There are some people on our street who are moving house. 

Again.

This is the latest in a series of moves for them, and that's just at this base.  I don't know exactly how many times they moved at their last duty assignments, but I know that the moves were pretty frequent. Here, they've moved from on-base housing to off-base civilian housing, then they moved civilian houses twice before applying to come back on base again.  Now they're moving to another subdivision off-base, and I'm sure that before too long they'll be back in base housing again.

Why all the moves?  They say that they've had crappy neighbors.  When they lived off base, they said that the moves were partially due to neighbors but that landlord and community problems also contributed to their frequent changes of address.

I asked them once exactly what 'crappy' meant when applied to neighbors and landlords and communities.  They said that they received complaints for things like playing their music too loud, having parties that went on too late, not picking up after their pets and letting the yard pile up with feces, having vehicles in various states of disrepair and decay in the drive, letting trash pile up, moving people in who were not on the lease or who had no business living in military housing, letting their children run around unsupervised.  To hear them tell it, it wasn't THEIR fault; it was their neighbors who were the problem.  They didn't do many of the things they'd been accused of doing, and the thungs that they HAD done were being greatly exaggerated.  Besdies, they didn't see how what they chose to do in their own home was anyone else's business but their own and felt that they were being unfairly persecuted.

When they first moved onto this street I really felt that their tale of neighborly woe was true; that they'd simply been unlucky and weren't guilty of much (if any) wrongdoing.  I honestly thought that they were really nice people - good parents, responsible pet owners and just all around good folks.

That was before we had to live on the same street as them. 

It all started with their dog.  It got loose almost daily and took to crapping in anyone else's yard but it's own.  When it WAS tied up in their own yard it barked and howled incessantly, and they never seemed to take it inside.  The guy at the end of the street works mid shifts (nights) and it was getting to be almost impossible for him to get any rest, so he went over to their house, hoping to explain the situation to them and have them be good neighbors and work with him to a mutually acceptable resolution.

What he got was a mouthful of cuss words and the door slammed in his face.  He went home thinking that he'd just got them on a bad day and that once they'd calmed down they'd see where he was coming from and try to be a little more understanding.

He was wrong.  The dog was left out even MORE than it was before he complained.  In addition, they started having parties until 3 and 4 am; they turned a blind eye to their kids vandalism and bullying of kids years younger, they let their garbage overflow, dog crap pile up in the backyard and they had people who had no right to be on base living in their home and coming and going as they pleased.  They showed no respect for anyone else's property and possessions and if any of the other neighbors tried to talk to them about it they were laughed at, cussed at, and had the door slammed in their faces.  One of the families on the street even reported their kid being bullied and picked on after she'd gone over to ask them to keep it down at 2 am.

It wasn't any of the neighbors they'd lived next to before, it wasn't any of their landlords or even the community - it was THEM.  THEY were the bad neighbors.  They were guilty ones, they were the ones who were the problem.  I should have seen it earlier; I should have known that where there was smoke there was fire and I shouldn't have believed that they were pure as the driven snow.  Anyone who has had consistent issues with ALL (or most) of the communities/streets that they've lived in can't be completely innocent, there HAS to be some reason for their inability to get along with others.  At some point people like that have to understand that it's not 'them' that's the problem, it's us.  Or you, however you want to look at it.

I'm seriously tempted to throw a party when these people load up their last box and roll out of the street for the last time.  I'm not going to, it's the wrong thing to do and would make me no better than them.

However, I AM going to be glad to see them go.

Ecstatically happy, actually.