Home in KS being threatened by harassing neighbor.

[moviemonster]

My fiancee and I lease a very nice home on the very edge of a very nice neighborhood. I would estimate that my monthly lease payment is in the top 10% for the entire city. We have been in this home for over three years now, we pay our rent on time, take good care of the property, and have had no problems whatsoever with the management company that we leased it from. Our problem lies with the little old lady who lives across the street. We have been as kind as we possibly could to this elderly woman. I take her food, I haul her trash bin back up to her garage on trash day, heck I even gave her a ride to the beauty parlor not two days after one of her false complaints. But her complaints just keep coming. I had a garage sale, she filed a complaint with the zoning commission for running a business. Our children park in the street (in front of our house) she calls their vehicles in as abandoned. We work on our cars or a project in our garage or driveway and she calls it in as a nuisance. We have a barbecue and she calls in a complaint to the police dept because of the visitors cars parked along the street. We've spoken to the officers, we've spoken to the zoning commission, we've spoken to the city, they've all informed us that as long as we are not doing anything wrong, which has been their finding in every complaint that was responded to, we've got nothing to worry about. Wrong. Apparently when this woman complains, she not only complains to whatever authority she deems appropriate, having known him as her former neighbor, she calls the owner of the property directly to complain to him as well. And not only does she complain on her own behalf, she has her two grown children who live quite far from this area call to lodge complaints as well. We are talking about complaints as trivial as "they've left their garage door open again." The owner of the property is now so exhausted by these calls that we have been told he is considering selling the property out from under us. We were told that at first the woman was simply trying to get the owner to remove us from her "upscale" neighborhood, she didn't like our teenagers (all really good, quiet, polite, and well behaved kids), or their vehicles (admittedly not the prettiest cars on the planet, but frankly pretty much run-of-the-mill teenager cars). I suspect closer to the heart of the matter, what she really had a problem with is our net worth statements or personal pedigrees. While this upscale neighborhood is primarily populated with doctors and lawyers, my fiancee is a blue collar man, and I own a very small internet business. I also suspect that this woman feels that rental or leased housing has no place in this particular neighborhood. As I said, the house is on the EDGE of this subdivision. The side yard runs along what is now one of the city's busiest thoroughfares. The house while large and has the potential to be a fairly nice home, is actually quite modest for the neighborhood. It is comperable to the house across the street owned by the old lady save the professional landscaping and the simple fact that this house has not had any updating or improvements for years. The leasing agent told us straight up when we rented the property that the owner tried to sell it and couldn't, it needed too many repairs, too much updating and even then it was a coin toss because of the high traffic that now exists. Even so, after the property owner informed our bothersome neighbor many times that legally we'd done nothing wrong and therefore he had no cause to vacate us, she began pressuring him to simply sell the house, take a loss, be rid of it. Our lease contains a clause which entitles us to first purchase option, and though I would like to purchase the home, however, the 20% down would presently pose a problem. I've spoken with our leasing agent, who informed me that she is in fact the property owner's daughter. She was very understanding, said that she managed several properties for her father and assured me that they thusfar had no problems whatsoever with us or our tennancy. She then admitted that the woman had made many complaints and had also made complaints against the previous tennant as well. She stated that her father was just about to his wits end with all the phone calls and was yes, therefore considering selling off this one property. I asked if she would speak to her father, reiterate to him that we'd done nothing wrong - inform him that we were in fact interested in purchasing the property, but would need some time. She said she would speak to him for me and let me know in a few days. I went across the street to confront the neighbor. I was very kind and cordial. I reminded her of all the kindnesses we had shown her over the past several years. I made her liver and onions for goodness sakes because she said she loved it and hadn't had it in years. I assured her that those kindnesses would continue, but asked that she stop pestering the property owner with constant complaints about our vehicles, our visitors, our driveway and our projects. I explained that we'd done nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing against any city or community ordinanances that would justify such a deluge of complaints. I told her that while she was entitled to her opinions and ideas about her neighborhood and what it should look like, they were simply that, her opinions, and her constant complaints to the property owner were now threatening my home. She admitted that yes she didn't feel we kept our yard or our driveway up to the standards of this neighborhood, she complained about the number of cars and their appearance. She became quite insulting, stating that she was not the only one who felt this way, and admitted that her children had been calling in complaints as well and had even tried to put a petition to the neighborhood association to have us ejected. I told her look, we've been nothing but kind to you, and still you are actively trying to get us kicked out of our home - This is my home ____ (insert name), I am your neighbor, you've already been told that there are no legal recourses to change that. Now you're placing undue pressure and stress on Mr. _____ and with it you are threatening to take away my home. I don't want to make this difficult for anyone, but I'm afraid if you continue to make these constant complaints to Mr._____ or the false complaints to the city, we will have to consider filing harassment charges against you. She became very angry asked me if that made me happy, picking on and suing a little old lady. I told her no, it didn't make me happy at all, in fact it upset me terribly, and distressed me deeply just to have to be there, but she had to understand we were good and kind people and she was threatening our home. She then asked me to leave, I thanked her for her time and left. Within the hour three phone calls had been made to the property owner to inform him that I had went over and "threatened" the poor old lady. It's been over a week and I have not heard back from the leasing agent or the property owner. Do I have any recourse here? Is there anything that can be done to protect my home? Consequently the neighbors catty-corner, directly next door to the little old lady, absolutely love us. Since this became a rental property, and more specifically since our arrival, their weekly calls from the animal control, health dept. pool inspector, city inspector etc, etc, etc have completely evaporated. Go figure.

[grasmicc]

I'd go ahead and sue her for tortious interference with contractual relations, but that's just me. . What she's doing is definitely illegal.

[moviemonster]

Leasing agent phoned this afternoon. Wants to know if I would be willing to show the house. The owner has a good friend who has made an offer on the house and he would like to see it. When I mentioned our right to first option she said gee, I don't know if that applies after the first year, is it in the lease? I said yes it was in the original lease, it was added in with no time frame or explanation, simply a statement that the lessee ____ (me) would have first right of refusal on the purchase of the property not to exceed x amount of dollars. She said she'd have to check on that. She said also that her father is now just anxious to be rid of the place and if we didn't have the money available for a down payment today he was likely to go ahead and sell it to this guy. I said we should have at the very least thirty days to match the offer. She said again she'd have to check on that but believed that her father may have already made a promise to the guy. I told her that he couldn't legally do that without considering our first option and allowing us thrity days. She said again that she would review the original lease, but would I still show the house on Saturday at 2:00? Okay, so what the H___ do I do now? Please, anyone have some insight here?

[lazyike67]

Originally Posted by moviemonster

Leasing agent phoned this afternoon. Wants to know if I would be willing to show the house. The owner has a good friend who has made an offer on the house and he would like to see it. When I mentioned our right to first option she said gee, I don't know if that applies after the first year, is it in the lease? I said yes it was in the original lease, it was added in with no time frame or explanation, simply a statement that the lessee ____ (me) would have first right of refusal on the purchase of the property not to exceed x amount of dollars.

First off contact a Landlord Tenant law atty. Inform Landlord & landlady that you are willing to take them to court if need be.

Second even IF you got to stay or purchase you will still have the crazy lady
to deal with. So Have NO contact with her what so ever. Inform her by certified letter that Harrassing via phone is a crime & you WILL have her and her kids prosicuted for that if it continues. File a restraining order against here as well. Inform her that if the harrassment by her & her family does NOT stop you WILL call the police hand have her arrested.

Follow through when it happens again & It will. Haul her butt into
small claims court sue for the max allowed request that the Judge grant
one of two remedies A. Financial restitution OR a Court ordered eviction of HER.

As she has harrased everyone near her then getting whitnesses to this would not be a problem if it meant getting rid of her.

Ike

[mommyof4]

Did you see the date of this thread? As this post is almost a year old, I am sure that this has been resolved one way or another.