“Five Reasons You Know You Live Next-door to a Jerk”

Guess what all you party people out there in internetland! I have a guest blogger visiting The Insane Asylum today…and yes she’s real and not just a figment of my imagination. Check out what she has to say about neighbors from hell from her own personal experiences, and when you’re done make sure to check out the links below for more about her.

So sit back, enjoy and show some mad love to author Nicole Maddalo Dixon!

Being a homeowner is a marvelous thing. First of all, you now have a real live, grown-up piece of equity, which means you have financial security. It also means you get to pack up your shit and make good on that promise to your parents to run away from home.

But there are negative things that come with being a homeowner. For instance, there’s Buyer’s Remorse, which, in our case meant we should have viewed the home during prime daylight hours instead of after 6PM, because our house gets no fucking sunlight. Our home is where light, and hope, come to die. Seriously, flowers and plants cannot survive on our property because…no sunlight. And then there is the worst nightmare of all: The goddamned jerky next-door neighbor.

Now these five examples all come from the neighbor my husband and I were stuck living immediately next to, in a townhome no less, for seven god-less years, but they also happen to apply to every jerk neighbor in the world, so it’s a win-win situation for the sake of this article, but a lose-lose situation for your sanity and criminal-free record when you finally lose your shit and straight-up murder them.

Non-Stop Parties

My husband and I came home from a decent, fun night out around 11PM and found out that we were suddenly living next to what was the equivalent of a frat house. Making this analogy even more precious is the fact that guests (and by guests I am of course referring to douchebags), were still arriving, and no douchebag guest would be complete without their douchey toga. Yes, this girl, in her late twenties by then, was having a real life toga party.

But Nikki, you’re thinking, that sounds awesome! I can assure you that no, no it is not. First of all, there is an ordinance against noise pollution after 11 PM for a reason, and that is to keep your black-market, nitro-amped speakers from blowing a hole through our wall, or whatever the hell kind of speakers they were (I know nothing about speakers). It is also so that I don’t have to suffer the loud din of your toga infested, douchebag guests while I am in the privacy of my own home and attempting to round off my pleasant day by falling asleep to The Bridges of Madison County.

And I’m not talking about the one-night-and-here parties, I’m talking about the every-Friday-and-Saturday-fucking-night kind of parties. Until 4:30 AM! That is NOT effing awesome! Do you honestly think I would lie about that? I wouldn’t do that to you.

And then there’s the fact that…

They Always Own One More Dog than Necessary

This jerk owned two dogs: One little rinky-dink one, and one big old fat one. Either way, both of them left their turds to fester under the hot, hot sun in the backyard that consisted not of grass, but rocks. What sort of jerk does that? I mean, really. Who makes a rock-yard for the sake of thinking it means you won’t have to clean up your little doggy messes and big fat doggy, big old fat poops?

That little one was always somehow hopping the four foot fence that separated our grass from their rocks and maybe taking a shit on our grass for good measure. And this jerk did nothing to curb her irritating little douche of a dog from hopping that fence. In fact, she even made it easier for that damned dog by carelessly leaving the gate that attached her property to ours open just a smidge. Did you understand what I just explained there? There were two hidden “jerk” red-flags in that one sentence. First, what type of self-entitled jerk installs a fence that gives access  the yard directly attached to their neighbor’s, and second, what type of jerk makes it even easier for their pesky, turd-producing jerk of a dog to get out of the yard and run around the neighborhood like a little, miniature jerk?

Then there was the weekend she went away with one of the random fellas she’d bring home from the bar (though she wound up marrying this one. Score one for desperation!). She left those ridiculous dogs, locked up I have to assume, in her bedroom with her freaking windows open. It was spring, and my husband and I had our windows open as well to let in a nice, pleasant, little springtime breeze, and apparently also the unwelcome sounds of two jerk dogs barking throughout the entire freaking night. Adding to this fun-filled night is the fact that that bedroom of hers is literally directly next to the bedroom of ours. Finally, at 3 AM, I went outside and left a note on her door that read, and I quote, “Your windows are open and your dogs are barking continuously so we can’t sleep. P.S., everybody on this block hates you.” Signed, Nikki. Yes, I absolutely signed that letter, because that’s how I roll and I would have liked her to dare try and approach me. She never did. She just hid behind the walls of that brothel townhome of hers calling me “the bitch next-door”. I found out about this little gem because…

She Finally Found Someone Who Was Also Equally a Jerk

Yes, as I mentioned, she managed to get one of the men she brought home on the weekends to stick around, and I’ll tell you why—because he had nothing better to do. She gave him a job in her gym, or whatever the hell it was she owned, and she let him move into her house because she had no self-respect or pride.

He showed up on our doorstep drunk in the evening after 10 PM to “apologize” for her behavior while my husband and I were discussing the horrifying and devastating death of a member of our family.

I did not want this brand new contending jerk to stick around, and so I accepted his “apology”, and then explained that we were discussing the death of a loved one and his memorial service in the hopes that he would get the hint and leave quietly. Instead, he proceeded to then apologize for our loss, and then proceeded to unnecessarily stick around all inebriated and wobbly-like, and continue apologizing for, and I can’t stress this enough, something he had taken no part in and so therefore did not know what the fuck he was even talking about. Plus, there was the matter of the alcohol that made damned sure that he did not know what the fuck he was even talking about!

He then asked me my name and said, during his speech of apology, “I only know you as the bitch next-door.” I had to know, so I asked him, “Are you for real? Is this how you give an apology for something that you have no idea what you’re even fucking talking about?” He then proceeded to again accuse me of dumping cigarette ashes and butts between “their” storm and entry doors.

I say “again” because…

He Accused Me of Dumping Cigarette Ashes and Butts between Her Storm and Entry Doors

So you see, this nightmare neighbor accused me of a crime I did not commit and, proving he was even dumber than I originally  thought, said he called the cops to report it. But he totally lied. Now I am a criminal justice major who graduated at the top of her entire graduating class (summa, thank you very much!), so I therefore knew that if he had indeed called the cops, that cop was on the other end of the line rolling his eyes. It turns out this was true because when I snarkily called to check up on his report, the cop whom I spoke with had a very good laugh over this ridiculousness with me.

Anyway, this asshole announces this imagined crime by telling my husband that I dumped ashes full of cigarette butts between her storm and entry doors. This is just simple proof that more people than just me hated her, because no, I didn’t freaking do that! He should have figured this out by the fact that I am obviously confrontational, and so therefore, have no use for doing sneaky things like dumping cigarette ashes between someone’s front doors.

This is how I first found out about him by the way, and I don’t need to remind you of the old adage “There is no second chance for a first impression”. Well, in this case, it was certainly true.

I was out that evening, and my husband was sitting peacefully on the porch enjoying a quiet summer night when this new jerk showed up to confront him (and he was drunk of course) about my dumping said ashes, and then proceeded to tell my husband that if I were more of a woman I would have confronted her. Now, if he knew what the fuck he was even talking about he would know that I had confronted her several times in the past which always involved me nicely asking her to be the fuck quiet.

So, my husband, understandably angry, reports this to me, and so I do what I do best and went over to confront her. But he answered the door. I told him, nicely (this was before I left that fun little post-it on her door telling her everybody hated her), that I did not in fact dump those ashes. So this confirmed genius asks me (the person who did not do it) where the ashes and butts came from then. “How the fuck should I know?” I thought to myself. But what I said was, “Well, there is a beach-bucket right there on your porch that’s filled to the brim with cigarette butts and ashes. Perhaps that’s where they came from.” I’m not even kidding—there was a beach-bucket filled to the brim with cigarette butts and ashes on her front porch. He said “No, they did not.” I don’t have to tell you at this point that these two jerks made it easy for just anyone to come along and show their dislike by using their own cigarette butts and ashes against them. But whatever, clearly they knew that the cigarette butts and ashes did not come from that bucket, and that I did it. I’m sure they combined their genius-level IQs and CSI’d the shit out of those cigarette butts and ashes between their doors and found out my tiny little ashtray did the trick and not that medium-sized beach-bucket full that was sitting right there on their front porch.

And Finally

I Did Nice Things For Her Always Without So Much As A “Thank You”.

Okay, despite leaving that really mean post-it on her door, I was nothing but genial towards her (no, I don’t know why. I’m just awesome, I assume). During all those parties I went out back and kindly asked her to turn it down, and this is how I was finally pushed into writing that note, because people can only take so much before they crack.

I also helped rescue that little jerk of a dog when it escaped for the umpteenth time through the smidgen of a crack she left between that intrusive gate and fence, and as she came outside to lazily attempt to catch him herself, she did so at the exact moment I put that dog, lovingly, ever so lovingly, back into her poop-infested rock yard and fucking closed the gate. She just stood there, silent, watching. I gave her a smirk. Seriously? No thank you for that? After all the hell she had put me through? I still helped her dumb little dog from becoming road-pie and she couldn’t even thank me. What a jerk.

If you live next to someone, or someone’s like this, who has at least 2-3 of this attributes, you may be living next to a big, fat, jerk.

The End

Nicole Maddalo Dixon is the author of Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid, Book I, and was born and raised in Philadelphia, and now lives in Bucks County,  PA with her husband, Wallace.

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