Welcome to my dysfunctional neighborhood. I live in a development in a rural area. The land used to be a farm; now its crop is rows of McMansions which house some very interesting souls. The part we live in is "Stage/Phase 2" or some other term. The houses near the entrance are "older" by maybe a year or two, but they are "Phase One". Yes, it sounds sinister.
We built our house 6 and 1/2 years ago and we live where the development abuts another, older development, with no pass through roads. Our street is a horseshoe shape and we live near the bottom, towards the curve.
To our immediate left is a very nice family from India. They have 2 boys and are fairly quiet and don't interact much with the neighborhood. They tried very hard to get to know people but I think the neighbors were turned off by the food (my neighbor rocks the curry and vegetarian stuff I have never seen or tried in an "American" Indian restaurant.) They held 3 or 4 large parties, inviting their friends from the tri-state area and people on the block. I think our family was the only family who ate anything. They haven't invited anyone to their parties in 2 years, I think due to the ignorant sniggering in relation to the food and music choices. Every year, about 2 to 3 weeks before Christmas, the Homeowners' Association gets upset because my Indian neighbors put up lights and have fireworks. I tried to tell the idiot President of the HOA our neighbors are Hindi and are celebrating Diwali and not Christmas.
Our neighbors to the right are a nice family with a boy and girl. The dad is kind of a model train freak and the mom is into gardening. I have never had a problem with them and they are generally nice people. The mom watches some of the younger neighborhood kids on the side for some income.
Directly across from us is a young couple who had no kids when they moved in; just a dog and a cat. They now have a newborn and a 2 year old. They are both former Marines; the husband is now a police officer and the mom has some corporate job. These are the people who went psycho after the camping trip the neighborhood ladies went on 4 years ago. The husband told the wife not to talk about him on the trip. Of course we talked about our husbands; and our kids and lots of other things. I saw the husband a couple days after the trip at our Chiro and he was joking how we all probably sat around and talked about "our men" all weekend. I said yes (or something to that effect) but didn't reveal anything specific. (What the hell else do a bunch of drunk women in the woods talk about for 2 days???) Anyway, this is the couple whose marriage I "ruined". They seem to be okay as they now have 2 children and are still married. They have not spoken or waved or nodded at me in 4 years.
Next to them is the couple with 2 boys and a younger daughter. They are the ones with the hunting cabin up on Route 6 where this whole stupid drama unfolded. Dad is a very quiet person. He still waves and speaks to us so I hold nothing against him. The wife is a drama queen. We used to have coffee or tea a couple times a week (she works at home doing court transcriptions). She would dish on everyone in the neighborhood. And I am the one with the big mouth? After cop-wife decided I was evil, hunter's wife stopped speaking to me and started some weird campaign to befriend the whole neighborhood and poison them against me.
The kids' bus stop used to be at one corner. I would go there in the morning with my kids (after our camping fiasco) and in the afternoon to pick them up to walk home. Everytime I would get to the corner, I would get stares, and the women would very deliberately turn their backs to me. It was hellish. I wanted to move so badly. We even looked at houses but the market at that point had started to fall and we would lose financially big time.
This year we have 2 bus stops; one of them is MY driveway. I can't even go outside to wave my children off to school. I hug and kiss them and send them outside and watch as these moms let their kids run through my flower beds and hang from my mailbox.
I am a prisoner in my own home.
There are neighbors who do speak to us and are above this whole mess but it really isn't enough when you have 2 houses across the street, 1 up the street and 3 more behind us that are acting like 12 year old girls. Sometimes they send my kids home, not letting them play (outside) with their kids.
It is one thing to treat me poorly but when you take it out on my children that is beyond immature.
The development as a whole, not just my street, is totally weird. The HOA switches roles among three people so there really are never real elections with new people running. A painter who came to my house (I found out he lives on the other side of the development) said he hates it here too. He lived in another development before this one and he knew there was always drama but he said no one says "hi" or waves. He and his family feel isolated as well.
I swear, the minute the housing market recovers, we are out of here. Between my junior high mentality neighbors (who all talked trash to me about each other until I became the common enemy) and living with an HOA that tells me what color my door can be and having to ask permission to do anything to MY house that I paid for, I just want to go live in a cave.
I just wish my kids didn't have to see adults acting like this. It breaks my heart.
