woman who left two crying babies sitting in two car seats in the back of her car while she moved stuff into the house. Then there was an older man of around 66 years of age who apparently speaks no English. I meet the other two people later on that day….

The old man was sitting on the porch, so I walked up to introduce myself and give them the pie. He nodded graciously and pointed to the opened front door, spat out something in Spanish of which I only understood the word “girlfriend” and pointed to the opened door. A woman in her 40’s came to the entrance with her 11 year-old son. I understood this woman to be his girlfriend, and introduced myself to her. I told her I lived right next door, welcomed her to the neighborhood and handed her the pie. She took it and asked me, “how much?” I explained to her that I was not selling her the pie, I was giving it to her. She seemed much happier once that was clear.

Later that day, we found their car parked in front of our driveway. Earl made a stink and the old man suddenly appeared with a set of keys and began to move the car to an…

Empty spot…

One space back…

So in other words, the old fart had been sitting on the porch with the keys the whole time, knowing there was an empty spot available only a few feet from our driveway, but only moved the car once he was told to.

Earl pulled out of the driveway and was only going to the store on the corner, so his trip was about 6 minutes long. When he turned our corner, there was the car again in front of our driveway.

MAN. He was LIVID.

He screeched the tires and peeled back down the road to circle the block while the old man move the car once again. When Earl came back around the corner and pulled into our driveway, he told the old guy he CANNOT park in front of our house EVER.

He was answered with a smile and a nod.

Sunday came and we had to tell them to move their car about 5 more times. Twice they parked ¾ of the way in front, almost as if they were teasing us. Finally Sunday night, the car was once again back in front of the driveway. Although we had weathered “No Parking” signs up on our gate, we thought maybe they weren’t bright enough and got new ones from Home Depot earlier that day. I also picked up a very large 2-foot white sign with a big slashed out “P” and a warning that violator’s vehicles will be towed at their own expense. I figured even if none of them can read English, they cant possibly misinterpret the slashed out P thing. So we posted the signs up, expecting them to move the car by morning…

6:45am. Car still there. We rang the doorbell. No one answered. We honked the horn twice for a long annoying amount of time. Still nothing.

We called the police.

The cop rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. He went back to his car and started to write out a ticket. I smiled at Earl and whispered, “That’s it. That’s all they get. One doorbell ring. So sad, too bad, your dad – you get a ticket.” This cop was on the ball in our book.

Next he called a tow truck. It took forever, but the tow finally showed up about 7:40. You would think that with all the clinging and clanging of metal chains on a metal lift, not to mention the sound of a car being dragged across the pavement would be enough for anyone to wake up… Apparently not. We all kept looking at the door, expecting someone to come out. It wasn’t until the car was completely on the truck and was about to leave, did the 30 year-old woman come to the door. She played the part of the poor innocent victim, of course. “Oh noooo please, that is my carrrr, pleaseee take it downnnnn”.

Ahhh, she does speak English...

It was now 7:50. Over an hour had passed to get this car out of our way. We were not only going to be stuck in horrendous traffic now, but no one was going to pay us for the hour of work we both missed. Earl thought we should leave them a bill for the time they caused us to miss at work. Sounded like a good idea to me, if I thought it would ever result in payment.

As we backed out of the driveway, we watched the cop, with his hands flailing around in the air, yelling at her that we’ve been trying to wake them up for an hour and now it was too late, and tough luck, and she should know better, and all that.

Earl asked me what I thought they would be like when we got home, and I replied that there better be a fucking pie on my porch when we pull into our driveway.

Well, there was no pie. There was no “sorry” note in our mailbox. As a matter of fact, as I left later in the evening for kickboxing, they were outside in their yard and not a single one came over to apologize.

Sooo, I guess we know where we stand with these neighbors.

The good news is, as we just found out, they are only RENTING.

THANK DOG.

Wait… I just wasted a perfectly good pie on renters?? No wonder the bitch looked so surprised.

So - ideas on how to get them to want to leave? I see the Brady Bunch haunted house episode happening…