I've heard many a story on bad neighbors. Fortunately, I've only had a few myself, and it wasn't in an urban setting. It was rural, and they were homeowners.

In one case, I came home and was ready to go read my kids the Riot Act because they were playing their stereos so loud I could hear it in the yard. It wasn't until I got in the house that I realized that it wasn't my kids- it was a neighbor having a campfire beer bust, blaring music over big speakers, about 1/4 mile away. They kept rolling until 2 am, and I had to get up at 4 am. I finally called the cops, and they wouldn't issue them a ticket because their policy said they had to have 3 neighbors complain and they got only 2. They did this a number of times, just about every weekend, until they finally moved.

Another new neighbor moved in, and was in the road construction business. He apparently enjoyed the heavy equipment action, because after he came home from work, he enjoyed himself by grading his yard with a big Bobcat-- at midnight. We had a few confrontations over that.

Ever had a neighbor from Hell? What happened?

When I was in high school and my parents were out of town, I had this neighbor who would call the cops every time I was having a party.

That sucked.

Was there a big open field just to the south of your yellow house?

Yup, I've had neighbors from hell. They never did find the bodies.

But seriously, I have. The worst neighbors I've had were in a house halfway down the street from mine. It was an At Risk house where they housed kids who would run away from home too often. The theory went that they were at risk of joining a gang. The end result is they provided a place where they could be away from home, with the jerks they were running away with, and have very little oversight. The result was pretty much as terrible as you can imagine.

I lived next to a church and a couple times a year, the black minister or whatever the hell his title was would hook his microphone up to speakers and wake me up (I worked nights) with - "And Noaha saida to the animalsa, geta on board the boata and they dida!" - at rock concert volume.

I finally called the cops and asked them to tell him to go unplugged or cite his ass for disturbing the peace. I was tempted to turn my speakers his way and blast some anti-religion music back at him, like Failed Christian or Graham Parker's Hey Lord, Don't Ask Me Questions or The Devil's Sidewalk.

Probably should've and just paid the fine.

Not sure which of these versions of Failed Christian I like better:

http://www.rhapsody.com/-search?query=failed%20christian&searchtype=RhapTrack