Watching a situation go from bad to worse...

"Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood."

- Louise Beal

So, my neighbors, a.k.a. “the Toolsons”, are completely out of control.

I haven’t posted about them in awhile, but not for lack of material. In fact, a bunch of us (i.e. most of the people on my block, a couple of cops and a CPS agent) got together and had a meeting about the Toolsons back over the summer. We decided that we would all track the Toolson’s odd behavior on a private blog in an effort to help the police and CPS case agents gather evidence against Chase and Jane Doe. It worked for a while until too many people gained access to the blog, and we decided to delete it. Not that Chase and Jane have access to a computer or the internet, but one of my other neighbors down the block has seemingly befriended them. Since there is no way of knowing if this neighbor has access to the blog (as many on the block do), we decided to be safe rather than sorry. The last thing any of us needs is to have Chase and Jane seeking vengeance against us. They are already weary of most of their neighbors since CPS started making regular visits to their house earlier this year.

Anyway, I might go back through my original posts on the private blog, change the names and repost the material here. I think it is important to have it all documented somewhere – even if I’ve changed the names and addresses to protect the true identities of those involved.

But to give you a better idea of what has been going on next door over the last several months, here are some Toolson highlights:

• Chase is back on drugs, and his teeth are falling out of his head. Literately. He is only 30 years old, and he is missing six or seven teeth. Teeth freak me out, and I’ve had nightmares about finding his missing teeth in my driveway. Luckily, this hasn’t happened so far, but I don’t think it is outside the realm of possibility.



• Chase is a self proclaimed “expert” with the Chinese Throwing Star. During one of his practice sessions in the driveway, my bedroom window was broken. Of course, Chase didn’t own up to what actually had happened to the window for several days. I later learned that, thanks to his long criminal history (which includes charges such as possession and assault with a deadly weapon), Chase isn’t allowed to possess weapons of any kind.



• I’ve had to call 911 on my neighbors 5 or 6 times in the past four months. Once it was because Chase was running around after Jane in my front yard with a stick threatening to kill her. Their two kids (ages 3 and 18 months at the time) witnessed the entire thing.



• Both Chase and Jane have redirected their anger towards a same sex couple that live across the street. The two girls who live there (I’ll refer to them as L&L from here on out) are about my age, and have completely restored the old home they purchased about a year ago. L&L are good people. Very sweet and the kind of individuals who go out of their way to help out their family, friends and neighbors. I really like them.
  
  Anyway, for whatever reason, Jane got it in her head that Chase was sneaking out at night “to sleep with the lesbians across the street”. This prompted Jane to violently lash out at L&L – even though the very notion that L&L would even be interested in Chase is absolutely ridiculous. Jane would scream at L&L when they’d walk outside on their front porch, harass them in the street and even stole their house keys one day while they were bringing in groceries from their car.
  
  Then, Chase decided that L&L weren’t really interested in him, after all. Instead, Chase twisted it around that L&L were actually trying to steal Jane away from him. This prompted a whole new level of violence against poor L&L, who have now decided to put their house on the market and move away.

Things have only gotten worse since, and the Thanksgiving holiday was an absolute nightmare. Twice on Thanksgiving Day alone, Trevor and I had to call 911 at the request of Mrs. Toolson because Chase and Jane were completely out of control. Whatever drugs they had taken caused both of them to become extremely violent. Chase had ripped the phone lines out of the wall, and Jane had attacked Mrs. Toolson.

The cops finally arrived (it took almost half and hour because Thanksgiving is – tragically – full of domestic violence and drunk driving), and hauled Chase and Jane off to prison – but only for the night. They were back early the next morning, and poor Mrs. Toolson did everything she could to try and keep them from getting back in the house and away from her grandkids. She even filed for double restraining orders against Chase and Jane, and has supposedly filed for custody of her grandkids as well. The cops were called again on Friday, and Chase and Jane spent yet another night in jail. But they are out now, and still living next door.

I feel especially bad for Mrs. Toolson. She desperately wants Chase and Jane to leave (and they would be gone if Jane could find a shelter with enough room), but the last thing she wants is for her grandkids to go with them. Until she has custody, Chase and Jane can take the babies from her and she is powerless to stop it. It is a horrible situation.

This morning (when Jane rang my doorbell and demanded to use my phone), Jane told me that she’s still trying to find a shelter, but they are all full this time of the year. Apparently, once there is an opening, both she and Chase are gone (at Mrs. Toolson’s request, not theirs). I tried to ask what would happen to their kids, but Jane wouldn’t say. I just hope she’s not planning on taking them with her when they leave. It doesn’t look good, though. Jane thinks Mrs. Toolson is “crazy”, and I got the impression that Jane would take the kids for no other reason than to hurt their grandmother.

When it comes to the Toolsons, suddenly all my problems don’t seem like problems at all…