Christine the Curmudgeon

Christine the Curmudgeon is now going to talk about another controversial issue – teen curfew.  The town where I live had been talking about having one, and for good reason.  Around here, teen thugs are out all night, making noise, vandalizing things, and being generally annoying.

I was thinking about this again last might, when a bunch of teen thugs were just hanging around on the sidewalk, right outside of the Curmudgeon House, making all sorts of noise.  They were there until almost 1AM!

I felt helpless to do anything.  Going outside to try to chase them away would only have resulted in being laughed at, possibly attacked physically, and maybe a broken window or two, to boot.  Calling the cops?  HA!  I’ve done this, they never bother to show up, and the kids seem to KNOW this, this is why they just do what they want to.

In the article I linked to, it is claimed that very few teen thugs are arrested after 9PM.  Well, this DIRECTLY relates to the fact that the cops will not come when people call with noise complaints.  How can the cops arrest anyone when they won’t even send a car out?

I’m sick and tired of hearing about these little thugs’ “rights”.  When you are outside annoying and possibly threatening people, you deserve NO rights.  If you aren’t out for some good reason, such as coming home from work or some event (there would be exceptions for such things under this law), you are nothing but a little troublemaker.  GOOD kids who are getting off work late, or coming home from an event, will just go STRAIGHT HOME, they won’t be hanging around on the streets making trouble.

The Malden cops are against this, probably because then they’d actually have to put down the damned Dunkin’ Donuts, or get off the internet and quit playing games or looking at prevera reviews or whatever, and come out when people call about kids making noise in the middle of the night.  Heaven forbid they actually have to do the jobs that OUR tax money is helping to pay for!

NOTE:  This is not bashing ALL cops, it’s just the ones in this particular town who are lazy and often will not come when called.

Of course, if the cops did their jobs in the first place, did their regular patrols and pulled over when they see a gang of kids out in the middle of the night making loud noise, maybe a curfew would not be necessary.  I mean, since when is it okay to be disturbing the peace at 1AM, especially on a weeknight when people have to get up to go to work the next day?

A common argument is that the parents should be parenting and setting curfews.  But if a kids is a teen thug who is out on the streets at all hours, it shows that the parents don’t give a damn, they’ll never do anything about it.  So we do need laws, to protect the peace, quiet and safety of the rest of us.

Christine the Curmudgeon knows exactly where your little FFA™ members (Future FELONS of America) are.  They are right outside the house as I type this, making all manner of noise.  They get away with it because they KNOW that the cops here will do absolutely nothing.  They are not on private property, they are out on the public sidewalk, therefore, I can’t bust them for trespassing.  Noise?  Can’t get ‘em for that, either.  I’ve called the cops in the past over late-night noise complaints, they will do NOTHING, they won’t even bother to send a car out here.

Some lawmakers in this town wanted to have a curfew for underage kids, for this very reason.  It was voted down, some people claimed that it was in violation of these kids’ civil rights, and all sorts of stupid bullpuckey.

Oh yeah?  How about OUR right to peace and quiet at night?  We pay taxes, these brats do not.  We pay taxes to pay for the cops, the least they can do is come out here and chase these little turds away.  But what do I know?  I’m just an old geezer who needs wrinkle creams, only spoiled brat kids have any rights around here these days.

If the noise doesn’t stop soon, I may call the cops anyway.  And then call them back for every 15 minutes that go by without a car being sent out.  The cop station is only five minutes away.

I hate this effin’ place.

Srsly.  Christine the Curmudgeon does not like people knocking at the door.  99.9% of those who do are unsolicited and therefore annoying.

I had made a plain “NO SOLICITING” sign for the door.  For the most part, it’s been effective.  But there are some people who think that they are somehow exempt from my “NO SOLICITING” policy.  These are mostly people working for politicians, and religious people trying to convert me.  We mostly get the Jehovah’s Witnesses (there is a Kingdom Hall down the street from us), but we’ve been getting the occasional Mormons, as well.

Anyhoo…I was looking on teh interwebs for a “NO SMOKING” sign.  Yesterday, some yahoo was sitting on my front porch steps smoking a cigarette.  The smell was seeping into the house.  Mr. Curmudgeon was not at home, and I was afraid to open the door and chase the jerk away.

This happens a lot, and not just with strangers.  It seems that every single worker that the landlady hires to do stuff in the building is a smoker, and they are forever taking smoke breaks on the front porch.  The smoke seeping in through the mail slot is a problem, because Mr. C is severely allergic to cigarette smoke.

I’d had enough, found a “NO SMOKING” sign on teh interwebs, printed it out, and stuck it on the inside of the glass on the front door.  We shall see if it does any good.

While I was looking for the “NO SMOKING” sign, I came upon the sign pictured here.  The guy who made it is actually selling a nice cherry-wood framed one, as well as stickers and such.  See his site here.  I’m sure it’s nice, but in this neighborhood, I would not want to spend the money to hang a sign on the outside of the door.  It would get stolen or vandalized, for sure.  The guy does say that it’s okay to print it out and use it, so I did.  And once again, I stuck it on the glass on the inside of the door.

This sign pretty much covers every possible annoyance, so hopefully, it will be effective.

Now if I can only stop people from using the front porch steps as their own personal bench.  It’s not like I have porch furniture, with comfy outdoor cushions or anything. Sheesh, if I had that, the problem would probably be 100 times worse than it already is.

When I was a little curmudgeonlette, I was taught not to trespass on other people’s property.  Nowadays, not only do kids trespass, but so do their idiot parents.  WTF???

And Christine the Curmudgeon is thrilled…we now have wireless security systems here, complete with video surveillance. People here have been being  jerks, and having the security gives us some piece of mind. The system even came with stickers for the door/windows, to let people know that the property is protected.

So far, so good.  We were away this past weekend, and no one messed with us.  Now I want to go further and install some sort of electric shock system for anyone who gets too close to the building at all!

If Christine the Curmudgeon ruled the world, there would be some very strict rules as to where one can or can’t put these portable basketball thingies.

One such place is THE STREET.  There is a little side street that we have to go down to get to Route 60.  On that street, there is one of these things that, when not in use, is locked to a utility pole with one of those bike lock things.  When it is in use, which has been more frequently now that the weather is warming up, the thing is dragged out into the middle of the street.  The street is very narrow, so it blocks the way of any cars who might want to drive through.  And the kids playing with the thing, a bunch of overgrown teen thugs who look like they’ve been using too much of the best hgh supplement, act like we are causing them serious inconvenience by daring to want to actually drive a car on the PUBLIC STREET!

I say that these things should only be used on private property that YOU own or rent yourself, not on someone else’s property, and not on the street.  They are a good idea for people who can’t or don’t want to install a permanent basketball hoop in their driveway or wherever…being able to take it with you if you move is a plus.  But if you have no place to put it that is not a public street or sidewalk, don’t buy one of these things!