Dear Prudence: Help! Our New Neighbor Claimed She Was “Getting Her Life Together.” Then We Saw the C

[cereta]

Link.

Dear Prudence,

My husband and I could use some serious help regarding a situation in our neighborhood that we feel has gotten out of control. We are proud homeowners in a cul-de-sac we’ve grown very fond of. The neighborhood is a mix of long-time owners and renters, and several months ago a young woman I’ll call “Kelsey” moved into one of the houses in our cul-de-sac that was available for rent, with her two pitbulls. I love dogs and have a rescue pit mix myself, so my husband and I struck up a conversation with her one day while she was walking the dogs to welcome her to the neighborhood. She seemed friendly and told me how excited she was to be living there—she said she was evicted from her previous apartment because of her dogs and had been living in her car on and off and was ready to “get her life together.”

She started doing some yard work for our elderly neighbors, and when I suggested to my husband that we could use some help with our yard as well, he broached concerns he had about her—namely that he suspected that she had a history of using drugs and believed she might still be using based off of her appearance, mannerisms, and desire for cash-in-hand work. At first, I thought he was being too harsh on her, but he has far more experience with this than I do—his cousin is a recovered drug addict, and he has volunteered at a methadone clinic.

Recently, our neighbor “Barry” (who is a friend of my husband’s and comes over regularly) showed us some distressing ring camera footage. A package of his was stolen off their front porch late at night, clearly by Kelsey! He considered calling the police but opted to go to her house the next day to confront her directly. She immediately denied it and grew flustered and agitated before changing her story and telling him she thought it was hers before giving it back to him—and it had already been opened! Barry agrees with my husband that she is most likely using and told her that he would call the police if it happened again; and lo and behold, it happened again about a week later, this time to his roommate.

Barry was ready to call the police, but his roommate “Aaron” was adamantly opposed to that—he said that she’s had a hard life compared to the both of them, and that if she was caught with any drugs and potentially arrested it would only send her back into a cycle of homelessness and addiction. He suggested that they just get their packages delivered elsewhere, which we all think is absolute nonsense. When Barry pushed back and said he was going to call the police regardless, Aaron told him that he was so opposed to that he would try to get him evicted, which he could most likely do because his dad is the owner of the house in which Barry rents a room!

My husband, Barry, and I are all extremely distressed by this—Barry loves his living arrangement, but we are all increasingly concerned about Kelsey’s presence in the neighborhood if there are no consequences for her unacceptable behavior. I am also concerned for our elderly neighbors who she has been helping—she has started helping them with house cleaning and I’m worried that she might be stealing from them. I told Barry that we would be happy to report her ourselves and make it abundantly clear to Aaron that we did it and that Barry wasn’t involved, but he is worried that Aaron won’t care and would try to get him evicted anyways since he knows that we are friends with him. What on earth can we do about this? We’re worried about her actions escalating, and Barry feels held hostage. Please help!

—Cul-de-sac Conundrum

Dear Cul-de-sac Conundrum,

Well, Barry definitely needs to get out of that living situation. If his roommate, AKA his landlord’s son, is threatening him with eviction in order to get him to act a certain way, that’s an issue that has nothing to do with Kelsey. As Barry’s neighbor, I think you can communicate your concern for his toxic roommate relationship, but otherwise, there’s nothing else you can do to involve yourself in that particular dynamic.

One can relate to Barry’s wish for Kelsey to face some kind of formal consequences for stealing the packages, but I personally don’t think involving the police will be helpful for anyone in this situation. Whatever your own views on policing might be, it’s safe to say that calling the cops on a neighbor will only escalate tensions for the entire neighborhood, to put it mildly.

As for the issue of Kelsey, it may be helpful for you to build out whatever existing relationship you have with those elderly neighbors. Give them a drop-in and say hi a few times, and see if you can get a sense for how they feel about Kelsey’s help. I don’t think it’s crossing the line if you share with them what happened with Kelsey and the other house’s packages, and you can express concern that Kelsey might not be the most reliable source of help. But otherwise, if your suspicions about her substance abuse remain strictly suspicions, it would be unfair to spread what might be an unjustifiable rumor. The goal here is not to try to sniff out whether Kelsey is abusing drugs or stealing from more people, but more so to make yourself clearly available as a friendly neighbor and a potential source of help should anyone in the neighborhood need it.

Comments

Oh. Hell. No.

[cereta]

Obviously, this Prudie (Delia, I think) has never lived in a neighborhood like the one I just vacated, where half the houses were rentals and most of the landlords didn't give a fuck who they rent to. But you know, in twenty years of fires being set next door, kids staging rock fights from my front porch, kids leaving bikes in our yard, loud arguments on front lawns (including ours), actual physical fights on front lawns, loud parties, a man running a subwoofer installation business from his driveway, {deep breath}. But you know what never happened? We never had packages stolen.

I know calling the police can be fraught, especially if Kelsey is not white, but of all of this, leaving the elderly neighbors ignorant and vulnerable like that is appalling.

Re: Oh. Hell. No.

[jadelennox]

huh. I live in an upscale neighborhood where most of the rentals have been condo-converted, and package thefts are common enough that people on the main road all get their packages delivered somewhere else. (Only on the main road; we live one building off of it around the corner and we've never had a problem.)

[jadelennox]

Honestly I loathe all these people.

• Aaron, you're not the landlord, you can't threaten eviction, fuck off.
• Barry, stop trying to call the cops on someone for a peacefully-resolved petty theft.
• Husband, you're a complete asshole: "he suspected that she had a history of using drugs and believed she might still be using based off of her appearance, mannerisms, and desire for cash-in-hand work". Fuck all the way off.
• LW, half your neighborhood is probably using drugs -- more than half, if you count weed and alcohol -- and your husband had no reason to allege that anything about Kelsey's behavior was at all dangerous, until Barry showed up. If you're worried about the elders, then befriend them, as prudie suggests.
• All of you: getting your packages delivered to work is a perfectly normal thing people do. I did it for years. Stop being babies.
• Kelsey, if Barry's story is true, stop stealing packages from your neighbors, come on. It's dumb and unneighborly, and it's also shitting where you eat.

[cereta]

Getting packages delivered to work because you have a neighbor who has unambiguously stolen from other people's porches is normal? I mean, I couldn't do that even if I wanted to; as much stuff as we receive via one delivery service or another, my workplace mail system would eventually make me stop, not to mention the fact that I'm physically incapable of carrying some of the stuff we get from our mail room to my car. I'm not a baby. I'm disabled, which is a big reason why I do so much shopping online.

But even if that were not true, I'm not sure I get why I should have to do that if I know who the person stealing them is. I don't quite see how it's unreasonable to expect to be able to get things delivered to your house when, again, the only impediment to that is one person. I don't know if I would call police, and I don't want to be (partially) responsible for someone ending up unhoused, but when Kelsey has done this twice, a second time after being caught, I'm wouldn't be counting on a friendly word to stop her.

[ethelmay]

Porch piracy is quite common in my neighborhood, so the Amazon lockers get a lot of use, but yeah, it's different when you actually know who's doing it. (I have never had anything stolen, but we're home a lot and we don't get tons of stuff online.)

[cimorene]

You make a good point.

If someone is in an area with an unstoppable wave of porch theft, they probably should investigate more secure alternatives, but if your sole problem is one person and they are a repeat offender, the idea of going into lockdown rather than confront them is ridiculous.

[michelel72]

Yeah, my workplace wouldn't allow that at all, and it's a classic office building. I highly doubt your average retail/fast food/construction/social services/fully remote/etc. employee (or retiree/SAH military spouse/etc., for that matter) would be able to do that, either.

[minoanmiss]

on the one hand I did used to have packages deliveered to my work for various neighbor-conflict reasons. OTOH I can't anymore because I WFH, hahaha.

[ysobel]

I mean, technically you still *can* get stuff delivered to where you work... ;)

[minoanmiss]

snerk

[sushiflop]

It sounds pretty possible that Kelsey has had a tough go of it and is struggling to turn things around, but this also seems like more help than neighbors are possibly equipped or energized to provide.

[cimorene]

+1

And of course they should warn the elderly neighbors, at least in general terms! Building community is all fine, but it's not an acceptable substitute for a comprehensible warning of substantiated and repeated antisocial behavior.

[neotoma]

I'm sorry, but it sounds like the advice columnist is recommending letting Kelsey turn into a broken stair.

[cereta]

Yes, that! Of all the pieces of this advice that bug me, the idea of not warning the elderly neighbors that the person they are letting into the house has a documented history of theft bugs me most. Partly because I could just see too many relatives in that situation, and partly because I've been the person robbed by someone I hired to do work, while being about 80% sure the neighbors watched it happen and did nothing (it was lawnmowers and lawn care, thankfully, but it still killed one more piece of my sense of safety, not to mention the ten-small fanperson's idealism - she had made the thief a peanut butter sandwich).

[nineveh_uk]

+100 Kelsey is probably a vulnerable person. But that doesn't mean potentially facilitating her stealing from elderly neighbours because you dont want to get involved! Give them the information, they can choose what to so with it. But not telling them stinks.

[movingfinger]

Yeah, this is shit advice.

[minoanmiss]

Don't be sorry, you're completely correct.

[movingfinger]

1. Talk to the neighbors Kelsey is "helping." Tell them what's going on and that Kelsey has been stealing from other people.

2. If those neighbors are very elderly and likely to be fearful, contact their family members in the area and let them know what is going on.

3. Kelsey is a predator who thrives on plausible deniability. Barry should file the police report with the camera footage. This is his business, not Aaron's or anyone else's.

4. Barry and husband and LW can go tell Kelsey that they know she stole the package and not to pull crap like that on her neighbors. No threats, just "don't do it."

5. Security cameras for everyone! I hate them, but the Kelseys of the world make them useful.

[minoanmiss]

I kind of wish we could sew Aaron and Kelsey into a sack. I may be angrier at him for his threats as I am at her for her thefts, and that is saying something.