Crazy Things Happening Right Next Door
No neighborhood is the same—and the same goes for your neighbors. These folks discovered the crazy things going down right next door.
1. Open Up!
A few weeks ago, I watched from my yard as officers used an axe and a sledgehammer to break down my neighbor’s door. Later, I found out the chilling truth. Turns out she had come home to find someone in her house and called the authorities. I could see through the window as they went in and subdued the guy. He was clinging to a rafter, so they had to pepper spray him.
The weirdest thing about it though was that the guy only had one leg and had no apparent escape plan besides running away.
2. A Lifesaving Warning
My mom usually walks around the house when she's on the phone. I was asleep at the time, but she was sitting in our living room on the phone with her mother and decided to adjust her seating on the couch. She adjusted in a way that she could see bright orange out of her peripheral vision. That’s when she made a disturbing discovery. Out the front window, she could see flames raging out of my neighbor’s roof.
She immediately told her mother she had to go, that there was a fire next door, and called 9-1-1. She woke up my dad all frantic.
He got up, threw on shorts and a T-shirt, and ran across the street, hopping their brick wall and pretty much bashing down the front door. The entire family was standing in their kitchen, looking around wondering why their fire alarm was going off.
They didn't speak much English, but they knew enough to understand "YOUR ROOF IS ON FIRE, GET OUT!" I still wonder here and there what would have happened if my mom had gone to sleep with my dad that night instead of staying up a bit later.
3. The Eyes Are On Us
We were the spied-on neighbors. I was just out of surgery and not really fit to be left unaccompanied for more than an hour or two without adult supervision. After about a fortnight, one of the neighbors pulled my husband aside on the way home. I still laugh when I think about what she said. She told him that I was having men over to the house in his absence. She thought something unsavory was going on.
He thanked her kindly for the information and informed her that he was well aware that my dad and my brother were visiting me on a daily basis. We weren't offended.
It's actually quite nice to know that there is someone around to keep an eye on the house, sign for parcels, etcetera. It's also quite nice to know that she'd risk a negative response to tell us something like that.
4. Getting In Some Practice
About eight years ago, I was going on holiday with my family, and due to the early morning flight, we had booked an airport hotel the evening before.
The design of the hotel was quite unusual as the interior rooms all had windows facing into the center of the hotel, looking onto the bars and restaurants. These each had opaque blinds which when drawn you couldn't see in.
My mum and I were having a drink in the bar and when I looked up, I saw an overweight man in his early 50s standing on his bed practicing his golf swing...club in hand.
The guy had obviously drawn back his curtains to take in the view and completely forgotten to shut them again. To make things worse, he just didn't stop.
He got more enthusiastic and began punching the air after a particularly strong swing. Still to this day I can picture him and hear my mum laughing when she realized what I was looking at. But hats off to the guy, he was having a wonderful time.
