Need help with the neighbor's kids. *UPDATE, post 34.* PICTURES ADDED - Page 4

[Gendenwitha]

Originally Posted by Quinalla

Wow, I am not sure where you go that impression?

Gee, maybe the part I quoted where she said the fact that they looked "intimidating" was more important than the cigarettes or drugs?

Originally Posted by Quinalla

While I too kinda roll my eyes when someone gets upset about how someone is dressed (because I was friends with plenty of people who liked the goth look in high school and college and how they dressed had nothing to do with what kind of person they were),

You know I was watching an interview with Tavis Smiley last night and he said, "I've got plenty of friends that are white people" (audience laughter) "what, you act like you've heard that somewhere before."

You know you may have had friends that "liked the goth look" but apparently it didn't make enough an impression on you to think that maybe, like your friends, this person is making blanket statements and accusations about this group of people.

I'm sure my friends and I were all painted with the same brush by neighbors too, but not all of us smoked pot, not all of us dropped cigarette butts, and it was the preppy kids who did the graffiti and vandalized houses (but the police showed up at my door and my friends' door). She has witnessed some kids smoking pot, some kids smoking. She doesn't know who did the graffiti, she doesn't know who urinated in the area, and even if it was "those kids" she doesn't know which ones. Some of my friends did coke and stole cars, but that was a couple out of the group, and they were sort of on the fringe of our group at that. But they were still people I would stand on the street corner bsing with.

[JustJamie]

Sorry, but I cannot understand where you're coming from, blasting the OP like this.

She has tried talking to them, she has asked them to be quieter, she has asked them to move illegal activities to a less visible place, she has tried offering them a butt can, all before she called the cops. She tried working with them, they refused to work with her. It doesn't matter if they're black, white, or purple, if they're 10 or 100, etc. She approached them nicely about the issues she was having with them - the smoke, the noise, etc, and they refused to reach any sort of resolution with her. Calling the cops and filing a report was a last-straw measure, and I'm sure she would have done the same if it had been a group of obnoxious middle-aged women behaving the same way.

As far as the group being intimidating - any decent sized group of people acting a particular way - i.e., being loud, noisy, belligerent and obviously under the influence of *something* is intimidating. It's not the fact that these are teenagers dressed a particular way that makes them intimidating - it is the number of them and the way they are behaving. With a group of people, you run the risk of encountering the pack/mob mentality - one of them starts hassling you to impress his/her buddies and they all get in on it and escalate each other into a real problem. It may not happen "all the time" but it happens frequently enough to trigger an internal alarm in people who may feel vulnerable - i.e., someone walking alone or with a small child.

[jrayn]

Originally Posted by JustJamie

As far as the group being intimidating - any decent sized group of people acting a particular way - i.e., being loud, noisy, belligerent and obviously under the influence of *something* is intimidating. It's not the fact that these are teenagers dressed a particular way that makes them intimidating - it is the number of them and the way they are behaving. With a group of people, you run the risk of encountering the pack/mob mentality - one of them starts hassling you to impress his/her buddies and they all get in on it and escalate each other into a real problem. It may not happen "all the time" but it happens frequently enough to trigger an internal alarm in people who may feel vulnerable - i.e., someone walking alone or with a small child.

:
The OP didn't make any statements that made it sound like they were "intimidating" b/c of their dress. The fact that a group of people are together, smoking cigarettes and pot alone would be intimidating, the fact that they are brash enough to do that in a public place where other people walk shows that they are not worried about laws very much, which is also intimidating, the graffiti IS very unattractive, it looks like the area would be a beautiful place except all that crap.... It has nothing to do with their dress :

Even if it was a group of 12 year old girls I would avoid the place and feel intimidated if they were doing what that group of older teenage boys are doing! I wouldn't have had the guts to talk to them, I wouldn't have been brave enough to confront the mom (for fear of what the teens may do after finding this out)
I would have just called the cops, no warnings at all!