Thread by @stephiefowler

Louie and I moved into our current home in Old #Torrance about 2 years ago, after 12 years in Venice Beach. We thought we were moving to a nice quiet neighborhood....until we met our neighbor.

We met our downstairs neighbor and she seemed nice and sweet. A woman in her 60's, single, worked from home, with a cute little white poodle. Our landlord gave her our cell phone numbers. Mistake number one.

Our first week here, she informed us that her car was stolen. We were like, oh no, is this a bad area? Louie offered to drive her to the police station. Mistake number 2.

What he thought would take an hour at most, took up half a day. During which he learned the car was not stolen from our street like we assumed.

From what Louie could gather from her rambling, is that she got drunk the night before at some bar, couldn't remember how she got home, and assumed her car was stolen. It was found immediately, it was probably still at the bar, we still don't know.

About a week later around 10pm, we saw her stumbling up the walkway, drunk, screaming into her phone, "you fucking idiot, you fucking idiot" over and over, and also, "where is my car?" We giggled like two kids as we watched from our windows. #crazyneighbor

The screaming at someone on her phone continued for hours, and we just laughed it off, compared to our Venice Apartment, this was still so much quieter. From this point only occasional texts about where we should park. Its a public street btw.

A few weeks later we came home really late in the evening, and on the walkway was a big pile of poop. A few steps from there, a pair of poopy adult pants, and mens shoes, and then a shirt. The next day, Louie put on gloves, and sprayed down the walkway.

We texted "Cuckoo" because thats what we call her now, and asked her about it. "Oh it was probably a homeless man, we have a big problem with homeless in this neighborhood." Um, no we don't. But Okay.

Side note, her blinds are always shut, the only time I've ever seen her leave at this point is to occasionally buy groceries. She never walks her dog. She lets the poor thing out once a day to poop on our lawn. Poop is accumulating.

We find out from the landlord, that the bricks that are placed on the perimeter of the yard are there to keep her from "drunk parking" on the lawn.

A new character enters. We call him Junior. Her son. He's about 30 years old. I say hello in passing, he just looks down and mumbles something to himself. He visits often. They fight often. We think he has a social disorder. #crazyneighbor

Louie mentions dog poop to Cuckoo. She says she will clean it. She doesn't. Louie picks up poop. We like having a yard. Especially a clean yard. We also don't like to step in poop.

Loud fighting between mother and son continues. Louie and I put our ears to the floor. It sounds like they are physically pushing each other. Or throwing furniture at each other.

Some days later, Louie leaves for work at 6AM. Her front door is wide open. He looks inside and yells for her. No Answer. Louie shuts the door for her and texts to let her know.

We find a bunch of dumped out pills and pill bottles in our private trash can on our side of the house. Near our trash can we find shoes and a pair of pants. Makes us think of the poop found earlier that month. Her son's name is on the bottles.

We find out he is schizophrenic.

Around this time, we have some plumbing problems. Plumber is called. He says its not our pipes, its the tenant below. Says he's been called to her place many times, she flushes her underwear. Often.

We get a text at 1AM

Cuckoo: My ceiling is caving in.
I suggest you don't walk in ur living room
U may fall thru

Louie: Please do not text me this late again. Text landlord in regards to this.

Cuckoo: I have its hazardous.

Ceiling is not caving in btw.

And then starts a flurry of long winded text messages to which we do not respond. But we start to get really nervous about who we are living next to. Also I listen to a lot of @SwordAndScale so I'm feeling a little paranoid. Text messages below.

And then a random weird text in the middle of the night:

Ur Lou
Kla.p
Loud

I decide not to respond to that one either. Drunk texting maybe?

Louie is taking a walk in our neighborhood and he notices Junior on the corner putting some trash into the bushes. When he looks up, he has trash coming out of his hoodie pockets and used maxi pads stuck on both ears.

A few nights later I see a bunch of activity in front of our house. Text messages to her below. At this point in the story I feel sorry for her. Louie says not to be so nice.

A bunch of beer cans and cigarette butts are left near the entrance to our place. Louie sends a text. Her response is below. Louie tries knocking on her door to talk. No Answer. She then complains to the landlord that he was harassing her. Texts below.

The son moves in with her for a few months. Its non stop fighting between the two. He sits at the table on the front entrance all day. He talks to himself. He's always taking his shoes on and off. I begin to double check the locks on our doors each evening.

Things escalate, cops and paramedics are called often. They take him away and he always comes back. Louie and I watch the drama unfold from our windows. We start thinking about getting a security camera.

We come home late one evening and as we're getting out of our car, we see Cuckoo on the sidewalk. She sees us, and she quickly ducks behind a car to hide. Louie was like, "did you just see that?" She stays hidden until we go inside. #crazyneighbor

We get a home security system and camera.

Louie comes home one afternoon and notices a man sitting at the table wearing a beret. Louie says,"can I help you?" He says, "I'm just waiting for Cuckoo." Louie says, "cool" and goes on with his day. About a half hour later he goes down to water the lawn.

The man is still there, so louie says, "does she know you are here?" At that moment Cuckoo comes around the corner and they disappear inside her dark home.

I promise you, that was the whole interaction. About an hour later, Louie starts receiving a series of angry texts, saying he's harassing her guests.

Here is that first message.

These message are to Louie only, usually she would group text, but now she has it out for him. I think she is trying to convey how important she is.

That is not her in the article btw. People have asked me.

Also, it should be known that we've never had a real conversation with her or her son. Other than Louie taking her to the police station that day. All of our interactions have been through text, and mostly her texting, since we don't respond. More texts below

One evening I'm laying on the couch watching TV on really low volume, because Louie is asleep next to me. And his phone lights up with these texts. I'm like, what? Really? I assume she's hearing things now, and must be off her medication.

You're probably wondering why we haven't moved. Our landlord says she's been trying to get rid of her for years, she has harassed tenants in the past. She says she is working on it. We decide not to have any communication with Cuckoo. We are patient.

Now that we have a camera, we get alerts. One morning, we check the footage from the night before, it shows her standing in the yard at 2am, just staring up at our windows, for like 5 minutes...not moving. #creepy

She leaves for 4 days, her little poodle is inside the entire time, barking. I contemplate calling animal control. She finally comes home. I can't imagine the amount of poop and pee she'll have to clean.

I order a bunch of things for a photo shoot, some of the items never show up, but say they've been delivered. About two months later, those items are thrown under our stairs in the backyard. Opened. Also nearby, a bag of rotting food and cannabis containers.

Cuckoo and I arrive home at the same time (very rare to ever see her in person) and she mentions her son is staying with her again, and this time he thinks he is a general. Again the story that his grandfather is Hiroheto Brother. I don't say much.

Louie and I are having a picnic on our balcony one evening. We notice two odd characters come into the back yard. Louie calls down, "who are you?" They say, "we're looking for cuckoo." They sit and wait. Both seem to have psychiatric disorders.

A few hours later we get called from the landlord. She says Cuckoo called her complaining that we were harassing her guests again. The landlord knows she’s crazy but keeps us informed.

Again it goes quiet for a few weeks. And then out of nowhere, I get this series of crazy texts, I do not respond.

And more...

notice the time stamps, they just keep coming...

Our landlord thinks we should file harassment charges. We look into it, but its really expensive, and we hope she will be moving soon.

It goes quiet, like it always does after a tweet storm. We enjoy a few weeks of peace. We think maybe she's taking her meds again. Then one morning she turns up some techno music, the same song LOUD, over and over until 2am. Here we go again.

Cuckoo notices our camera and waves like a maniac.

She has her son and his special friends over for a BBQ. And I must repeat, she never leaves her home, so its always weird to see her outside. She proceeds to BBQ DIRECTLY under our deck. Smoke billows up and we're forced to close all our windows.

One morning I go out to our deck to water all of my plants. I use a watering can. She immediately calls the landlord to complain that I am ruining the wood and I shouldn't water my plants. Our landlord says she's working on getting her out.

We find out from our landlord that in the past she was arrested for harassing the person who lived here before us. They caught her inside the apartment attempting to do something to the dog food.

An eviction notice is finally served. That night she starts banging on her ceiling directly where our bed is, at 2am. We ignore.

I guess I need to finish up this story! There were so many texts and odd behaviors during the last two years. I know I'm forgetting a lot, I wish I had kept a record of it all. I've been enjoying the quiet here at the moment. Let me tell you why.

Louie and I went on vacation last month, we arrived home a few weeks later. We both parked our cars at the studio, Louie went home, and I went to the grocery store. I get a text from Louie about 30 minutes later, "you're missing all the fun!"

Let me back up a bit. Her Eviction notice was served as I mentioned. She is supposed to be out two days after we get home from our vacation. All the while, we're wondering if she's going to go peacefully.

While on vacation we get an alert from our camera, we see her come out of her place around 12:30AM and she puts a box on the table in the front.

A day or two later, she comes home and throws the box at our front door. We're curious what is in this box and why she thinks it belongs to us. We're still on vacation at this point.

We do notice a lot of activity at her place while we're away, it seems that she is preparing for her move, and we feel relieved. But whats in the box!?

So back to the day we arrive home from Vacation, Louie gets home first at texts me that message while I was at the grocery store. He said the box contained a bunch of junk for Direct TV, we don't have cable, so obviously its hers. He pushes the box back.

She apparently started yelling the moment he got home to "be quiet!" She noticed the box was back, she says it doesn't belong to her, Louie says to throw it away, video of her reaction below.

There is so much more to this story, but to close, she was evicted about a month ago, and it has been peaceful and quiet and we couldn't be happier. Good Bye Cuckoo! I feel sorry for your new neighbors!

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