The people who have the newly installed drive thru are pretty much not on speaking terms with any of us neighbors anymore so we're all speculating.

The car that belongs to the Screamers is in their driveway undamaged. Their granddaughter's car is in the garage, backed in. Front end looked ok; couldn't see what the trunk looked like but I'm guessing it is crunched.

Best guess is someone got in granddaughter's car, put it in reverse, and went backwards through the wall as Nina described. Tensions run high constantly over there, so it could have been any of them who did it while some argument was raging.

As I said before, a pretty dysfunctional household at this point. Given that over the last year or so they stopped keeping up with outside maintenance like lawn mowing and leaf raking (they used to be out in the yard all the time), I'm wondering how long it will take them to get someone out to look at the damage and prop up the wall.

They haven't bothered to move the granddaughter's car out of the garage. I think the next photo I'll be posting is of a newish Subaru buried under a pile of rubble.....

Ugh, sounds just awful.

We don't have exciting neighbors like that, but once someone else's dog escaped and attacked a teeny tiny dog that was being walked, the mom of the teeny dog was trying to get the big dog off of her dog, it was kind of dramatic.

Another time a neighbor's car caught fire and then exploded.

I mean, I guess that was pretty exciting...


ETA: I'm obviously going to hell.

A small bit of good news... some relatives came over a couple of weekends ago and fixed the back wall of the garage. The bricks will have to wait until spring but it's been supported and is closed up to the elements.

But in other news....the household situation continues to deteriorate. Over the weekend we got a much more detailed picture of what's going on.

Apparently she has taken up drinking, sometimes all night, and goes into wild rages, throwing stuff around everywhere. The interior of the house is trashed.

We hear them outside in the middle of the night in freezing temps, with her refusing to go inside if he's in the house. He's very patient and tries to cajole her back in and she eventually does.

Their two year old great-grandson had basically been living with them since he was born. The little boy's mother has been in and out of trouble for years and has no sense of responsibility, so she is more than willing to let someone else take care of him.

Suffice to say that the great-grandparents are in their 70s/80s and not in good physical (or emotional) shape. There's no way they can care for him. But my neighbor is obsessed with kids and insists he stay there. She keeps calling her daughter and granddaughter to bring the great-grandkid over. They cave in part because it works for them, and in part because she becomes hysterical and angry when she doesn't get her way.

Back in the autumn, wife hit hubby over the head with a can of Lysol, requiring him to get stitches. Police were involved (again) and they called in DCFS because it became clear there is a kid in an unstable household. DCFS ordered only supervised visits, but recently the kid's mother started dropping him off and leaving him there again.

All hell broke loose again Friday.

Turns out the great-grandkid has a spiral fracture of his arm that apparently happened Thursday sometime. Story about how that happened is muddled, to say the least. Police got involved and think it happened at my neighbors' house.

The accusation set her off and she went on a binge. She hit her husband over the head again Friday night, requiring another trip to the ER. ​

She's in jail, also for the second time (guess she was locked up back in the fall).​ It took two cops to haul her away this time.

Hubby came over to our house on Saturday (including at 5 am when he got back home from the ER) and told us much of what happened, and that "after all of this is taken care of, I'm going to divorce her." The next words out of his mouth were "She's in the county jail at 26th and California. I'll give you a thousand dollars to drive me down there. I want to be sure she's OK.". He could sign papers that would require her to be held for psychiatric evaluation but he won't do it.

I managed to get in touch with one of their (responsible) family members. God bless them, they've been involved for some time and are trying to figure out what to do.

People live with this kind of stuff every day, but I've never been this close to this kind of total hell.

To say it's unsettling is an understatement.

Holy ******* ****.


(Jodi already took 'Jesus')

It sounds a lot like dementia. My father has something called Frontotemporal dementia and it’s horrifying and absolutely heartbreaking. Unable to control emotions - especially anger, thinking you are capable but you are not. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, it’s no way to spend the end of your life, being a danger to yourself and to those around you.

She's been a difficult person since I've known her, and that's been 30 years plus. Would yell at her husband but control herself with others. Until she was in a position where she thinks she's done something "wrong". Then she turns on the person who pointed something out to her.

She's never wrong; it's always someone else's fault that things aren't going the way she wants. She would reconstruct reality to conform to her thinking.

The alcohol is a new thing; she has never been a drinker. That was confirmed by the family member with whom I spoke.

I had the same thought you did, jodi, that dementia is also thrown into the mix.

Yikes!

I’m so sorry, wtg. And Jodi, I’m sorry about your father, too.

What jon said.

I think if alcohol were discovered today, it would be a Schedule II drug and only available by prescription.

Or more likely, Schedule I.

jodi-

*hugs*

What AM and pj said, jodi.

That child needs to be removed from there if his parents are unable/unwilling to ensure his safety. Spiral fractures are a classic indicator of abuse.

They (my neighbors, the little boy, and his mother) are on the police department and DCFS radar after all the incidents during the last few months. Some weeks the cops were here every few days. Lull for a few weeks, then another round.

I believe what triggered her on Friday was a visit from the police after the kid was treated for the injury.

The little boy wasn’t supposed to be at my neighbor’s house unsupervised. His mother left him there and went out with friends. The little boy’s father is out of the picture; disappeared after the girl got pregnant.

I don’t know how many slip ups she’s allowed before the kiddo is put in foster care.

And Chas is right. Great-grandma needs psychiatric care. But her husband won’t sign the paperwork. He’s brainwashed and has no sense of self-protection. The whole family lives in fear of She Who Must Be Obeyed. Frankly, so do I.

I fear this isn’t going to end well.

I predict that house will burn.

Keep your insurance current.

Well the house hasn't burned but....

The lady was taken away for evaluation in the mental health unit of the local hospital. She went ballistic and her husband called the police. Whatever she said to the police and paramedics allowed them to take her in for evaluation for up to 72 hours. She was there for ten days.

Her husband hit a curb with their car while she was in the hospital, damaging the wheels and suspension. He rented a car while his is being repaired and managed to scrape the wheel well on the rental. He returned the car to Enterprise and they wouldn't rent to him again; they actually drove him to Hertz.

He rented a car from Hertz about a week and a half ago and totaled it yesterday half a block from home. It's an intersection with a two-way rather than a four-way stop but all of us who live nearby know that people routinely run that stop sign so we're always on alert. Well, most of us are. My neighbor was speeding and the other driver ran the stop sign, and my neighbor t-boned the other car in the rear door. Technically it's the other driver's fault, not my neighbor's, but there's no way it should have happened. Airbags went off in the car my neighbor was driving and apparently he broke some bones in his hand; the other driver was not injured.

He's back today and has managed to rent another car....

Four accidents in four months (three in the last three weeks), with two cars totaled.

On the plus side....the mason who came and rebuilt the outside brick wall on the garage did a stellar job. I got his name in case I ever need brick work done.....