Won’t You Be My (Rotten) Neighbor?
Crazy and Mean: Old fat hippie slumlord who like to pick fights with his neighbors. Owns half the block and several other homes in the neighborhood. Wouldn’t lift a finger to to help anyone, and acts crazy enough to keep people scared of him. Has signs around his “compound” that says things like “get caught, get shot.” Best you can hope for is that you never have to deal with him. What a douchbag.
Rot and Roll Dude: I swear… There is sooo much rust on this dudes truck, when you put your ear up too it, you can hear the ocean
Big Old Perv: This guy lures young boys into his “rock star house” with… HUGE parties, young boys… some of them caught on tape. If your son says he is going to Lake City, lock him up at home!
Seriously. These are some of our neighbors from around the Sound.
Just about a year ago, I first came upon an amusing start-up website called RottenNeighbor.com. As Fridays tend to go, with the enormous pile of work stacked up on my desk, I decided to wander on back see what’s up with my neighbors. Wow! I was amazed at the upgrades to the site, since my first visit, and certainly, there is enough on the site to keep you procrastinating your work for the rest of the day!
The biggest changes–the site’s gone multimedia. Not only can you amuse yourself with the comments that people have posted about their neighbors, but you can see photos and videos as well! Let’s see. There’s a guy throwing poop on his neighbor’s porch, endless videos of dogs barking, a festive holiday light display, and yes, one that’s found a special spot in my heart–a video of somebody’s nightmare neighbor, complete with a full frontal shot, full name, and soundtrack (ROTFL!)!
In addition, I see that they picked up on my suggestion I made last October–they’ve now overlayed local sex offender data onto their maps so you can see all local rotten neighbors and sex offenders in one place. If that’s not enough, you can have RottenNeighbor Alerts delivered to your email so you know immediately when a sex offender moves in or if a ”straw finally breaks a neighborhood camel’s back” pops up. Finally, there are site contests–yes, monetary incentives to photo document your neighbor (or do your own property in for the next time you’re looking to sell) under the guise of the “Most Interesting Neighbor in America Contest.” I am so amused!
Oh, and there are a couple of other things you should know–yes, people do post good things about themselves their neighbors on the site, so it’s not all bad. To post a comment, you must register on the site. And finally, yes, there is a mechanism for removing comments–users can flag comments and if a comment receives a certain number of flags, it will be removed. It also looks like you can submit your complaint directly to RottenNeighbor and find some resolution that way. Read the legal stuff–it’s amusing as well, a million ways to say “we’re not responsible,” reminiscent of Hogan’s Heroes’ Sgt. Schultz–”I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!”
Hey, it seems like this bad neighbor deal is pretty catchy. In another creative note ,Gizmodo, comes up with another high-tech way to annoy irritating neighbors–get creative with their unsecured wireless router. New network name? Perhaps help them lock it down (with a password of your own)? Too funny.
Do you have any nightmare neighbor stories to share? Amuse us by sharing your story–only here, no full names, addresses, or photos, please!
