A friend of mine just called asking if I knew if LaVergne had any codes rules about the number of cars that can be parked in a yard. He said there were seven cars parked in his neighbor’s yard last night and they’re all still there this morning. Which means that there are enough people living in what is probably a 1100 – 1300 square foot house to drive seven cars.
Seriously LaVergne officials… is there any recourse against crappy neighbors?
Filed under: Editorials, General Info |
This is La Vergne, TN 
I hear there is nothing we can do about all the cars because they aren’t on the street….there needs to be a bill passed that says if a car doesnt work then it needs to be oved. i know for sure that 2 of these cars dont run….what a mess over there!!
I agree. I live in a neighborhood too where people park their cars on their lawn a lot of times they are cars that don’t run. Along with that, people are collecting junk on their property. It makes the apperance of the neighborhood look bad as well with hurting our resale value of our homes. I wish people would take pride of their properties. I know there are some laws against people as far as the length of their yard and trash, correct me if I am wrong. If legally we can’t do anything, is there another person we can contact? An office to change the apperance of our neighborhood. Is there a phone number, and e-mail address that we can conplain to? Please help. Don’t know what to do.
If anyone can do anything I think it would be Codes. I think there is a code about inoperable vehicles, but I m not sure.
The Codes Department is located at 5089 Murfreesboro Road. They can be reached by phone at 615-213-2624.
There is such an ordinance in LaVergne about inoperable vehicles. Also, there is an ordinance regarding cars parking on sidewalks (eg: Bill Stewart). All the ordinance are on the City website under Public Record. Here is the ordinance on cars. I would suggest calling Codes on this.
13-108. Storing disabled automobiles on residential property. It shall be unlawful for the occupant or owner of any real estate in a residentially zoned district to allow a disabled and/or inoperative motor vehicle to be stored,
vacated, and/or parked on the occupant’s or owner’s real estate for a period of longer than two weeks. (1983 Code, § 8-111)
If I understand correctly though, Kathy’s friend wasn’t referring to inoperable cars. This is what my complaint has been all along, that there is no ordinance against parking in your yard, and there should be.
Senna tells us how we can try to make this law – https://thisislavergne.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/what-i-really-think-about-living-in-lavergne/#comment-5616
The only problem is I don’t know if all the board members would vote in favor of an ordinance banning cars parked in the yard. Should we start a petition?
While I’m on the subject, does anyone else thinks it looks awful when people decide to wall in their garage? Talk about things that should be a codes violation. Codes mandate that new construction must include a minimum of 2 parking spots, and one can be the garage. However, when people wall in the garage they may only have one spot. Shouldn’t that be a codes violation?
it does look awful if they don’t do it right.
The way I see it, why buy a house that you don’t have room to park your cars in the driveway.
I think a petition is a great idea. I would sign it.
Codes and ordinances mean absolutely NOTHING if they are not enforced.
What’s the point of trying to create new ordinances if the ones that are aleady on the books are not being enforced?
I’m Just Angry……
The same 7 cars have been there all weekend without moving. some of these cars dont even run and now today there is an 8th car in the roadway. with it being wet outside their yard is getting very muddy and is starting to look like something out of the ghetto.i know right now there is 10 people living in this house that I know for sure is there. This is A 3 bedroom home with 2 baths so I also know this could be danergous if A fire was to break out. CODES PLEASE HELP!!!
Mark,
You don’t live in Cedar Grove do you? Sounds like a house I drive by.
IJS, I agree, no point in creating new codes if current codes aren’t being enforced. However, we do need a code regulating that no cars can be parked in the yard.
Mark, it does sound like these people are in violations of codes. It’s easy to report codes violations, however, if you are uncomfortable, send me an email with the property address in question and I’ll call. gtnike@msn.com (I know Kathy, but I already get plenty of spam there). It may not be my neighborhood, but it is my city (good for the goose, good for the gander, so to speak).
Call the City of LaVergne Codes Department 213-2624 and ask for a Municipal Codes Inspector or the Building Official. Explain the conditions to them. If you have pictures ask for the officials email address and send them your pictures. Also, find out in the City of Lavergne web site what the Alderman’s email addresses and do the same. Call city hall 793-6295 and ask for all of the Alderman’s email addresses and phone numbers. Have THEM enforce our codes!
Response to these items:
Sorry,
There is a code that dictates the number of people allowed to live in a single family dwelling, the problem is one of proof. If the person complaining is unwilling to testify in court; we are left with the judge asking us if we can prove how many people live there. No proof, case lost!
We cannot stop homeowners from converting an existing attached garage into living space as long as all of the proper permits are obtained. The driveway itself will still provide the required parking spaces. We have nothing that states that the parking spaces are required to be side by side.
As referenced above, Vehicles are required to be inoperable. If a vehicle is sitting there with valid tags how can we justify asking if it runs. By rule in Rutherford County, you have to pass marta to renew tags. Must be operable.
No ordinance pertaining to the amount of vehicles or parking in yards.
We can only enforce what is on the books and we also have to consider what we believe can be won once we enter the court. We do not always win, the judge has the final say. Sorry
We have to make alot of judgement calls based on practical expierence, and we do the best we can.
Food for thought, if you have children and they leave their toys in the front yard but someone in your neighborhood considers it to be an eyesore for what ever reason; they can file a complaint, we have to respond. Would you really want to see us over an issue like this? Their dog pooped in my yard. They have a boat not being used. They have an R.V. . A business is being run out of their house. Their trash, dog poop smells.
I could keep going, but I hope you get the point. We respond to these and more.
We do not write the codes and ordinances. Inform yourselves using our website and if there is are items that you would like to see changed, please contact YOUR elected officials.
If you filed a complaint and did not get exactly what you want, sorry; there could very well be a good reason. Not just that we dont enforce codes. Please remember that we have to follow the law, if we side step we will lose in court.
Also please check to see if you subdivision has any restricitive covenants. The City is not required to enforce these type of regulations, but you as a homeowner can bring a complaint to the proper court of your own free will.
Thanks for the info Codes Guy. My experience working with codes has always been positive. My complaints generally lie with the codes on the books, and how I think they should be changed (such as parked cars in the yard).
You are right in that a lot of people want to complain, but everybody wants to stay annonymous. I think that’s fine for small complaints like grass height and such, but certainly there are times when you need to take legal action.
I do have one question: can you tell me what section of the municipal code explains how many people can live in a single family dwelling?
You will not find the information in the Municipal Code. You would have to check the 2006 International Property Maintanance Code. The City of LaVergne has adopted the 2006 International Codes.
2006 Int. Building, Residential, Fire, Plumbing, Mechanical, Property Maintanance Codes. Please check with the City Recorder for a full listing of adopted codes and standards.
These codes cannot be posted online because of copyrights, the City Recorder is supposed to keep a full set in his office at City Hall, for people to be able to review if they wish.
ok guys the cars that sit there and havent moved all week and weekend are still sitting in the same spots. I took a pic of the cars sitting there and the pic is on my blog. the only problem I have is these neighbors are of concern for me because they have had police called on them alot and last month the swat team was over there while they were out of town. these people kind of scare me and my family. we have put in an alarm system and deadbolts. I know the names of the people that are living there. T. ,L.,G.,C.,T.,M.,B.,2 GUYS.,AND A TENENAGE GIRL. THAT RIGHT THERE IS 10 tHAT WE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD ALL KNOW THAT ARE LIVING THERE. This is a 3 bedroom home with 2 baths and the one 21 yr old mentally challenged giril has admitted to us the c., and her sleep in the garage. I just wish codes would stop by 602 zellwood dr and take pics and look at the front yard and then come back in a few days and see the same cars sitting in the same spots. I used itials because I wasnt sure about using full names on here. all of myneighbors here are upset that all of this is going on. we have all talked but dont know what to do now. codes please drive by and look at this mess!!
Have you actually CALLED the Codes Department, Mark?
I went by there this afternoon and while I didn’t do a lot of digging, it did appear all the cars had current Tennesse tags. That’s your problem. There does not appear to be a violation of any city codes.
This is a really nice neighborhood and yet because our city codes aren’t written to protect you, one jerk neighbor is blighting your neighborhood. Sorry man.
mom has asked codes about this problem and there is nothing really we can do Ivy. Yes I did look at the cars and only one does not have a tag on it. when you drove by I know the cars that were there havent moved except for the white suv. in the last 2 weeks… Maybe we need to push our local gov into passing a new bill so that this wont be allowed to happen.
Ivy, How have you been doing? Havent een much of you online lately!!
mom has asked codes about this problem and there is nothing really we can do Ivy. Yes I did look at the cars and only one does not have a tag on it
I’d still at least call for the one.
Ivy, How have you been doing? Havent een much of you online lately!!
I’m just fine, thank you for asking.
I just happened to be surfing by. You know everyone sees things differently. I think there is nothing wrong with having a lot of cars and a lot of people in a small house, not only nothing wrong with it, but I find more fault with people who complain about it.
Don’t worry, I’m not your neighbor, just happened to use google to look up some marta info, and it landed me on this blog for some reason.
I’m guessing you’ll never read this, but I’ll respond anyway.
You have no credibility. Come to La Vergne Tennessee and stop at a local gas station and ask how to get to Lake Forest Estates. Drive through, then get back on this site and tell me there’s nothing wrong with 7 cars parked on a .10 acre lot
I live in lake forest subivision… and i personally own 3 cars and a motorcycle, not family cars, MY cars I am single…
so you are telling me that if my house had no garage and only enough parking for 2 vehicles in the driveway that i should have to sell one of my vehicles? i dont think so. it just so happens my house has a 2 car garage and a driveway large enough for atleast 4 cars…
So, what happens when you want to have a family gathering at your home and you don’t have space for your family’s vehicles in the driveway/garage? you either put them in the street or in the lawn. You are closed minded people that can’t see beyond the end of your nose.
Now, you are honestly telling me there should be a law against building livable space from a garage in a home that I OWN on a piece of land that I OWN? Let’s say there is a growing family that cannot afford sell their home and buy a larger home, and in todays market who can? For example, a family owns a 3 bedroom home with a garage and already has two children, but has another, or two more. You think they should be REQUIRED to buy a larger home? rather than modify their own home to suit their needs? I will agree that most garage conversions are not attractive and I would never do that to my home, but you cannot take such a narrow one sided view on things without considering some other people may be less fortunate than yourself.
It’s not everyone elses fault that you decided to buy a home in the lower end side of lake forest, so I WILL NOT suffer for your indiscretions. There is a plethora of foreclosures and pre foreclosures in this massive subdivision right now. They are flooding the market and there are going to be unsightly homes… Unavoidable. Deal with it until the economy picks back up.
As far as the number of people living in a home, I do not think there should be a law against that either. There are laws regarding wellfare of children, which I do agree with.
The problem with making regulations/codes/laws about these issues is enforcing them. While it seems simple to you because you live there and you see it every day. The city cannot set up stakeouts for a week or two to verify if a vehicle moves or if they are just having a party or out of town guests… So in your simple little head the codes/laws are simply not enforced and you are insulting the law enforcement that protects you and patrols your streets.
Pick your battles, there SHOULD be much more important things in your life than your neighbors cars and garage or lack thereof.
Ok, let me respond to each issue raised:
“so you are telling me that if my house had no garage and only enough parking for 2 vehicles in the driveway that i should have to sell one of my vehicles?”
No, I am saying you shouldn’t have bought a house that didn’t have enough parking for you, or you shouldn’t have bought an extra car without preparing for a place to store it.
“what happens when you want to have a family gathering at your home and you don’t have space for your family’s vehicles in the driveway/garage?”
I don’t think any of us are concerned about occasional gatherings, our concern is with the people who make always have the same cars parked in their yard
“you are honestly telling me there should be a law against building livable space from a garage in a home that I OWN on a piece of land that I OWN?”
The city requires builders build homes with a required amount of parking. If a house plan requires parking for 4 cars and that can be met with the driveway alone, that’s fine. But if you have a one car garage and a one car driveway, closing in the garage eliminates one spot without creating another. I personally don’t like garage conversions, but if neccesary, I believe it should require a building permit and approval just like if you wanted to add on to the back of your house.
“As far as the number of people living in a home, I do not think there should be a law against that either.”
Property taxes are assesed on properties, not individuals. If you have 300 kids living in one house, they will not pay their fair amount of taxes to pay for schools and other infrastructure.
“They are flooding the market and there are going to be unsightly homes”
We don’t have to sit by and let that happen. That is why people come to this site, to make one person can’t come here and wreck things for the 99% pf people in this city who care about this city.
“The city cannot set up stakeouts for a week or two to verify if a vehicle moves or if they are just having a party or out of town guests”
You are right, that’s why codes relies on us to report codes violations. If you read through this site you’ll see that just about any time someone complains about a neighbor, we’ll ask if they called codes? We don’t want people just complaing, we want people taking action to make this a better place.
“Pick your battles, there SHOULD be much more important things in your life than your neighbors cars and garage or lack thereof.”
You see, that’s the problem. There are many more important things to me in life than my neighbors yards and cars. Unfortunately, when my neighbors don’t take care of their house, it affects my house. If my neighbor across the street paints his brick house baby blue and lets his yard grow 3 feet high, I will not be able to sell my house for the same price as the person tw streets over who has neighbors who take care of their property.
If I came to your house and put bags of garbage in your front yard, you would consider that to be wrong, wouldn’t you? By someone not taking care of your property, they are essentially putting bags of garbage on their neighbors yard. If we all lived on 5 acre lots and I couldn’t see my neighbors, I wouldn’t care. But what my neighbors do affects me and that’s why I think we as a community should be able to have a say in what people do or do not do with their property.
I don’t understand most of the rest of what you say. I personally do not live in LFE, but I care about this city and it’s prosperity which is heavily toed to the 3000 home subdivision.
and the problem with the laws you want to put into place are with enforcement like i said before… how is a police officer going to enforce the no street parking or lawn parking law for one house and not your house just because you only do it for one night? Just this morning an officer was going to write a ticket for a guest of mine who parked in the street. she was parked in the street for no more than a few hours. THIS is why I AM concerned with gatherings and parking laws. No parking in the street, fine I can live with that… But, my lawn is MY lawn and if I want 10 guests over with 10 cars tearing up my lawn then I should be able to do so. If I want my girlfriend to come over and stay the night with me every night and i need her to park in my grass, I should be able to do so.
I do understand what you are saying about some homeowners over doing it… but that doesnt mean you have to ruin it for everyone else.
Just like you think a homeowner should not purchase a house without sufficient driveway space for his vehicles. If you don’t want to deal with what your neighbors are doing then YOU should not have purchased a home so near to other homes.
and about parking, kids grow up and get cars. not every family has the luxury of a 2 car garage and a 4 car driveway. I’m not defending whatever situation was mentioned earlier about a dozen people living in a 1300sqft home with MANY vehicles and other law issues… but I AM trying to defend MY OWN RIGHTS.
Stop trying to change things you have no control over, making new laws will not change what people in foreclosure do. They do not care about the appearance of their home, because it is not their home anymore or will not be for very long.
like it or not, certain homeowners doing these unsightly things with their property is part of the demographic and like it or not is an important factor in value… it’s your problem you can’t handle it, not mine. It’s your problem you bought a home with bad neighbors, not mine.
if you want to change something, start buying up all these foreclosures and flip them or rent them to well screened tenants. if you want to make a difference. You people are all the same, you want someone else to fix your problems for you…
I don’t want someone else to fix my problems, I just don’t want people creating more problems.
You seem to think that having a crappy house is a freedom, right? Kind of like freedom of speech? Well, go into a movie theater and scream “Fire.” You see, your freedoms end where mine begin.
Your freedom to junk up your house ends where your crap affects my house. Sorry if you disagree.
Ok…just surfing for something completely different and landed on this. It was of interest to me because I live just off of Tom Hailey in LaVergne.
I’m going to have to go with joe shmoe on this one. There are FAR more serious issues such as gangs, rape, and shootings going on to be dealing with such trivial garbage as too many cars parked on a lawn or a person’s LEGAL right (if they have enough parking space) to convert their garage into an additional living space.
Joe Shmoe is definitely right on one of the things he said. Yes, some of it may be an eye sore, but…just like people should have to think about car space before purchasing a home..YOU should have thought about the potential of having annoying and unsightly neighbors and maybe considered purchasing a house that wasn’t so close to another home.
It is not anyone’s fault but your own if you didn’t do some investigating about the area you were moving into BEFORE purchasing your home.
This is NOT some new problem LaVergne is having. It has been a problem for quite some time now and the problems with gangs and violence in this city has been going on for a while as well. For someone to move out to an area they KNOW have these types of issues and then honestly expect clean yards and a fancy little neighborhood to suddenly sprout up because (praise the lord) YOU’RE now there…well…that’s nothing more than idiocy. If you DIDN’T realize these types of problems were an issue out here before purchasing your home (like I did) then that is still nobody’s fault but YOUR OWN, for not doing a little more detective work on the area you were planning on setting roots in. I made that mistake myself and obviously unlike you, I am not going to go around blaming anyone else for my own ignorance. Next time I will know better and lesson learned.
I think you might need to wake up to reality….an entire class of people are not suddenly going to straighten up, and gangs are not suddenly going to kiss and hug and stop their violence just because little miss priss decided to move in. The trailor park just up the road SHOULD have been my first clue of what I was getting into…as it should have been yours as well.
Sweety, I think you need to get out of LaVergne and move somewhere more suitable to your taste. There ARE such things as neighborhoods with association fees. Yes, true enough you have to pay for it…but you will NOT be dealing with unsightly lawns or too many cars nor will you have to ever again deal with those ghastly converted garages. This is Lavergne…..not Indian Hills out in murfreesboro or brentwood in nashville. it’s LAVERGNE…gang riddled, violent streaked, illegal immigrant filled, trailor park down the road, LAVERGNE.
You might be thinking “well, then let’s clean Lavergne up.” news flash…in order to that you do NOT start with the trivial issues such as cars on the lawn or converted garages. You start with getting the problem PEOPLE OUT of the neighborhood. Try getting more involved and more worked up about issues that really matter right now….not cars and converted garages.
One more thing….Expecting the type of people who have moved into this area (gang members, illegal immigrants, etc.) to be worried about things such as cars in their yard when they have bigger issues on THEIR plates like getting deported, having enough money to survive, or how to keep from getting shot at, is like expecting a current using junkie to be able to help other junkies to give up their drugs. Life does not work that way.
You have to mend their mind frame before you go mending the asthetics. A wise person once wrote that common sense died long…long….LONG ago. I’m seeing through this whole topic how true his statement was.
As long as you live next to thugs and trash you will not see clean yards…it’s common sense. And you don’t fix thugs and trash by making them go and clean up their yard. It isn’t their YARDS that should be concerning you at this point.
Angela,
When I moved to La Vergne, it wasn’t two words, it was one…Lavergne. There were no gangs, no drive-by shootings, no Lake Forrest Estates. This was a sweet, small town with 3 stop lights and a grand total of 12 police officers. The Hardees on Waldron Road was the greatest thing since sliced cheese. Guess how long ago that was? Try 1989!!!!
If I had known then that this area was going to explode like it has, I would’ve stayed in Hermitage.
Anglela, there are so many problems and inconsistencies with what you said, I’ll keep my response brief.
You are wrong, you don’t fix the big problems and work down, you fix the small problems and work up.
Like Cee Dee, when I bought my house, La Vegne was not having the problems they are now.
I would challenge you to poll the city and ask, would the city rather have a homeowner move out who cares about their home and neighbors? Or would they rather have Angela move out because Angela says this city is already destroyed and we shouldn’t care. News Flash – This is a website of people who care about La Vergne. I certainly want to here complaints but I won’t tolerate the idea that the best days of LV are behind us.
Angela, how would we get those people out of our neighborhoods? Try fining them to death for keeping a shitty lawn or too many cars. Using one’s head for something other than a hatrack is always a good idea.
Wow Ivy, we agree again. Anybody feel a chill?
I read Angela’s post again and one thing stood out: “Try getting more involved and more worked up about issues that really matter right now….not cars and converted garages.”
Fair enough Angela, but first I would like to hear what you are doing to resolve issues that really matter. Are you on any city boards? Maybe you collect those trashy signs from intersections? Perhaps you’re a block captain for your local neighborhood watch?
I’m sure you’re a nice person Angela, but it’s unfair to come on here and blast people simply for wanting to make La Vergne a better city. It is possible, and I hope you will join us in these efforts.
We’ve agreed so much lately, Michael, that I’ve been looking for the Second Coming. Someone hold me, I’m afraid. :D
Give me your address and I’ll mail you a couple of bumper stickers – Nobama and McCain 08. Now if you take me up on that, then I’ll know something is seriously wrong!
The second coming…
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20080820/POLITICS-USA-POLL-POLITICS-DC/
Ha, Michael! I’m so shocked you’re voting for the rich old white guy. Shocked, I tell ya, shocked.
Should I vote for the rich young black guy simply because he’s young and black?
Besides, I’ve paid my dues. I voted for Bredesen once. Of course at the time I didn’t realize he was going to build that underground bunker that I’ll never see, but I guess nobody’s perfect :)
I’m voting for Obama because he is he REAL!!! He understands the real life.
And my vote has nothing to do with his ethnicity or age – thank you very much!
DISCLAIMER – THIS IS CRICKET’S DAUGHTER. DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING I SAY AS CRICKET’S OPINION – THIS IS SIMPLY MINE AND UNTIL I CAN GET MY INTERNET RUNNING I WILL HAVE TO DO THIS.
Okay, so let’s start this off right. I’m Chaos – a lovable, hyper little slave to higher education and cheap restaurant labor…(i.e. Chili’s.). Anyway, Angela – your post has tickled me in the ways that stupidity tends to. Unlike you, I’m sure, I have lived here about 99.9% of my existence. All but 1 year out of 20.
“This is Lavergne…..not Indian Hills out in murfreesboro or brentwood in nashville. it’s LAVERGNE…gang riddled, violent streaked, illegal immigrant filled, trailor park down the road, LAVERGNE.”
If you don’t like it – get the hell out. Truthfully, LaVergne never used to be this way. Again, I’ve lived here about 99.9% of my life and I have also seen how this city has evolved. I’ve been to every school in the LaVergne city limits as well as Cedar Grove. Rock Springs Middle was opened during my freshman year of high school. I was in the first 5th grade class as well as the last 8th grade class of Rock Springs Elementary. Roy Waldron was still the Lakers with the nasty ass green and yellow for colors. LaVergne Primary was just starting to get portables.
I played PeeWee softball at the old fields off Stones River where the houses are now run down and trailers run rampant, not to mention that the fields no longer exist. Up until my junior/senior years of high school, I was never scared to walk around the Dove Creek/Farmingdale neighborhoods as I have been for years. Back then, gangs weren’t a problem. Gangs never became an issue until my junior year of high school (2004-2005) when kids who were getting kicked out of Antioch had family who lived here, in LaVergne, and came to stay with them and then they invaded our schools. LaVergne never used to be so infested with Mexican restaurants and cheap, slow ass McDonald’s labor until about 4 years ago.
Now, Angela. You talk about how this city is so bad – then answer something for me – WHY ARE YOU HERE?
If you have done YOUR investigating around LaVergne then you would know if your neighbor’s house looks like shit it makes the entire block look horrible. Reason being, in almost every neighborhood in LaVergne (INCLUDING the prestigious Woodland Hills and McFarlin Point) almost every lot touches. In many neighborhoods, it doesn’t take effort to spit out your window and hit your neighbor’s house. Yards are a few feet’s worth of grass patches.
In my neighborhood, the yards aren’t big enough for 10 cars. Yet, if there are 10 cars in a yard for an extended period of time – I would become concerned. Especially, if as stated before, the traffic inside the house becomes way too much and it concerns the neighbors then yes – it becomes the neighbor’s problem.
A good friend of mine in middle/elementary school was raped out by LFE several years ago, simply because Antioch is invading LFE. The houses are cheap, anybody could really move in so long as Jerry Butler approves. I’ve known crackheads (from Antioch) to live out in that neighborhood.
The trailer park used to be a resort and never used to be such a problem until a few years ago. It used to be so taken well care of and never so horrible.
Back to the my past though – I used to spend 3/4 of my life out at Veteran’s Memorial Park while playing for LaVergne’s Little League. I was never scared to walk around that park at night, not until everything started falling apart.
Truthfully, the only nice neighborhoods out here anymore are off of Morningside and even some of those touch.
Angela, you really don’t know the background of the city like you think you do. Trying growing up here – living here every year of your life but one – and then talk about how you don’t care about this city. Like Michael said, this is for people who CARE about LaVergne. And as much as I disliked growing up here because I had nothing else but softball (which I loved, but also wanted other things to do and placed to go), I still don’t want to see this city succumb to auto parts stores, mexican/asian restaurants, car washes, and gas stations. I want to see LaVergne become so much better.
So before you bash this tiny little city and talk about how gang riddled and violence streaked it is – get the facts and look beyond LFE. Not all of LaVergne is that way – but a good chunk of trash has moved there. I’m not saying everyone who lives there is trash, however, I could probably afford to live there off of a server’s wages. And if you know anything about the economy, then you know my salary’s been just as cut as anybody else’s. So even as the economy blows major butt right now, I could STILL afford to live there. So could somebody working at McDonald’s or selling drugs. If the seller would raise their standards then there wouldn’t be such a problem now would there?
Any questions or concerns you may have may be directed to Cricket who shall forward them to her lovely, amazing, eldest daughter – namely me.
Thank y’all for listening and have a great night! :D
“…voting for the rich old white guy”??
Ivy, I don’t think Obama is hurting financially – his 2007 family income was 4.2 million. Not too shabby. McCain and his wife make a whole lot of money too – but they file separately and always have. John made around 400K last year. His wife Cindy made just over 6 million in 2006. There again, not too shabby. She has not released her 2007 return and probably won’t. She doesn’t have to. When they got married, they did a prenup, so John doesn’t have nearly as much dough as Cindy because Cindy is the heiress of an Arizona beer distributor and has lots of investments.
My point is that all candidates for president make too much money and are out of touch with reality and the average, common person. You have to be a millionaire just to run for that office. Look at Hillary – She and Bill made over 20 million last year.
Without even getting into the party issues, one of my biggest issues with Obama is his lack of experience. He only has 8 years of experience as a State Senator for Illinois and only 2 years of experience as a U.S. Senator from Illinois. Bush only had 6 years as Governor of Texas and look at the mess we are in with him. Do we really want to elect another person with so little experience?
I don’t think that everything is Bush’s fault. He was dealt a poor hand when it came to national security, 9/11, and the economy. I don’t think he handled them in the best possible way. He took over from a bad administration and was unable to make it any better. Hopefully this country will really think about who they want to elect and make the best choice for the country as a whole and not base their decisions on their own personal political agendas. This country is going down the tubes and something needs to be done to turn it around.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn this political. That said, I was going to say the same thing as blah blah, neither candidate understands real life for most Americans, and unfortunately, any candidate who did understand real life could probably never get elected.
Crickett, it’s clear that you really care about this city. I’m curious, since you’ve been here so long, how did all of this happen? Who handed the keys to the city to Jerry Butler and Amnon Shreibman? Why was all this growth just allowed with no apparent oversight?
Damn, y’all, I was joking. You know, “Why do you hate poor people, Michael?” How easily we forget. :D
I knew you were joking Ivy. And apparently Angie knows I love poor people because I live in La Vergne and everyone here is poor! Oh, and I guess I have to join a gang now too :(
Well, don’t worry, Michael, I’ll let you join my gang. We’re going to take over the organized crime and clean up this city. :D
Michael, if I knew the answers to that I would still have a cow field behind my house instead of a Jerry Butler subdivision. And if everyone over 18 would get out and vote in the city elections, we might have a chance at fixing some of this mess.
Well, you obviously see worrying about larger issues than cars and yards as stupidity and like any American you are entitled to your opinion. I however am entitled to mine as well.
My opinion is anyone who lives in the past and basis a city on that and can’t wake up to the reality of what this city is turning into is displaying stupidity. My opininion is when there are children being shot in the head, titan’s cheerleaders having home invasions, and some poor innocent woman on Sand Hill being shot in her head in her own home (directly across from that lovely park) or like in my case…my 6 yr old daughter being molested by a 7 and 9 year old who are here with green cards, on my own street as well as nearly every other little girl on my street under the age of nine, then having the LaVergne police department do absolutely NOTHING about it other than hand our case over to a detective they KNEW was about to leave the force, or when thugs go and burn 2 houses to the ground and burn the roof and siding off one more, OR when just until a week ago we were a town so small it didn’t even have a 24 hour grocery store but had a gang unit, it is displaying stupidity to be worring so much about something like cars and garages.
And don’t be so silly as to say all of LaVergne is not like that. For God sakes, that home invasion on Sand Hill where the woman was shot in the head and killed is on the same road two of our schools share. Flourish? Ok…whatever floats your boat. If you say the kind of violent activities mentioned here is considered the town flourishing then that’s your opinion. My opinion is it’s called a disaster of a city. It might not have always been that way, but we don’t live back in 1989 now do we? And for at least the past 4 years I know of, this city has been exactly that…a disaster.
I would love for it to change. I would love to feel safe in my own home but I am not about to sit here being some moron pretending that I am safe just because I want so desperately to believe this is a good city (something that is absolutely an untruth).
As far as leaving, that’s not exactly a reality with the housing market being what it is these days. That’s not much of a reality for people who even live in a good city let alone in one where 3 seperate very violent notorious gangs have decided to call their home.
If you think me to be an idiot because I am FAR more concerned about that than asthetics then go right ahead. In return I’ll think the same about you and I guess just call it even. It’s the same thing as when you hear people yammering on endlessly about Paris Hilton or Brangelina while something much more important in the world is happening….like war. Sorry if you have a problem with my opinion on it but that’s just the way I feel about it.
Oh, and as far as me not knowing anything about the city. I might not know everything there is to know but I know the main cause of it becoming the crud hole it’s has become.
Were you not aware that the housing authority has shut down a few projects in the county and have bought several homes right here?
Were you not aware that they are now taking people from the projects along with all of their problems and moving them here?
From Sand Hill Dr. on back to fergus Rd and all in between is now literally the projects?
Here’s just a thought…how about instead of making such a stink about asthetics, stir up a stink asking why this was permitted to happen. How about looking into a class action against the housing authorities for placing that trash here without any prior warning to the decent citizens already living here. That way some of us who wanted to move could have had a shot at maybe breaking even before they turned it into a section 8.
I can promise you one thing. Gangs, violence, and an area being turned into the projects lowers property value MUCH more than 10 cars parked in a yard and a WHOLE lot more than a converted garage.
Again, don’t think that because this might not be happening in one small area of a very small city, that it isn’t happening to ALL of LaVergne.
Reality check….with a town this small having gangs and the housing authority moving their trash out here, decent citizens don’t just avoid the one area…they avoid the entire city. Now if you can’t see where that means the troubles going on out here is ALL of LaVergne, then you need some meds because you’re seriously delusional.
I hate to blame the victim, but why would you let your 6 year old daughter be in a position that she was alone with 7 and 9 year old boys?
Deja Moo: The feeling you’ve heard this bullshit before.
I’m not for sure if this blog is more political or philosophical. It is certain that there are a lot of smart people here trying to find solutions to a sociological problem. My opinion is that overall values have eroded to a point where people no longer point at the pimps and gangstas on TV and call them idiots in front of their kids. It is just commonplace now, and how do you acheive success and be cool now, if you are a kid? Be a thug and wear a red hood and white skullcap. You can’t even call some of these people idiots, because even though they are of all races, if they happen to be a minority, you’ll get carted off by a protest group saying you are racist. I don’t care if it is Eminem, 50 Cent, or Jackie Chan, if you are portraying yourself as a lowlife and making millions, you are setting a bad example, and the media is taking it to the bank. Sadly, it is all in the name of making money off keeping bored kids entertained.
People don’t tough it out and stay married like they used to, either. The effect? Single parent homes are almost earmarked for poverty. The wage and commodity structure was different just 50 years ago, where a single parent could make enough money to support a family of 5. Now, if both parents work, they can barely make ends meet. Seeing that there is little chance of anything different even if they try, kids today just give up, and take the route that is easiest.
The poor and middle class have been studied by the corporations who sell them products, trying to find ways to milk every last penny from the people to increase profit margins. The realtor and banking lobbies have used their power and influence in Washington over time to increase house prices up to a point where you can’t pay off a house by the time you are 35 like you could a few generations ago. That isn’t Kathy or any other local realtor or banker’s fault – the organization whom they earn money for their families is profit driven. Milk them for all they are worth, make them pay for their house until retirement, and don’t let them have enough left over to save has been the attitude of big business, who, in our capitalistic government, essentially pulls the strings.
To expand that point, capitalism succeeds when there is enough competion to keep the price of goods at a reasonable level. While you see the monopoly anti-trust suits against Microsoft and DeBeers, the big problem does not lie with computers or diamonds. The biggest problem we face is the rise of the oligopolies, which is when a limited number of companies control the market. When history looks back on America, people will probably say “Why didn’t they regulate the banks more?” Banks are essentially getting away with murder and getting bailed out for it. Think 5 Congressmens’ sons getting a get out of Vietnam free card, along with $5 bil bonus each, courtesy of our federal income tax. The reason? If something happens to any of these mega corporations, worldwide economies suffer.
Rewind. The major banks in the 1980’s had 10 times less in assets than the major banks do today. Through the loosening of restrictions by worldwide governments, these banks, which are a vital service to the world economy, have merged, and now hold such a grip on the nations of the world that they cannot be allowed to fail. Remember, these are private companies – how did we get to this point? Private companies – corporations – run the show.
Industries that are vital to the economy of America and vital for people to survive should be regulated. That includes oil, banking, food, etc.. I don’t know if they should be government run – we don’t need bread lines like in Russia, but our government can limit what these companies do, if our Congressmen aren’t worried about making their campaign supporters angry, that is.
American goods, if they are truly made here in totality, should be protected by tariff. American companies should have an upper hand in the U.S. over foreign companies. America was strong when it was mostly self sufficient, and didn’t allow its companies to outsource all of its work at a lower wage and lower environmental standard in another country. They say they can’t make the product here and sell it at a decent price – it used to work years ago, why not now?
Maybe some of these companies should be government run instead. We can ensure that some foreign conglomerate doesn’t buy our American companies out while the dollar is cheap. On this track, though, by letting the companies run everything, where we once were a strong and rich nation, without jobs and restrictions on companies, we will be equalized to living in huts and shacks like the poorer counties that our own companies have outsourced cheap labor. All it will take is time.
The rot has begun from the core, and now we are seeing it reach the surface. Values have eroded, but there are many underlying reasons why.
Dang, these are the most volatile and vocal posts I’ve seen on this site in a long time, but I’m not going to jump in the middle of it all with a massive diatribe. I will say, though, that I pretty much side with Cricket and her daughter. We also moved here (Woodland Hills) in 1989 and things started going downhill about 8-10 years ago. My daughter is a sophomore at the high school now, and I’m seriously considering putting her in private school next year, if I can figure out how to pay for it.
We moved to LaVergne with full intentions of staying here long-term, but after 19 years, I’ve about had my fill.
Well, if you really want my opinion….
The last one got a little out of hand. I need to lighten up! Sorry guys!
Deja, I am hoping that your question of why I would leave my daughter “alone’ with a 7 and 9 year old boy is not to be the jerk that you are coming across as.
The answer if it is an actual curiosity of yours is this…..I did NOT leave her alone with a 7 and 9 year old boy.
She asked me if she could go to her best friend’s house and play in her FENCED IN back yard.
The house she went to was 2 houses down from mine.
I knew the little girl’s mother and our children have spent the past 3 years together. The two boys from across the street who had always seemed nice before this had come over to the house as well. I felt my daughter was safe as she was being supervised by her friend’s mother.
The mother of her friend went into the house to make some sandwhiches while the children played in her back yard….and it only took THAT LONG for it to happen.
The mother never even knew what had happened and neither had I until a month later when my daughter came forward about it.
The boys were just babies themselves, and on all accounts had appeared to be very nice children before this. These boys had been to all of my daughter’s birthday parties as well as my son’s.
After my daughter reported what had happened that day I immediately went and spoke to her friend’s mother about it. She was horrified to hear what I had told her and immediately went to her daughter and asked if it had ever been done to her too. Unfortunately…the answer was yes.
It didn’t stop there either. After I called DCS and the police and made report I felt it my responsibility to go to all of the mothers on our street and let them know what had happened (seeing as nearly all the children on our street are little girls).
After telling the mother of another girl about this she too asked her 2 daughters ages 6 and 9 if it had happened to them. I felt like my head was swimming and like I was going to vomit when they BOTH said yes.
I have always been very protective of my children and tried my best to watch over them. Unfortunately not even the most careful of parents can watch their children 24 hours a day. They must do things like go to the bathroom, make lunch, take a shower, etc.
I am not going to be such a jerk as to blame this little girl’s mother for what happened, and I know I am not to blame either. The blame lies on the boys who committed this crime and their parents for raising sexual deviants at even such a young age.
The mother of my daughter’s friend never thought that letting 2 little boys that had been in her daughter’s life for 3 years would ever commit such an act.
No sane person goes around thinking that a 7 and 9 year old (who had been friends especially) could go and do such a thing. At least not until it happens to them. And it would be SICK to go around thinking such things of all children.
Along with this factor a parent can’t cage their children in their house 24 hours a day. They must allow them to be children, meet friends and play.
Had I just let my daughter go waltzing down the road wherever she pleased then I might say you had a valid point in asking such a horrible callous question, but seeing as I spoke with the mother of her friend, walked my daughter to her house and did everything I could possibly do to keep her safe without just caging her in my house as if it were a dungeon…I would say that your question is a perfect example of what happens when people make assumptions. You ASSUMED I left her alone….and you were wrong.
And yes, I have been asked that before. As a matter of fact I was asked that same question by the police….which they then ended up having to eat a little crow (as you should) for making such an assumption.
It is the low income housing! Start building larger lots and higher priced housing and this will stop. Get rid of all the section 8 housing… When you have $500.00 move you in and then the person can not sell there home and rents it out and the renters do not care. Does anyone see this? How much is this costing the La Vergne tax payer in police and city expenses?
I really do care about the city I live in and would love to see it at it’s best. I’m sorry if I had offended anyone, but I disagree that we need to start with the small things and work up.
Consider this city a flower bed. The decent law abiding citizens who take pride in their homes being the flowers of the flower bed, if you will (and even if you won’t), the thugs and the gang members being the weeds.
When you want to weed a garden you do not just pick off the top blooms of the weeds, leave the roots and just expect things to return to normal. That is not what happens. What happens is the weeds are still there. They grow and multiply and before too long they choke out and kill any flower in it’s path and they take over the bed. If you want to get rid of the problem you start at the ROOT. You yank that sucker up by the root and throw it OUT. Before too long with a little watering and care the flowers WILL “flourish”.
Suggesting that we nitpick at these petty issues (in comparison) and hope that will make the true problem go away is like thinking picking off the top part of a weed will make it go away.
Get rid of the weeds. Go to city hall and demand our city back. Sign petitions stating that we want the housing authority to clean up the trash they have littered our streets with. Demand they sell those houses back and take their trash causing all of these problems away from here. Hold the city responsible for allowing this in the first place.
The fact is alot of these people DON’T own their homes. The housing authority owns them and then rents them out to people they took from the projects…and then they wonder why this city has been run amok with thugs.
So, do something on a more grand level. Demand they get RID of the problem they created.
You get rid of the weeds and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts you’ll start seeing those beautiful lawns, and have neighbors once again that take pride in their home the way you take pride in yours.
Otherwise, those weeds are going to take over completely (and they’ve nearly done it already) and they are going to permanently ruin something that could be beautiful once again.
The city does not have a housing authority. (http://www.hud.gov/offices/pih/pha/contacts/states/tn.cfm) Some cities do, but La Vergne does not. If it did, you might start seeing homeless wandering the streets, because they are typically provided housing by these agencies. In communities with housing authorities, it is too bad that these individuals do not have programs in Tennessee to keep them off thes streets. Fortunately, La Vergne does not have this problem as of yet, so it could be worse. There is a La Vergne housing authority board, but it does not meet due to there being no business to conduct.
As far as Section 8, the Feds and HUD are responsibile for Section 8 housing. Landlords and certain real estate developers can apply to HUD to provide subsidized housing to low income individuals and families, which, if all hoops are jumped through, can be quite lucrative for these applicants. Landlords buy up a large number of foreclosed properties and rent them out with HUD assistance. Foreclosed properties are due to banks offering adjustable rate mortgages to people who have bad credit and don’t understand what it means payment-wise.
Most companies typically seek out high density residential areas for HUD assistance, which records show that your Board of Mayor and Aldermen have denied the proliferation of in the recent past. Really, the city has made efforts to maintain the quality of life for its citizens. There are other things that could have been done in the past that could have helped, but I think we are all aware of that.
The city can only respond to real weed complaints. If there are junk cars and grass is over 12 feet tall (I’m just kidding, sort of), call the city codes department. If you are mad that the education system teaches people about tangents and cosigns and not personal finance and government hiearchy and programs, call your state and Congressional representatives. If you are pissed about subsidized housing and banks and what it does to places like La Vergne, then call or write your Congressional representatives in Washington. I think it is bullcrap too, Angela, just send the furor to the right direction.
Then 3 LaVergne police officers are either misinformed or lying (I would imagine it’s more of the first than the second).
I had 3 seperate officers dispatched out to my neighborhood within a 2 day period for vandalism and that is what each one of them told me.
My family and I came home from a much needed vacation and literally before we even pulled into our driveway the vacation was over. My husband went to check our mailbox and the our mailbox had been blown up with large fireworks. All of our mail had caught fire (including a car title for my elderly father).
When the police officer arrived he explained how far gone this city has become.
He told us we were actually lucky that all we were having to deal with was blown up mail. He then explained just the night before they responded to a drive by shooting just one street over from us and found shell casing lodged in the house.
When I asked him why these types of crimes were being committed so often here he told my husband and I “There is a housing authority for the “county” and they had purchased several homes in the area and are pulling people from the projects and sending them out here.”
This exact same reason was given by 2 other police officers on 2 other seperate occassions.
I just feel like the people who live in the nicer areas of LaVergne don’t have a full understanding of what this type of crime is doing to the entire city, not just certain areas.
This situation has spread and the entire city has developed a very bad reputation because of it.
Our city has been on the local news more than once now and each time it has been for yet another crime. The word is now out that LaVergne is gangville, and unfortunately the media is accurate in their statements.
When people watch the news and see another shooting has occured in LVergne or some other gang related crime has taken place here, that makes people want to stay clear of the entire city (and rightfully so). It certainlly doesn’t make people think…”Oh gee ya know, we’re selling our house and I think we should look into moving to LaVergne.”
There are certain people on here that seem to have taken my anger for what is going on out here as hatred for this city and they couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not the city I detest. It’s what certain peple are doing to it that I detest.
My husband and I are in the midst of trying to sell our house right now because we simply can’t take anymore. As you can imagine it isn’t going very well. The housing market is ridiculous right now and then to make matters worse….nobody wants to purchase a home out here. They see section 8 housing, they watch the news and here of the home invasions, the gangs, the shootings and they think don’t even consider LaVergne an option to look at.
The fact is, I don’t WANT to have to sell my house. This house was my very first house. I love my house, but I love my safety and my sanity more.
I’m furious that this thanksgiving and Christmas my family has informed me that we are having them at my sister’s house in Bell Buckle because they don’t feel safe coming out here. I’m furious that because of thugs that I can’t even enjoy being able to entertain my own family and friends at my house.
I was a first time home buyer and like most first time home buyers i made mistakes and my most crucial mistake was not investigating the area I was moving to.
I saw what appeared to be a quaint little city. It was closer to Nashville than Murfreesboro (where I moved from) and because of it’s small size I ignorantly assumed that there wouldn’t be much crime. Now to my horror, I am living in absolute hell.
I look around my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods and I see one “For Sale” sign after the other, and I also see that the only people moving are the decent people who just can’t take anymore. People saying “I didn’t sign up for this crap.”
It’s not that I don’t WANT to do anything about it. It’s that on a realistic level, when a city (especially of this size) ends up with the types of crime we have out here, it is extremely difficult to reverse it.
I know I seem like a broken record with mentioning the 3 notorious gangs we have out here but the reason for this is because i’m not sure how aware LaVergne citizens are of exactly how dangerous the gangs we have are.
I lived in california for quite some time and I’ve seen what they are capable of. The 3 gangs we have out here are…The bloods, the crips (who are known for feuding with one another) and M13. The bloods and crips are most commonly found in California. M13 is a mexican gang.
The blood and crips are most dangerous to decent folk because of their initiation process. They took their initiation process from that of the mafia. The only difference is at least the Mafia’s initiation they only kill other mafia members who had a hit on them anyway. These two gangs do not do that. They pick innocent random people to kill. The reasons for this is so that the person can prove 1. they won’t get choked up about an innocent person getting caught in crossfire and 2. to prove their ultimate loyalty.
M13 although considered less violent because most of the time they do not kill their innocent random victim, they do however kidnap people at randon and hold them for ransom.
THIS is what is going on right here in our city. I don’t think people are grasping the gravity of the situation here.
I’ve been accused of not caring about this city. if I didn’t care I wouldn’t have bothered posting anything on here in the first place. And i certainly wouldn’t have continued to place further posts. I do care. I’m just aware that you don’t solve problems by pretending the problems aren’t there and concentrating on things just at the surface.
little correction here since there is no edit feature. MS-13. lots of other things in there but again…no edit features.
Angela, I have a question about your previous post, which I must admit was eye-opening. Do you know or have you heard anything about Asian-based gang activity? My daughter tells me they’re the biggest troublemakers at the high school and brag openly about their Asian gang membership. She thinks they’re Laotion, but isn’t positive. I certainly don’t mean to accuse or offend the wrong nationality, but I would really like to know. (And she wonders why I want her out of LHS.) Thanks for any info – this isn’t exactly the type of question that the school is willing to answer, because I tried that last year and got nowhere.
a post from Cricket’s daughter (not Chaos), who also goes to LHS-
MS-13 isnt just Mexican, its more specifically El Salvadorian. They brag about their “Salvatrucha” heritage.
At LHS of course we have Bloods and Crips.
Bloods associate themselves with the number 5, the colors red and black (ironically Lavergne Middle’s school colors), calling each other “bruh” or “bro”, and 5 pointed stars.
Crips associate themselves with the number 6, the color blue and white or silver (ironically Lavergne High’s school colors), calling each other “cuz”, and 6 pointed stars, i.e. the star of David.
At LHS we do have an Asian Pride gang called “TAN” which means “The Asian N—as”. We probably have more than one Asian gang…We have Hispanic pride gangs too. Basically all kinds.
We do have a lot of fights, but I’ve never seen any that involved innocent bystanders. The gangs at my school, to my knowledge, mostly just keep to themselves. There is constant graffiti everywhere, especially in the bathrooms and on desks and gym bleachers and stairwells, that advertise gangs. Most of them say “6^, 5v” (meaning Crips above Bloods, and vice versa).
This concludes my gang knowledge for the day.
Angela, I think it is very obvious that you care for the city. I hope you didn’t think I was picking on you, because I certainly agree that there are problems, and I wish there was something that could be done. Your problems should certainly make us all appreciate our neighbors a little more, even if they are weird or stupid. There isn’t much worse than a criminal.
There may be some sort of county housing authority, of that I’m not for sure. Smyrna and Murfreesboro have them. Whatever the case may be, I hope your situation gets better. I do sympathize for you, because you sound like you are at the end of your rope.
Thank you, Fred. I am at the end of my rope. My nerves are frazzled from all of this. Nobody buys their first home expecting the kinds of nightmares we have had.
The reason I started posting on here was because I was looking for something on a completely different subject and I came across LaVergne and then the title too many cars = bad neighbors.
I thought I would find somebody talking about something similar to what has been going on out here and maybe get any suggestions. When i read all of these posts from LaVergne citizens, I’m sorry but after what my family and other families in my neighborhood have been through it just seemed very petty and it upset me.
I after all only WISH that my biggest concern was too many cars and unkempt lawns. So, I do appologize for being so abrasive to anyone. It’s just as fred put it. i’m just at the end of my rope with it all out here, and frankly I’m scared. I hate being scared in my own home, and it makes me mad as hell.
Sherry, I’m sorry but I don’t know much about any of the asian gangs. I’m not even that familiar with the latino gangs. The only reason i know what I know on the bloods and crips is because I lived in Oceanside, Ca for quite some time. Oceanside is about 30 min away from LA, where the bloods and crips originated from.
I know the last time I read or heard anything on the bloods and crips I believe it said they are now 30,000 strong across the US.
I do know of one way you can tell if they are directly in your area. The bloods HATE the crips and they pretty much hate the letter C. the only time you’ll see them use it when signing their gang insignia is when the C is followed K….meaning “Crip killer”. They tend to use the letter K in place of where a C should be in their wording. Along with all the other info on colors listed above by cricket. Although, I’ve heard they tend to stay away from colors anymore because it makes them stand out to the police.
oh…and that 30,000 strong was apprx. 30,000 for each side, not combined. Scary, huh?
in response to Angela, another post by Cricket’s other daughter (not Chaos) (call me Bebop):
you’re right about CK. Bloods use the letters “CK” and the Crips use “BK” to mean “Crip Killer” and “Blood Killer”, respectively.
Crips also tend to wear a brand of shoes called “British Knights” because on the shoes, the initials “BK” are on the sides. Convenient, eh?
If someone replaces the letters “ck” in a word with “kk”, that means they’re basically affiliated with the Crips. for example, “i’ll be right bakk.”
this ends another post on my gang knowledge.
The urban legends rolling around here about gangs are hilarious. Mexican gangs kidnapping people at random for ransom? The Bloods and the Crips running around killing innocent people for fun? They’re too busy killing each other to have time to kill innocent bystanders.Don’t you think if this was happening in tiny little La Vergne that it would be on the NEWS? God, this thread is taking the funniest turn.
Deja Moo: The feeling you’ve heard this bullshit before.
Deja MooOoOooo,
Might you be a politician? I thought that Ms. Anthony’s claims of gangs were bogus. All I saw were kids walking together in groups of 3 – 4… no biggie, right?
Wrong! They are around and about… some neighbors just don’t hesitate calling 793-7744 to report suspicious activity. Maybe that’s why they moved to the other side of town… personally, I would like to ship all the punks to Cocke County. They seem to have their own justice there…
Ok, I don’t disagree there are gangs around here. I was skeptical last year when a lot of the bad PR came out, but I don’t doubt there are gangs at LHS, just like every other high school in Rutherford, Williamson, and Sumner county.
The question then is, how bad is the gang problem? I don’t know. There is an old saying about news: If it bleeds, it leads. I think everytime something bad around here has happened, it has been on the news and we’ve discussed it on this site.
Before we scare everyone, let’s look at reality. Our murder rate for La Vergne “Peaked” at 2 murders in 2005. There were 0 murders in 2006. I don’t have data for 2007. I’m not saying that other crimes such as rape and home invasion aren’t bad, but some of you guys are reacting like people are being shot dead in the street every day. The last murder to happen in this town was a man who killed his live-in girlfriend, a domestic-violence murder, not a gang-related murder.
Those of us who don’t like seeing cars parked in the yeard are not trying to say that forcing people to park in the driveway will solve all our problems, but we are saying that’s a good step. I believe the majority of people who are a problem in this city are the same people with overgrown lawns and cars in the yard. Why do theynot care about their homes? I believe it’s probably because they are renters. The careless renters can bring down an entire neighborhood, forcing the caring homeowners to want to move elsewhere and when their homes don’t sell, guess what? The peopel still move and their house becomes a rental too!
Before Ivy get’s to me, no, I don’t hate renters. But I think we can all honestly say we were renters at one point (apartment? dorm?) and did you care about that place? probably not as much as you do with a home you own. That’s why the city needs to have some type of regulation on the outward appearence of your home. Either that, or re-name LFE as “Lake Forest Estates, Section 8.” It’s not a solution to all problems, but it is a good first step.
No, I am not a politician. I am a cow and therefore I am unable to run for public office.
I’m not saying gangs don’t exist in La Vergne. They do exist, just like they exist in Smyrna, Murfreesboro, and even hoity-toity Franklin. But like Michael says, it’s not like people are getting shot every day. I think people are getting their panties in a wad here. Unwad and keep on the city about making sure the police are keeping on top of this gang problem.
Well I guess you would be getting your panties in a wad too if you actually were having to live in the middle of it. I can tell you that the very few incidents I have mentioned on here have happened in a very short period of time and they are definitely nowhere NEAR all of what has happened.
The things i have mentioned that have happened to my family personally are on just ONE STREET! Perhaps you have your head in the sand like some ostrich because the things that are going on around here are not happening in YOUR neighborhood. That does NOT mean they are not happening!!!
Nobody claimed that the random killings or kidnappings have happened….YET!
They do that as part of an initiation process, you MORON! Apparently the ones around here have already been initiated….thus we haven’t seen it…again…YET.
But what happens when they DO decide to initiate a new member and they decide to proceed with their initiation in our neighborhoods?
Where there is smoke there is fire and there is DEFINITELY smoke!
They have proven there are gangs out here and only an IDIOT would go around thinking they are safe from these 3 particular gangs. I just hope if they do end up deciding to pull off their initiations here in LaVergne sooner or later that it will be YOU, Deja and YOUR family to suffer the consequences of your idiocy, not mine!
I can’t even call what you are saying “ignorant”. Being ignorant implies that the person has not been informed. Once they have been informed and they choose to just stick their head in the ground it then becomes STUPIDITY!
Of course I should have guessed a statement like that to come from some asshole putting blame on the victims instead of the people who commit the crime.
Seeing as how completely wrong you were about your last assumption you made on here do you really think it’s wise to continue making MORE OF THEM?!?!?!
And as far as them being in Smyrna, Murfreesboro, and even Frankling…yes they are….all three of those cities you mentioned are also considerably larger than LaVergne.
Those cities are large enough that those things can happen and not have a negative effect on the entire city.You can go clear across town and get away from that. LaVergne is not large enough for the same results. Funny how you didn’t mention Nahsville having these problems. Why?
::puts on moderator hat::
While we know that discussions can become very heated here, we’d like to keep the name calling to a minimum. Also, wishing death on our commenters, no matter how trollish they might be acting, is a no-no.
Angela, we’re glad to have you commenting here, but I do hope you take a look at our terms of use and consider what exactly you’re saying before you hit the “submit comment” button.
::removes moderator hat::
Angela, please calm down. I understand you are upset, but there is NO excuse for wishing violence against someone, particularly someone you don’t even know.
You aren’t making any sense. Our low murder rate is simply because gang initiation hasn’t happened yet? And all of a sudden, these gangs are going to start initiating and we’ll have blood in the streets? When was the last round of initiation?
No one on this board is calling you an idiot, and no one is saying your predictions cannot come true. What we are saying is that we are trying to make sure these dire predictions do not come true. We are supporting our police, we are getting involved in our community. I’m not saying that things don’t happen to discourage me, but we have to pick ourselves up and continue working hard to maintain control of our city.
I’m sorry you’re scared and unhappy in your home, but I have no respect for someone who wishes death upon someone else. Deja nor anyone else said there weren’t problems in this city, we are contending that it is not as bad as you think.
You say there is more going on here than we realize, well guess what, there are no size limitations on this blog so I would like you to post every detail of what’s going on. If there is more going on than the city is revealing, I’d like to know.
I did not wish death upon him. What I said was IF these initiations do start taking place that I had rather it be on someone like him who chose to ignore the problem than someone like me who is facing it. I had rather it not happen at all or otherwise I wouldn’t be upset about the gangs being out here in the first place.
Yes, I am saying that it is a possibility that death could be lower because initiations haven’t yet taken place out here. They don’t just let people in the crips and bloods willy nilly.
It may not be how you or deja intend, but the way you are coming across is just laughing in the face of 2 gangs notrious for EXTREME violence for many MANY years now. They have gone down in history of being two of the most DEADLY gangs in the United States and here the two of you sit poo pooing them being out here. Sorry, but I see that as stupidity. I can not call it ignorance with as much information is available on these gangs and you just choose to ignore it in order to give yourself a false sense of security.
Those two houses that were burned to the ground and the one occupied house that was damaged (by gangs) can be seen from my front porch. The drive by shooting that occured happened just a few streets over from mine. The Titan’s cheerleader that had her home invaded with her there lives ONE street over from me…..and my children! My daughter and others have been molested by the trash that lives directly on our street and I no longer feel safe letting them go play and for very good reason. So, I will thank people to not go around so callously telling me not to get my panties in a wad and that it’s not THAT big of a deal. Well EXCUSE ME, but for those of us living in the middle of it, it IS EXACTLY that big of a deal!
I would also like to remind whoever put the moderator hat on that it isn’t exactly good manners for someone to imply that my daughter being molested was MY fault!!!!! You have your 6 year old daughter come home and tell you the kinds of horrible things mine did and have to live through that, the guilt and horror, and trauma that is already involved with thinking..”If I just had have told her no she isn’t allowed to play with any of her friends. maybe if I had just kept her inside and never let her go out” and then to have some callous piece of CRAP come in without ANY knowledge of anything on it and just ASSUME that you let her be ALONE with 2 boys..and let’s see how YOU like it. Let’s see how polite YOU react to him.
I don’t WISH death on anyone. If it DOES happen though and it has to be a choice between MY family or the cold callous jerk who has said and assumed the things he has…..thank you but I WILL be choosing HIM!
being awaken by neighbors in the middle of the night because the husband is yelling at a police officer…only to find out that they were just searching for a man who had just raped a 5 year old girl……they were searching for this man in OUR BACK YARD.
gang insignia being spray painted on property out here.
After making a report to the police about what was done to my daughter all of those kids friends decided to retaliate on my home….parents and all…lighting large fireworks directly at my house with my children inside screaming and crying as they hit our windows and when the police get out they just tell me…well we can’t do anything if you don’t have actual physical proof of who it was doing it…even though I sat there and watched them doing it.
The next day 2 another boy coming to my street lighting a large firework and throing it dierectly AT my two children and their friends nearly hitting their friend….when I called the police…even though there were WITNESSES to this happening…what did the police do? They just gave them a little talking to and went on their way.
I had the mothers of one of these kids threaten to kill all of my animals if I ever dared to leave my house.
My neighbor on the other side had 2 boys with walk up to her house take an 8 week old kitten and threw it as hard as they could into her fence nearly killing it. They left something on the ground reading “CK”
3 days later I am out walking my dog and see what looked like the same 2 boys and I hear a kitten screeching in agony…I yelled at them and they took off…I walk up to the SAME kitten they had nearly killed before and this time they had hurt it even worse…apparently the screeching was them taking a lighter and cigarettes to it’s ears. this was confirmed after I picked the poor thing up, took it to the vet, and got him healed up.
Myself and 2 other mothers that I know of have 13 yr old thugs walk down our street and when they aren’t making sexual gestures or SAYING extremely offensive sexual things they are doing things like taking their fingers and running it across their throats.
This STILL isn’t everything and I’m sure I will remember many other events that have taken place over the past few years. Most of this has taken place just recently though. Does THIS sound like something I need to just ignore and not take seriously. They have damaged my windows, my house, blew UP my mailbox, threatened me, molested my child, burned the houses down right across from me and I shouldn’t get my PANTIES IN A WAD???
Um. Angela. That was me that put on the moderator hat, as I am a co-owner and moderator of this blog. I put on my moderator hat, because that is an official warning. Do not be rude to me.
As far as Deja, he asked a question, I can’t assume he was placing blame on you because he hasn’t said anything else beyond that. I agree that victim blaming is never the right thing to do, but who knows what his intention was, he was asking a question.
Let me re-issue my official warning here: Calm down and start being polite, especially when you’re talking to the owners/moderators of this here blog. You seem to have a lot of energy on this issue, have you tried talking to people that can make an actual difference? Have you read any of the other posts on this blog, particularly the posts where our own dear Senna Mosely has commented?
It isn’t murder yet…..yet. How MANY drive by shootings do you need to realize it isn’t safe. It was nothing but LUCK the intended target of that shooting OR anyone else WASN’T killed…it certainly had NOTHING to do with how SAFE the area is! Safe areas do not have people driving by and shooting at the houses trying to KILL a person! Safe places do not have 11 yr old’s getting shot in teh head, safe areas do not have houses burned down just for laughs, safe areas do not have home invasions, safe areas do not have people threatening your family and destroying your HOME.
Oh, and one more thing. This isn’t moderating, just a comment from lil ol’ me: The guy who raped his daughter? They caught him in MY backyard, so don’t act like you’re the only person who is dealing with problems in Lake Forest. And anyway, that sort of thing could have happened anywhere.
You know why we don’t have so many problems on my street? Well, why I think we don’t, anyway. My neighbors and I call the police. And we keep watch on what’s happening. Talk to your good neighbors and enlist their help in keeping watch on the neighborhood and calling the police any time anything’s up. Eventually, they will get tired of having the police on their backs constantly and will move on.
And for good measure, look for News Channel 5 crews to arrive shortly…if there is a story, Phil Williams will find it!
He did NOT ask IF I had let my daughter alone with them. That’s just it. He ASSUMED I HAD left my daughter alone. He asked. WHY I had put her in a position of being alone with a 7 and 9 year old.
That was the problem with it…he just ASSUMED that I HAD put her in that position…and he was WRONG…and it appears you’re wanting some appology out of me yet i haven’t recieved one from him.
Not only did he assume I was responsible for it…he even implied it by saying “I hate to blame the victim”…well if he HATES to blame the victim so much…..then DON’T!
As far as getting help…that’s why I decided to come on here but so far all I’ve got is some jerk assuming I allowed my daughter to get molested and some other person telling me it’s not that big of a deal and not to get my panties ina wad and then i have the moderator getting on to ME for being rude?…really? You even misread MY post saying I wished death on him and I most certainly did not…..there’s a difference in wishing death on someone and it being I had rather it happen to you than me situation.
I’ve just got to get the heck out of this hell hole of a city.
Nobody and i mean NOBODY has given me ANY advice any help NOTHING…not even the pathetic Barny Fife police department we have who is doing nothing more than letting the statute of limitations run out on my daughter’s case so they just don’t have to deal with it.
I’m trying to tell people how bad it IS in other areas of LaVergne…but…obviously…since it isn’t happening in their own little world’s…it just isn’t happening at all…and doesn’t matter. So, Thanks…thanks LaVergne police department for doing nothing when I called for your help…when my little GIRL called for your help, thanks citizens who just turn your backs and a blind eye to the reality of what is happening to the rest of us out here…and calling it not that big of a deal.
Thanks LaVergne. You’ve just been PEACHY!
I came out here thinking I would have a nice little quiet life for myself and my children. I thought I would have good neighbors and a police force I could support and be proud of. I thought I could have a community I could be proud of….and instead….I’ve recieved my daughter being hurt, my house being vadalized, threatened, not to mention the piece of CRAP schools which is a whole different horrible situation, and the world’s worst neighbors, and a community on the outside who thinks it’s just NO BIG DEAL….NOT REALLY happening.
Ya know..you don’t have to ban me from your boards.
I’ll leave on my own. Deja is not the only idiot on here. Stupid me for thinking I could actually get a little advice as what the hell to do from LAVERGNE CITIZENS. This goes only for the ones who think it’s not that big of a deal…..YOU people…YOU are part of the problem by not being part of the solution. You are EVERY BIT as bad as the thugs walking the streets out here shooting people’s houses.
Thanks for reading for comprehension, Angela. See ya on the flip side.
Have you not even READ my posts? I HAVE called the police. I have called the police on EVERY single one of these problems. I call the police day in and out on my daughter’s case and they STILL can’t even tell me what DETECTIVE is on the case. They had originally put one on it who they KNEW was leaving the force the very next day!
Our police department is nothing more than Barney Fife…and before you say maybe they would be more willing to help if I didn’t feel that way about them….I DIDN’T feel this way about them UNTIL they have done all of this or should I say since they have done NOTHING!!!!! Not a THING has been done about it. Not one thing about ANY of it! As a matter of fact one of the officers even went as far to tell us that because of the boys ages that probably nothing would be done. So i guess at least here in LaVergne it’s ok to be a sexual predator so long as you’re young enough when you do it. Ohhhh…and they DID catch the guy in your yard….are you one of the people who really think it’s not that bad? Or is that ALL you’ve been through? It could happen anywhere? Really? Because the last place I lived not once did they ever catch a child rapist in my back yard. Not once have I had ANYTHING like the hell I have experienced since moving out here.
That’s just it….this DIDN’T happen somehwre else…it happened HERE…in LaVERGNE…..in the city you claimed to care about so much! if you care so much then don’t go around denying the problems and their severity….how about trying to help! Any advice? Anyone? Can anyone give me some advice as what the hell to DO????
ya know…both my children are homeschooled. I started homeschooling my son who is autistic just last year. I made this decision after he had been thrown out of LaVergne Primary because they thought he just had behavior problems…I kept asking for some help on getting information on getting him diagnosed with autism or an autism related disorder. 2 years went by and they just kept calling him “oppositionally defiant”…a politically correct way of saying “You’re son is a thug and he’ll be in jail one day” So they tossed him out of the school into Smyrna primary and into a behavioral class that uses physical restraint…well…if you didn’t know this…autistic children…they HATE being touched…especially in a meltdown. They go berzerk. I kept telling them I thought it was autism..they had the county specialist on autism come in anad everything…she said…”Nope, he’s just oppositionally defiant.” One day last year after he had a meltdown and they had 5 teachers in the class holding him down and using a CHOKE HOLD on him they carted him off to Vanderbilt…who then carted him off in a POLICE CAR….to the tennessee state mental institution for a week. After much more BS…I finally called the autism society and through a very long process we ended up getting him to a specialist…guess what…he’s autistic. So…we tried to sue the school board….only they lied lied lied lied. We even caught them in lies on recordings….and yet…it wasn’t enough to show “damage” to my son. My son who after being pulled out of that police car had went into a complete meltdown rocking back and forth peeing on himself, and staring into space….wasn’t damaged ENOUGH. I decided after this to pull my son and my daughter out of the schools. Things calmed down and my daughter wanted desperately to go back to regular school this year couldn’t. I actually thought about allowing her because I thought “well, this happened to my son because of his autism. Autism is hard to handle. She doesn’t have it so she might be ok. I could at least give it a shot.”
Well, now guess what…I can’t even send HER to school…not because of the school…but because she would be having to go to school with one of the little boys who hurt her. I don’t know….I’m just at my wit’s end with this city. Nothing but heartache and horror has happened since we moved here…and then I hear that the things out here aren’t that bad and it happens in other places. NO! I never dealt with this kind of crap in Murfreesboro. Murfreesboro is big enough that it has it’s good areas you can go to.
I only moved from there because I wanted to live in a smaller town with less hustle and bustle….I thought I would get that here…and NO…I got HELL….I moved to HELL. I lived in Murfreesboro for 8 years before moving here and I can tell you not ONCE did ANYTHING like the things I have experienced here happen…not to me or any of my neighbors. It happened on the other side of murfreesboror closer to the college…but not where I was. Even then….I can at least admit…yes, part of murfreesboror is BAD and I would never advise anyone…other than maybe Deja to move out there.
Penny Lane is in my ears, and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit and – oh crap, GRENADE – DUCK!!!
What happened last night? There are only charred embers left where the blog used to be. I do have to say, though, once you’ve had so much happen to you, it starts sounding a little bit like drama.
At this point I can only recommend Springer. Sorry Angela.
Angela, I do feel bad for your situation, but it seems that in every hour that passes you are pointing your anger in the wrong direction. I don’t think name calling and finger jabbing will help you with your cause at all. Especially since a lot of people who read and write here have gone through the same things you’re talking about. One moderator’s daughter was attacked and sexually assaulted at her school, too (she lives on the other side of LaV and was in kindergarten). Two years later, the kids were again put into a class together. The Mom did freak out, but marched in to the school and firmly talked to the principal. The bad kid was moved.
Another moderator here has a child who has had some extreme disability issues related to development disorders. The thing is, our schools are not here to diagnose a child’s medical condition, but to simply educate. If you suspected autism, you should have taken your son in for testing yourself, not depended on the school to do it for you. My brother has two autistic children – it’s a terrible, sad, horrible thing to deal with, but *you* must be his champion and screaming at everyone around you will not help him. There are autism support groups all over the Internet and I’m sure they can help guide you to a local support group and through the system.
Another friend of mine may be able to help you because she also had to champion for her son with disabilities. Her approach was so thorough in helping him that the semi-governmental agency she worked with HIRED her to help other people with similar problems. I’ll get you her contact info if you shoot me an email to kathy (at) bobparks (dot) com. And yes she’s had school issues but is kicking their ass in a way that’s going to make in impact, not in a way that alienates everyone around her.
As far as crime in your area… it sounds like the neighbors have shunned you if you’re experiencing the kinds of problems you’ve described. My suggestion is to invest in a couple of small cameras and mount them on the outside of your house. I did a quick search on Google and found that you can get a home surveillance camera at Home Depot for as little as $60. If police are asking for proof, the proof is in the pudding – video doesn’t lie. If you capture something, don’t wait to talk to a patrol officer. Go speak to Chief Boyd. I think he’s a very reasonable person and has implemented some great ideas to get the neighborhoods patroled, etc. While you’re at it, have you asked them to increase patrols on your street? This might be a good idea, too.
The cheerleader who faced the home invasion? Again, in Ivy’s neighborhood. But those two juveniles were captured by the LPD.
Have you even put your house up for sale if you’re this miserable in LaV? As a realtor I wil tell you this is a very very difficult time to sell. You have to make sure the house is immaculate and the price must be absolutely right in this market. Don’t expect it to sell quickly… we’re looking at about a 7-month supply of homes right now in Lake Forest (actually this 7-months is a huge improvement from about 6-months ago), so it could take a long time to sell. But if it’s priced too high, it’ll just sit there for 7 months, 10 months, 12 months.
Seriously, there are a lot of caring people out here but you just can’t – as Fred says – throw grenades at everyone and expect to gain a lot of sympathy. By the way, call me illiterate too but when I read the comment below, it definitely came across as totally not cool no matter your intentions.
“I just hope if they do end up deciding to pull off their initiations here in LaVergne sooner or later that it will be YOU, Deja and YOUR family to suffer the consequences of your idiocy, not mine!”
At wit’s end or not, when you comment in a public-type forum, your comments are fair-game for discussion. And you can expect the commenters to turn sour on you when you sweepingly call people “stupid” “moron” and “as*hole” and tell them (and I quote) “YOU people…YOU are part of the problem by not being part of the solution. You are EVERY BIT as bad as the thugs walking the streets out here shooting people’s houses.”
Good luck, man. It sounds like you need some on your side.
Wow, Angela. Your pants-shitting hysterics are cause for great amooOOosement over here in the cow field. By the way, I’m a heifer and not a bull, I’d prefer not to be referred to as “he or him.”
You can wish gang members would kill my family all you want, but since my sons are destined for the meat packing plant anyway, I doubt the gang members will come in time. And I’ve never heard of gang members going out to the country to kill cows as an initiation, but theere’s a first time for everything.
You say people are not giving you advice, but I see a lot of it here. Here’s my 2 cents’ worth though, sadly, I doubt you will listen. It sounds like you need Prozac or Lithium or both. Screaming at people like a shrill banshee is not making me feel comfortable with your sanity.
Well, it’s time to chew my cud. Eat more chicken, people. Eat more chicken.
Deja MooOoOooo Look out. Someone may come and tip you over.
Some of these posts have made me very scared and uncomfortable about living in LFE, even more than I already was. Is it really that bad? Now I’m worried and wondering if I should even be leaving my dogs out in my fenced in backyard while I’m at work everyday like I do now.
Deana, while I won’t exactly say there is NOTHING to worry about, I certainly would take some of these posts with a grain of salt. There are several of us here on TiLV that live in Lake Forest and have very little in the way of crime,
I used to live in a far, far more dangerous neighborhood that regularly had shootings. Even there, I never had anything stolen or vandalized, and obviously I wasn’t shot and killed or anything.
I seriously doubt your dogs will be hurt if they are left outside all day, provided they have adequate water and shelter in case it rains.
And as far as protecting your stuff and your house, it’s mainly common sense. Use lights on your house to make sure it’s lit up. Don’t put boxes of obviously expensive items out with the trash. Don’t take obviously expensive items (laptop, etc) outside. Keep everything of value locked up inside. Lock all your doors and windows at all times. Use your alarm system if you have one.
But seriously, it’s not as bad as all that, I don’t think.
Thanks that makes me feel a little better. I do all that stuff now, and I have an alarm system. It’s just unnerving to hear things especially about the gangs in our neighborhood.
Cricket, Thank you for speaking to me last night and giving me some actual advice on what I can do about the problems I am having out here. I asked for some help and you were an absolute doll for coming through.
Rather than denying these problems existed, you acknowledged it and really listened and for that I truely do thank you.
Ivy, I was told some good things about you and although I don’t agree that it isn’t that big of a problem i’ll be willing to hear any suggestions you may have. I understand that the things my family has experienced while living here may not be what is going on, on your street. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t happening on mine. As I explained to cricket last night, when a person has experienced the kinds of awful things my family has it is like a slap in the face when someone tells them “it’s not that bad.”
Michael, when I had said that I had not even listed all of the things that have happened, you asked me to go ahead and list all of them…so I did, and what I got for following your suggestion was you pretty much calling me a liar.
As for you Deja, you have now referred to yourself as a heifer, a cow. An animal that is of very low intelligence and spends a large majority of it’s day literally shitting on the head of it’s own offspring. After reading your posts I don’t doubt your claim of being one at all.
“Michael, when I had said that I had not even listed all of the things that have happened, you asked me to go ahead and list all of them…so I did, and what I got for following your suggestion was you pretty much calling me a liar.”
umm… what? I haven’t posted on this thread since I asked you the details. How did I call you a liar?
I appologize, Michael. I misread who that post was from. It was from Fred, not you. A mistake and i do appologize for it. I believe he called it “just sounding like drama.” Anyhoo….I’m done fighting. Cricket gave me some very useful ways to help out with the problems out here and I look forward to meeting with her ang getting active in taking back the city.
Kathy, i appreciate what you have to say on this, but I didn’t expect the school to diagnose it. I did go to many many doctors for years. The reason it became so intollerable is because once I had mentioned autism to the school, they brought in a woman by the name of Sharon Wolf.
Sharon Wolf is the head of the autism department for Rutherford County School Board. She is supposed to be an authority on autism and she had spent 2 years evaluating my son. The reason her job is so important is because where most children are finally able to be diagnosed is through someone like her giving a refferal. For 2 years she kept telling me that she could promise me that my son had no type of autism at all and that it was simply behavioral.
She was absolutely wrong and then once in a IEP where she was faced with this and having to deal with my attorney she suddenly says…”Oh I don’t recal ever saying your son wasn’t showing signs of autism. I thought all along he had it.” When I asked her…”Oh really? If that’s the case Mrs. Wolf, then why on Earth would you send a child you suspect of having autism to a behavioral class where they use physical restraint instead of referring us to go to the autism center at Vanderbilt?” (which by the way is listed in her job description) After asking this question she simply didn’t have an answer for it.
There was no doubt on their lying and neglegence. The only doubt was if my son had suffered “enough damamge” from their neglegence.
I do thank you for any other information. My son has now been diagnosed and once I found my own way to the Autism Society of Tn I ended up with all sorts of resouces.
He is now on medication (risperdal and strattera), has weekly therapy, occupational therapy for his sensory intergration, and is even learning to make eye contact with people. I’m a member of several autism boards and they are all very useful.
Unfortunately there just isn’t alot of educational recources here for autistic children.
With the exception of Deja, I appologize for letting my temper get out of hand on all of this. Even with the exception I do apoologize if anyone took what I said as wishing death on someone. I don’t.
Cricket did alot in helping me calm down last evening and as I explained to her…this has all been just such a horrible experience and I’ve just lost it. I do appologize for being a little too passionate with my feelings on this. With that being said I hope you all can appreciate that my passion with these issues is mostly in part because I am extremely passionate about my family, and we have went through a nightmare.
I will apologize for my comment, because it does all sound awful. You went nuclear on everyone, though, dude. You are like a different person in today’s posts.
I sincerely hope everything works out for you.
I will say that it’s broken my heart watching my brother and his wife deal with their autistic children. It rather takes your breath away when you start considering “what could’ve been” done with their extraordinary talents.
On a related note, my 14-year old niece has written a collection of short stories and her 18-year old brother is illustrating the collection. I plan to publish their works in the coming yearh paired with a book their Mom has written about raising autistic children. I think the Mom’s book will include a number of resources and what they did to help their kids (for example, they tried the touch therapy where the daughter was brushed several times a day to stimulate something in her brain). I don’t understand it all, but I know they have really struggled with it. They are now wrestling with transporting their son to college – he has to go to community college because he can still live at home in their care.
It’s such a difficult life and one I don’t wish on anyone. I just pray that a cure can be found for these children and adults who are living with autism.
Again, good luck and best wishes to you Angela.
Like Fred said, Angela, you sound like a totally different person today. Right on. Now we can have a real conversation. Let’s take some things point by point here, shall we?
Ivy, I was told some good things about you
Awesome.(Thanks, Cricket) I’ll be honest. I’m one of those people that you either absolutely love or absolutely hate. Of course, it’d be a lot cooler if you loved me, but if you decide you hate me, that’s okay too. I’m used to people hating me. I’m very straightforward with what I say and do, and not everyone digs that style.
(We’re going to get a little out of order here with my quoting, but stick with me, folks)
I understand that the things my family has experienced while living here may not be what is going on, on your street. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t happening on mine. As I explained to cricket last night, when a person has experienced the kinds of awful things my family has it is like a slap in the face when someone tells them “it’s not that bad.”
Believe me when I say I DO know how you feel. It’s odd, I’ve lived in some seriously dangerous neighborhoods and never had a problem, other than constantly being pulled over and being asked “What’s a white girl like you doing in a neighborhood like THIS?” and there was the time that the projects in my backyard, some people decided to shoot the mailman and then when the paramedics came, they shot the paramedics. My entire ‘hood was crawling with cops and nobody on that mail route got mail for at least a month. But living there, my house was never vandalized, I never had anything stolen, my car was never broken into, nothing. I was pretty lucky.
But then I lived in an apartment complex (here in LV, even) where the kids were so awful they threw rocks at my house, stole a fed ex package from my front door in the 15 minutes I had gone down to the gas station, they stuck a ham (I know, WTF?!?!?!) on my door, the woman across the street from me was a hooker, and, and, and. Living there was absolute hell. So I know where you’re coming from.
But if you look at it from my perspective, having lived in a place where bullets were constantly flying and cops were shocked that I had the balls to live there, perhaps you can see where my “it’s not that bad” perspective comes from.
Now, here’s the thing. I think Lake Forest, as a whole, really ISN’T all that bad. I think there’s an area, about 4 or 5 streets, that is a very shitty area to live in and it sounds, Angela, like you live in that very shitty part of Lake Forest.
What would I do if I were you? First, I’d do like Kathy suggested and get a camera system. Next, if I had the money and time to deal with one, and some dog owning experience (I do, but I don’t know what your experience is), I’d get a very big dog.
One of the reasons I think I was never messed with when I lived in the ghetto is because I owned a gigantor dog. She was dumb as a box of rocks and would have been more likely to slobber an intruder to death than bite them, but the people in the neighborhood didn’t know that. They just saw me and my giant dog outside every morning and left me the hell alone. Hood rats, as a general rule, are afraid of dogs and will be far less likely to rob a house that they know has a dog in it, than a house without.
Finally, get to know your neighbors. The good ones, anyway. Enlist their help in keeping an eye out and calling the police whenever something seems awry. Call the police dispatcher and request extra patrols on your street. Oh, and if you want to pursue your case with the molestation, call Chief Ted Boyd. Boyd is no joke, he doesn’t play. I’m sure he’ll help you out. Oh, and try to avoid calling the local police “Barney Fifes.” They don’t dig that. La Vergne police are terribly underpaid and overworked. Help us support candidates for public office who are trying to change that.
I had a lot more to say, but this comment is quickly approaching tl;dr territory so I’ll stop. One more thing, scroll up to the top and click the “home” tab and you’ll find lots more posts to read here on TiLV. You’ll find we’re a cranky, but fun bunch anyway.
Thanks all. I appreciate the advise. I’ll definitely call chief Ted Boyd before going straight to the press.
I’ve actually considered getting video surveillence. As for the really big dog….I started laughing when I read that. I had just told cricket last evening that I planned on getting a taser and a “really big dog.”
I used to have a 250 lb English Mastiff and he too was as dumb as a box of rocks but for some reason, NOBODY wanted to mess with a 250 lb dog. I also knew that even though he was as dumb as a box of rocks he was extremely protective and would have torn any intruder limb from limb. I do animal rescue but as far as dog’s go now all I have is a 11 yr old epileptic border collie and a tiny little terrier mix who starts shaking all over if she sees her own reflection in the mirror.
Kathy, that’s really something special about getting that stuff published. Raising an autistic child is definitely a handful. My son actually has Asperger’s Syndrome which is a higher functioning form of autism. It comes along with it’s own set of problems though. The “brushing therapy” is wonderful. It’s for sensory intergration. Virtually all austics are sensory intergrated in one way or the other. (meaning they are either over or under stimulated or as in my son’s case both) usually he can’t even feel the clothes on his own body, and other days (mostly when he is upset) he becomes over stimulated where he feels and hears everything far more than normal and he describes it as his clothes making his body feel like he’s on fire. The brushing is used mostly for under stimulation. it helps stimulate the nerve endings into feeling. Otherwise you end up with a child whose body is craving the sense of touch but not receiving it…and they’ll end up throwing themselves into walls or bumping into everything, or stomping really hard.
Anyhoo….yeah, I imagine I do seem quite different today. Cricket had asked me if I felt better…my answer was ‘yes, I guess I just needed someone to really listen to me.” Again, I appologize for my temper on all of it.
Sherry –
“Angela, I have a question about your previous post, which I must admit was eye-opening. Do you know or have you heard anything about Asian-based gang activity? My daughter tells me they’re the biggest troublemakers at the high school and brag openly about their Asian gang membership. She thinks they’re Laotion, but isn’t positive. I certainly don’t mean to accuse or offend the wrong nationality, but I would really like to know. (And she wonders why I want her out of LHS.) Thanks for any info – this isn’t exactly the type of question that the school is willing to answer, because I tried that last year and got nowhere.”
Yes, the APG had been storming through Antioch according to a few sources of mine and yes, while Asians are a major problem of the gang affiliations at that school, they are not the only ones. Not only that, but many of African-American descent as well as hispanic run the school damn rampant.
I remember my first two years at LHS were amazing, Dr. Stauffer was awesome. However, my last two years were absolutely horrible. I remember even three weeks before graduation asking my mom if I could transfer to Smyrna for those three weeks.
I saw some innocent people just beaten. A friend of mine had a gun or knife (can’t remember which) pulled on him in the band room and had the crap beaten out of him because of something that happened between bands (Antioch/LaV). Not only that, I remember just a few weeks before graduation a week where we had over 20 fights, 10 in one day, and that same day had 22 people arrested.
It’s so sad to see that the city I’ve grown up with is going the way that it is. Sure, things never used to be this way and I’m sorry things are going so horribly for some people. However, you cannot take out your frustration on those only offering solutions to help. And you also cannot expect them to sit idly by whenever you attack them – whether intentional or not.
Truthfully, I had more trouble living in an apartment in M’boro than I did in the whole 19 years of living out here. My car was never vandalized here nor was it ever broken into. I got both of those (vandalized 3 times, broken into once) within the same 3 months.
LaVergne isn’t that horrible of a place to live – sure it’s done downhill in some years, but you could be living in worse places. However, you can’t expect paradise with Jerry Butler’s $500.00 move-ins which opens that subdivision up to damn near anybody.
I wait tables and have had one heck of time making up for all the economy’s screwed me out of here lately – and even with a few horrible weeks I could afford rent there. I mean seriously, you cannot expect it to be Beverly Hills when it barely takes anything to live there.
Just saying my piece…
Chaos – Thanks for your input on the gang situation. I really appreciate hearing from someone who’s been there, since the school pretty much denies that gangs even exist in the first place.
My daughter’s second home is the band room. She’s in Choraliers, but all her friends are in band, and I always felt safe about her hanging out there. I guess you just never know. She hasn’t had any problems herself, but she doesn’t always know when to shut up. I’ve always been afraid she was going to shoot off her mouth at the wrong person at some point.
I’ve talked to her about tranferring to Smyna, which she absolutely refuses to even consider, but I may try to get her in Blackman next year whether she likes it or not.
Out of curiousity, what year did you graduate from LHS?
She graduated in 2006, Sherry.
She may be back on here tonight…
Well, Cricket opened my eyes to alot that i did not understand. Mostly with Shriebman running out of control. It’s obvious that man needs to be stopped.
He’s creating a horrible situation and ruining the reputation of what (from what I hear) used to be a lovely city and he’s doing it all to pad his already very wealthy pockets even further.
Chaos, You said you lived in Murfreesboro and had alot of problems. That was just my point. Murfreesboro has turned into a very large city. it’s actually no longer that much smaller than Nashville Not to mention it’s never been that small of a town or unknown of a town to begin with. For those who didn’t know it even was once the capital of Tn..
There are tons of problems in certain areas of Murfreesboro. The closer to the college you live the more problems you’ll have. But the further away from the college you live you’ll see those problems getting less and less severe until you reach the really nice areas of Murfreesboro. Just as Nashville can get away with having more crime, so can Murfreesboro because of how large the city is…there’s more room to move away from the bad areas and still leave the town with a favorable reputation. Murfreesboro even with their crime doesn’t have a bad reputation for crime as a whole. Size DOES matter (sorry men).
LaVergne is not almost as large as Nashville. LaVergne is not even anywhere close to being ALMOST the size of Murfrresboro. I understand these problems are not happening all over LaVergne…but when you have a town that consists of only 27,000 people it is very easy for the entire city to get a bad reputation very quickly (as it has) and when that happens to a city of this small size it can have very negative effects on the entire city…not just those areas. That’s why I was saying…what is happening in those few really bad areas are of great importance to this entire city.
Here’s an example of exactly what could happen …..LaVergne, unfortunately no matter how fair or unfair it may be is developing a bad reputation. That is a fact that can not be denied. Whenever we’re on the news anymore it’s not in a positive light. People know how small this town is and they don’t hear about all the good things….what they hear is…..an 11 yr old shot in her head, a cheerleader faced home invasion, houses burned to the ground by gangs, gang violence becoming a problem in LaVergne. These are all things that actually happened and anyone can look them up and read about it. So….let’s say a nice decent law abiding family (good neighbors) decides they want to move around this area. They look up Lavergne they read about very recent problems and then they look at the size of the town. Do you really think they are going to choose to move here? The answer to that is “no”.
The people who are going to move here are going to be the family that are not law abiding decent citizens (bad neighbors)…..housing value instantly lowered….bad lawns, cars piled in the yard, trampolines on the front lawn begin to happen….housing value drops even lower….then…..the (bad neighbors) who are now here start with their unlawful crud….housing value drops even lower.
Meanwhile the houses are getting a heck of alot cheaper but the reputation has went way down hill and fewer and fewer of those law abiding citizens (good neighbors) are wanting to purchase the houses out here no matter how low in cost they are. Instead, the people who can afford them buy them….on top of Shriebman the money grubber building one cheap home after the other to purchase as well.
Pretty soon there are no more houses in Lake Forest left for the thugs to purchase…so do they move out of LaVergne? I can promise you the answer is “no”.
They will just spread like a cancer through the rest of LaVergne until they have taken it over completely.
This is how an area gets taken over. This is exactly how Antioch got taken over.
Antioch used to be a lovely area. I spent the large majority of my older childhood growing up there. My best friend and I walked to the beach part of percy priest lake every day during the summer. It was filled with nice people and families having picnics. My neighborhood and the ones around it were nice upper middle class neighborhoods. Hickory Hollow Mall was a safe place for teenagers and even preteens to go and hang out with their friends (which we did nearly every friday night).
You go to that same neighborhood where I grew up and you go to that beach part of the lake at the end of Anderson Rd today and you tell me if you see ANYTHING like what I just described.
We all know what Antioch is now called and why it is called that. It’s hard pressed to find a day in the summer that the Anderson Rd lake is not now overcrowded with thugs as far as the eye can see. Nodays, nobody with even half a brain in their head would let their child go to Hickory Hollow mall to just hang out with friends. Those beautiful upper middle class neighborhoods I once saw are now filled with illegal immigrants and thugs who have turned the whole place into a dump.
Let’s put it this way. We all know the type of reputation Antioch has. Would any of you good citizens willingly move there? My guess is absolutely not. I’m sorry if you dislike hearing this, but if you think that exact same thing can’t happen here, then you’re very very wrong. It can happen here. It IS happening here, and it WILL end up with the same results as Antioch if we as a community don’t cut it off at the pass. It CAN be done..
Hell, If a single woman in Washington DC can shut down 38 meth labs in just a few weeks. We CAN stop LaVergne from becoming just another Antioch. It won’t be done though unless people start admitting there is a problem that needs to be fixed and quickly.
The problems that are starting to arise in this city are for now just in a few areas. But if you don’t think those problems don’t spread like an aggressive cancer….you’re wrong.
Cricket, you told me about how good the area is in Lavergne where you live. Don’t you want it to stay that way? I do.
Ivy, you told me of a horrible place you once lived where mailman where being shot and then even the poor paramedics were being shot for trying to help him. Do you want the problems we have to escalate to that? Do you want to end up living right back in the same kind of hell one day? I don’t.
So, I’m proposing that we not turn our heads to the problems that exist and not make light of them and instead stop them now before they DO turn into something much much worse.
I guess I don’t understand, Angela, because we ARE doing things to try to stop all of this. We’re writing about what’s going on in this city and trying to change things. That’s what is frustrating me about you, Angela, you act like we’re sticking our head in the sand and doing nothing, but that’s pretty far from the truth.
Writing panicky diatribes isn’t getting anywhere, we have to stay calm, speak the truth and not be exaggerated about it.
No, I guess my words aren’t coming out in expression on computer the way they would in person.
I’m just saying that I seem to be seeing alot of people saying it isn’t “that bad”.
My rebuttle to that is “Maybe not in your area, but in other areas (the really shitty streets) you were talking about, it is that bad. And my concern with the types of things going on in just a few areas will eventually spread. The reason I also feel that it is “that bad” or that big of a deal is because just those very few things in very few areas have already done quite a bit to tarnish this entire city’s reputation. That’s what causes the spreading. I don’t think it’s a time to panic. My anger in my earlier posts were not of panic nor were any of the things I had listed as happening in my direct area exxagerated. They were each truth and each exactly what happened. I just don’t want to see what has happened here on the few streets out here spread any further.
Before speaking with Cricket, i did feel like nobody was doing anything about it or that nobody out of the situation cared so long as it wasn’t reaching their street. After speaking with her though I realized there are people that want something done about it.
I am continuing to see people stating that it isn’t that bad, or that it’s being exagerated.
Well, maybe for the city as a whole it isn’t that bad and maybe for the people not living on those shitty streets it isn’t that bad, but for those of us who do live on them….it IS that bad. And I’m just concerned that just a few too many people aren’t looking at it for what it is.
I understand your perspective of “bad” is different because of what you have experienced, but that same degree of “bad” can end up out here if the problem isn’t solved. An area like you lived in doesn’t get that way over night. They all started with problems that were considered..”not that bad”
The first big problem that should be taken care of is Shriebman and his lust for a buck. How do we go after him and get him to stop? He’s obviously a man with alot of pull and with as much money as he obviously has I can’t imagine he hasn’t bought the pulling of a few political string.
Cricket had brought up going to the press. Could we as a group all go to the press with this man and what he is doing and what he is causing in our city?
Shreibman is NOT a builder, he is a developer. A developer IS who plans out lot sizes, streets, etc. They’re also the ones who name the streets. Then they sell the lots to builders who then build what they want – as long as it’s acceptable in the codes & restrictions that would’ve been approved by the city.
Another problem – as I see it – is new sections are not supposed to be started until the city inspects the latest section. From what I’ve gathered, none of the sections were ever inspected and when a certain alderwoman ordered a “stop” to construction in an effort to get it done, she was quickly overruled by the good ol’ boys on the board. So that little requirement has not been enforced and when someone makes the attempt, they are squashed.
What can we do? Elect people to office who are ready willing and able to put an end to the old way of doing business. We need to find people who are willing to run against these tired “yes” men and women who do nothing.
What else can we do? This I’m not sure of and would like to hear others ideas.
Actually let me make a correction. Cricket had made a suggestion of me going to the press with the issue about my daughter.
My question is couldn’t we as a community go to the press for more than that? I mean…If I can go to the press about nothing being done about my daughter’s case, couldn’t we as a city go to the press about Mr. Shriebman and his greed and the negative effect it is having on our city?
“Make that man answer for his money lust and destrcution he’s brought to an entire city” kind of thing? Have all of middle Tn say…”Yeah, Mr. Shriebman! Explain your money grubbing self!” Could we not make his life so uncomfortable in the public eye that we could run him out of town so to speak? Could we have a town meeting …an angry mob if you will (not with pitchforks and guns and screaming wildly….as I shamefully have :( again….sorry bout that) but as an angry mob stating to the city that “No, we will not tollerate this any longer! We will no longer sit by and watch greedy old Shriebman ruin our city! We want him and all his cheap housing ideas out of here NOW!” I’m not saying let’s don’t deal with making laVergne beautiful and picking up the lawns and trash on the streets. What I’m saying is maybe we could think maybe on a bigger level and deal head on with the real problem. And in the meantime ALSO clean up LaVergne.
Maybe this angry mob of citizens who are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore already have had a day at city hall, if so then that’s great, that’s wonderful, but it obviously hasn’t been enough voices to stop him.
So why not go back only next time in tote with more voices with a larger angry mob? That’s all I’m suggesting. I’m not saying you don’t care. I’m just saying…couldn’t we try getting a little more aggressive with it?
Oh, I understand he’s not a builder. Lake Forest Homes, etc are the builders. He’s just the one selling the lots left and right not caring a hoot about what he’s doing and what he’s causing. The builders should be stopped as well.
I’m curious as to how many political strings he has purchased. Couldn’t the press help with exposing that?
I mean….so yeah, LaVergne has developed a bad reputation. So why not use that bad reputation for some good use. The press LOVES a city with a tarnished reputation. They just LOVE exposing what’s going on and how it got that way. So, why not get some help in exposing exactly all of what is going on out here…who’s in bed with Shriebman.
We all know he’s the main contributor along with the builders of what’s going on…but even the builders couldn’t have put their feet in the stink without Shriebman selling it off to them…so…we know Shriebman is the cause.
Anybody also knows that the man with the most money in a town has the most political pull. And let’s face it…the man who has his family’s names on nearly every damned thing in the city IS that man. People in office paid to help him pad his pockets further. He pads their pockets, and in turn they pad his.
So why not expose these people? Once exposed it’s a heck of alot easier to get them out.
You all might find this humorous. When we bought our house 10 years ago from Holigan Homes, their realtor told us that future builds would be limited to larger homes (2000 sq ft and larger).
My favorite sign is the Lake Forest Homes sign: “We build quality not quantity.” Does anyone have factual information if the development will stop (in the area between Bill Stewart & Hollandale and between Holland Ridge & Ace Wintermeyer)? Or, are they just going to keep building? How can it be profitable to keep building with so many homes already on the market?
Good Gawd I haven’t even seen that sign but I would love to send a local news story along with a picture of that into Jay Leno.
I know I’m posting alot but I’m actually just kind of pumped and a little excited about getting things done.
Did you all know there are tons of cities all over this great country of ours that have laws that restrict developers from being able to sell so much land to certain builders who produce cheap housing. The reason they have these laws is to keep the exact same senario we have out here from happening.
If we don’t have laws like this in this city then we need to get them. If we do have laws like this then we need to start making sure they are enforced. Not only do the builders need to be stopped from producing so many of these homes, but the developer needs to be stopped from selling them off all willy nilly to any builder that looks his direction.
Sherry, my mom can say the same about me. In high school, I tended to be quite the bad mouth and would run my mouth to anybody who screwed me over or got in my way, etc.
And yes, Angela – I know exactly what you mean seeing as how I lived in the apartments in the ‘Boro right next to Greek Row. However, I’ve recently relocated further down the road and it’s a good chunk better.
In any case, Sherry, I think that she’ll be fine. Mr. Freytag won’t let anything happen to his little fledglings. That man is an amazing teacher – one of the best I had at that school. I don’t blame you wanting transfer her, though.
I kind of almost wish I had transferred after my sophomore year because that’s school is barely a shell of what it used to be.
I have some news connections, I’ll see what I can do about getting all this investigated. I can’t promise anything, because my connections’ parent companies are not big on stirring shit, but I’ll see what I can do.
you guys are a bunch of in breed dumb asses , I just retired from military , after 20 years . I have a drainage pond on my land , I rented a back hoe to clear weeds , neighbors like you called codes on me 4 times already for that , then they moved on to the dog catcher because they did not like the look of my pit bull , ETC in total 5 times county has been out .So I am about feed up with people like you that can not mind your own stuff ., Keep it up people , you’ll find your windows broke . tires slashed .One night you’ll walk out and have your ass kicked .Bunch of in breed assholes in middle tn ,. Think you have mansions and you have shit, like some one said b4 move to where you pay for a HOA .Dumb-asses
Gosh I can’t imagine why the neighbors would call Codes on you… threatening to slash thier tires, break their windows, kick their *bleeps*… and you call them inbred dumb*bleeps* too? Someone needs a big hug.
sounds to me that someone has an anger management problem…..these are threats and should be taken to the police dept.
Oh I forgot to say Merry Christmas !!
Oh, Rich, you are the epitome of class. How can we ever live up to your standards so you don’t go around slashing tires and breaking windows? We’re the dumb “in breeds”, so we just don’t know any better, I suppose.
Oh, wait. It’s not US who have a big assed backhoe in our yard or pit bulls running around all over the place (no offense to pit bull owners, because I’m a fan of pit bulls in general) so your neighbors have to call codes and animal control. Looks like you’ll have to move back to the Great White North to get away from all us “in breeds.” Pity.
does anyone know who this guy really is?
“inbreeds” Wow, I wonder if he knows he lives here to? Doesn’t that make him an inbreed? I’m just asking. =)
How can all of us be inbreeds? Most of us have moved here from parts of the country. Rich why dont you join then for dinner on Thursday night at Sir Pizza and meet everyone! You can then see if we all inbreeds which I think you will see that we are people of the good. We may disagree on alot of things but in general we are good people that welocome everyone with open arms!
Aye thawght inbreeds wur the peeple hoo culdn’t spell.
Wow, Rich. You are a speshul purson. And I mean that.
I am so glad I’m not your neighbor. Given I happily live outside city limits I have my share of toys in the yard, or gravel if you would. Between my husband and I we have 2 boats, 2 snowmachines, 2 daily divers, 1 race truck, 1.5 1957 Chevy 3100s and 1 1969 Olds 442. Now the 1/5 a Chevy is in my shed for restore parts and the completed on is registered and insured. My ’69 442 is engine-less and it is in my entryway awaiting a far down the road frame off.
I moved so far out of the city so I could have my toys. My husband has had is 57 since he was 13 and my aunt bought my 442 new in 69 and like hell someone is going to tell me they are junk and need to be crushed or removed. Those two cars sell for more than a pair of new Toyota Camrys. And our boat sells for 60,000. These are things that took us a lifetime to own and I have pride in. A little work here and there. And if my neighbor wines about it I’m gunna tell him it’s my dirt it’s sitting on and I’m not breaking any laws where I live. That’s why I live 50 miles outta town. For your neighbor’s sake I hope you get fed up and move so they can have some peace from your bitchin.
Heather, who are you responding to?
I too am glad you are not my neighbor. But with that said, if the lots in LFE were large enough to hold the amount of “toys” you have, I don’t think we would be having a conversation about any of this. If I couldn’t see my neighbors, I could care less about any of this. In fact, I don’t even care what my neighbors put in their back yard. What I do know is that I am refinancing my mortgage right now and I will have an appraisal done. The value of my home will be DIRECTLY related to the value of my neighbors home. Should my neighbors right to be a crappy homeowner also equal a right to hurt me financially?
(As an aside, all of my current neighbors are great, and take very god care of the parts of their home that effect the value of my home, I know you guys are reading :)
Kathy, why is it that THIS topic that keeps coming up? Are we hot on the Google searches??? We have 121 comments dating back for almost a year!
Michael – First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Second, I suppose I could go in and turn off the comments. I hate to do that though because some can be quite entertaining. People are a hoot.
Thanks Kathy :)
I wouldn’t want you to turn off the comments either, I just was curious why this particular thread is the one that gets random comments from people who otherwise don’t post on this site?
michaelinLV,
I was responding in general to the back and forth on the forum in general.
Actually your sight is popular in Google searches. I’m a member of a car club in Anchorage, Alaska and write the newsletter for the club. I was searching statistics for how many cars are crushed each year to go with a story about a village trying to find homes for over 30 cars before they are crushed next summer. It is a very hot topic here right now and many people in Anchorage are feuding with neighbors over their neighbor’s yards. The hot one right now is a guy who had/has a 30 ft tall snowman in his yard. Mind you it’s a snowman and nearly melted now and will be totally gone in a few months, but people ate trying to get the city to bulldoze poor “Snowzilla.”
I tend to become very animated about my “toys” as there are things going through the local government right now making next to imposable to own a historic or class cars and for any of our race tracks to operate. Now I’ve only seen a few parts on Tennessee, mainly I drove through it on a road trip to see a race in Bristol so granted I haven’t seen where you live.
Here we have a vide range of lot sizes. I live 50 miles north of Anchorage and have just over 1 acre. I’m extremely wooded and can only see 2 of my neighbors; which is how I like it, nice and quiet. To give you an idea of how well the neighbors know one another I know no one who lives in my neighborhood and have owned the home fore nearly a year. One neighbor’s home is about half the size of mine – a ranch with a lovely yard, at least from what I can see through the trees. The other is a modular home. I think it’s actually a trailer house or two together. My home is on the corner of the new and old neighborhood. When we purchased it we were looking for enough to land to have our toys and some day build a 40×60 shop. We moved here so we could have those things, they were permitted in my covedents and borough code as I do not live in any city limits. It is what I like and why we chose to live there. I don’t look down on anyone, and honestly am not too far into life and marriage and struggling like most Americans. I become upset as new rules are passed and people who live 50 miles from me complain about how I live.
It doesn’t seam right to me when I was here first and am abiding by what was in place when I moved in. Why should I have to change my way of life – the things I love because I have some new tree-hugger 50 miles away telling me to. I don’t bother my neighbors and I do not consider these toys junk. It’s Alaska. You see snowmachines in town to get groceries in Wasilla, so why can’t mine be outside at my home? Boats are a way of life here too – fish for food, and it’s not like it isn’t used weekly in the summer.
What I am trying to say is I don’t believe no people should move in, make a fuss, and try to change the rules when there were ones set in place when they bought the home and they had to agree to. They knew what the setting in the neighborhood was when they purchased their home. Now if you are on the flip side and purchase you home with strict covedents in place and go parking 3 cars where they told you when you bought it you can only have 2 that is different. Follow the damn rules so everyone can be happy. But please don’t move in to a place were all your neighbors have 3 cars and 3 are allowed and squawk to make it 2.
Remember one man’s junk is another treasure. It may be fore their interest or love or sentimental value, but they are entitled to those things.
Harumph! Harumph! What she said!!!
Ha, Heather, I was wondering why in the heck you would have a snow machine.
lol. yes. We have allot of toys up here, not just for play either. Hunting and fishing is still away of life, not just for natives but for non as well. I think that is why yards and cars become such a hot topic here. Historic and Classics are hard to find here, between how remote we are and our winter weather they’re are not many. But you see people convert their 4x4s to moose buggies, so they sit parked in the yard and some even still drive them to work. So we do have some untraditional and frowned upon thing. And I understand if you live in one of the nice neighborhoods that have covendence and city codes why people are upset.
But they are complaining where I live and that bothers me. The neighborhood I live in has 2 phases. The first quite old, nearly all homesteaded and still of original owners or their families from the 60-70s. We only became a state in 1959 so we have a short history. We looked for such a neighborhood to fit our lifestyle and not have neighbor and city problems. Now all of the neighbors are fighting people who live not just an hour away in our own state but federal laws coming up.
I believe in following the rules, laws, and covidence, but I also believe in grandfather rights and that is something many of our Anchorage folks don’t believe in.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with your property in Heather. LFE in not Anchorage, Alaska. Perhaps you should take this up on a blog that relates to your area. I have read this entire blog up to this point, and believe that the law is the law. Unless it is changed, we must all abide by those laws. I do not belive a house meant for a small single family should house more that what it is intended. People have many options to sell their house ( like a short sale) and can buy a larger foreclosed home to meet their needs. Perhaps, they can even trade houses with another homeowner.
I believe “no one is free when others are oppressed”.
When my “rights” hurt others, they are not my rights. If we all respected one another, we would all get along.
I ALWAYS take my neighbors into account when dealing with my home. I cut my grass, keep my home looking respectful, and even help my neighbors with their projects. There are, always, those few who hurt the community, and those people rarely care. That is life unfortunately.
If people take care of their properties, and respect those who live around them, we probably wouldn’t have this conversation online.
Just to let you know — DON’T leave your car running in the morning to “warm up”. 4 cars have been stolen in my neighborhood. Hopefully we have caught the guy and the police will throw him in jail.
As far as enforcement of laws, I’d give someone 2 times to correct the problem, then fine them $500. That would definately make me stop breaking the law.
Always good to see an old thread revived!
Richard is right about the cars, if I understand correctly it actually is illegal to leave your car running unattended for this exact reason. Apparently someone has been profiling parts of our neighborhood for unattended running cars and then hopping in and driving off. I think Richard and the police caught the guy, but of course I guess he is “innocent until proven guilty.”
Thats right Michael… I’m keeping watch. I just wish everyone had respect for each other. Anyone else irritated that the Rutherford paper or whatever its called wont tie up the end of the bag that holds our paper in it?
Every time I get mine, and the weather is bad, I just throw it away. Thats alot of wasted money from people who buy ads. Alot of litter over La Vergne. And alot of wasted paper.
I walk around the neighborhood with my family putting the paper by peoples doors in my neighborhood. People won’t even stop to pick them up and throw them away.
So, who gets the $500.00 fine? The Browser for not providing boxes to put their paper in, or not mailing it anymore? Or the homeowner for not picking up their paper and throwing it away?
I mention everything I post to Senna Mosley (who is a GREAT Alderman).
If people dont want the paper, they should tell them.
Hey just stopping by
I just moved here January 1st. I hearing so many things going on in La vergne by reading all of your comments. Is it really that bad out here?? I live in Lake Forrest and I haven’t seen all of the negative things that I have read about. Its scary to read all of these things. On my street people seem to care for their homes, but I haven’t been here long. II hope some areas in Lake Forrest are not as bad. I love the home we purchased, and I want to love the neighborhood.
Lee, thanks for sharing! All of us on this board know that for our city to prosper, LFE needs to be successful. Perhaps with an improving housing market the overall area is improving? Please come back here and let us know how things contiue to go. I know there are many caring homeowners in that area, welcome to the city!