So the appropriate response to someone breaking into your house is run out on the porch firing off a few rounds from your 9 into the darkness, right? Neighbor safety be damned, because everything you care about is behind you, not where your aiming.

I've got a nice little hole in my garage window, right across the garage from the nice little hole leading into the house, on the other side of the wall from where the nice little hole is in my front dining room, right across the room from where there's a fucking bullet lodged in my wall right next to my front door.

Everyone is safe, cops say shooting was justified and since no one in my house was injured or worse, no charges are going to be filed. Welcome to Texas.

Your neighbor wouldn't be the same guy who killed that indie rock guitarist guy a few years ago, would he?

Seriously man, that sucks and is scary. Glad you're all ok.

I don't know this neighbor, but I know of him. He's known to be a hot head and sort of an all-around asshole. I'll find out later today. I plan on stopping by and introducing my self as in: "Hi my name is fix my fucking window and quit shooting your fucking gun into the darkness you fucking idiot" or something.

Some kids with NBC were there. They took photos and interviewed me. I doubt if ol' Greggo makes the 10 o'clock but they did write a little blurb about it on the website.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Shots ... 12481.html

In my CHL classes (I've been to two), we were taught to not even think about doing that. That behavior is not cool at all.

Really glad you are ok.

You made the 1:30 news!

You would think the law would at least issue some kind of property damage something or other to force the dude into taking responsibility for repairs to the damages he caused. It sucks that you are going to have to toodle your happy ass across the street and initiate an awkward confrontation. It’s messed up, yo.

This kind of stuff gets me worked up.

Problem is that you don't have to have a CHL or LTC to do what this jackwagon did.

Glad everyone is okay, Craig.

I would almost just pay for it to avoid the confrontation. If this guy knew all the ailments gam has survived the past 5 years, he would probably feel pretty bad about almost killing him.

I thought I was going to hear something from the police today but never did. I really want to pursue pressing charges against the guy. I just can’t believe it’s okay for someone to blindly shoot into the dark while chasing someone from their home.

I didn’t go to the guy’s house. 1. I’m pretty pissed he hasn’t come to me yet and B. Since I’m trying to press criminal charges against the guy, a meeting may be awkward.

dunno who this Gammill guy is, but the same thing happened to him!

https://krld.radio.com/articles/homeown ... hbors-home

Could the story making the media be enough proof for your homeowner’s insurance to go after his insurance? Could they find who his homeowner insurance is through county records?

I don't know look it up on your phone

I like that they included "Holy crap" as part of gam's statement.

That was in response to "What did you think when you realized it was a bullet that came into your house"

I had to catch myself from saying "Holy shit, what kind of dumbass question is that?", and realized that this is an interview the generic questions are on purpose.

I'm surprised KRLD has my name and is quoting me. NBC doesn't have the interview or my name on their website. They were the only ones there that night.

NBC? Fake news

Here's some dumbass hick talking about his house getting shot up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBkxO-7obM4

Spurs hat, huh?

Did your neighbor ever make amends?

2'oclock Saturday! Fuck Bob! Go Spurs!

COYS!

I got one of the windows fixed last week but the guy had to order some special clips for the other window. They coming back on Monday to fix it. I'll walk the receipt over to the neighbors and see what happens.

.
That sumbitch won't do the right thing. There’s what’s right and there’s what’s right and never the twain shall meet.

It's times like these that I miss Mallard making fake accounts to make comments.

PS I don't miss Mallard.

No need to walk the receipt to the neighbors, Ol' Larry knocked on the door less than 5 minutes after the glass guy left. I gave him a copy of the receipt and he walked home and grabbed the dough out of one the coffee cans he has buried in his backyard. I've still got a bullet lodged inside my wall but I'll dig it out and patch it up along with some other patchwork I need to do before the wifey paints the walls. As far as I'm concerned, me and Larry are squared up.

Awesome.

Plot twist: When I tried to pay the bill with my debit card, the little box gave an error when I entered my PIN. I'm rich, bitch, so the problem was on their end. So whatever, I used my CC instead and even that took a couple of attempts before their system would accept it. We shake and glass boys go on their way.

Fast forward to the evening and the wifey's like "Why is there a charge on the cc AND the debit card?

I called them today and the situation was resolved in just a few minutes.

You can't catch a break

One of my nosier neighbors got a copy of the police report. It was a difficult read because cops are shit for typing and story telling. I got some new insight on how everything went down that night...

So the guy that tried to break in to the old man's house is the 29 year old (just celebrated his birthday in jail) son of a neighbor that lives a few houses down. Apparently the guy has been trouble since he was a teenager. All the people that have lived in the neighborhood for the past 10-20 years knows this dude. He's constantly causing trouble and has been in and out of jail a few times. His mother has a soft spot for him but his step-father won't let him and his girlfriend stay inside the house anymore, so at times they've basically lived in a truck in front of the house, or (like more recently) pitched a tent in a creek bottom on the south end of my neighborhood. They have 2 very young daughters, both of whom live with his parents in the house.

According to the girlfriend, on this particular night she and he had been swimming at some apartment complex and were walking home. He had had "a couple of beers" at the pool and bought a Buzz ball (or two, who knows) at a convenience store while they were walking back to the neighborhood. At some point they also visited a friend in a mobile home park, too. The apartment complex and the mobile home park aren't really close to my neighborhood, so these kids were doing quite a bit of walking.

Around 11:30 they were walking down the street the old man lives on. The guy asked his girlfriend for a lighter. He was carrying a bag that apparently had a lighter and cigarettes in it. When she told him she wasn't carrying the lighter, he apparently went off and started screaming at her and calling her names. At one point he started rolling around in the middle of the street. He also knocked over garbage cans and threw bags of trash into the street. Screaming the whole time.

Right before they got to the old man's house, they noticed a man next door smoking on his porch. The dude asked him for a lighter, and then for some reason starting screaming again and hitting the guy's windows on his car with his hand or fist. The dude then made his way next door, hitting the vehicles that belong to the old man. He then walked up to the old man's house and started hitting the two front windows on his porch. This woke the old man's wife. She in turn woke up the old man and said someone is breaking in. He grabs his S&W 9mm, and SHE grabs HER OWN 9mm (surprise!). The old man goes to the front room and shouts at the dude to leave and that he has a gun. The dude ends up breaking both of the windows and then walks back out to the edge of the street. The old man and his wife both exit the house to the porch yelling at the guy to leave. The dude then starts walking back towards them screaming "what are you gonna do about it, pussy?!?". The old man shot once and SO DID THE WIFE. The dude then turned around and just WALKED away. (He wasn't running from the couple like I originally suspected. I thought he had ran into my neighbor's mailbox and knocked it over but after reading what he was doing earlier it sounds like he probably did it on purpose).

After the dude walked down my street and turned around the corner he was detained by another homeowner. The dude could barely stand up so it wasn't difficult to keep him under control, but the homeowner had a glock that I'm sure helped with the situation. Like a dumbass though, he was still holding the gun when the cops showed up so they of course drew down on him. There was no incident but damn you gotta be more aware than that. The guy has a CHL. The gun wasn't loaded and apparently didn't even have a mag in it but still, he's lucky he didn't get blown the damn hell away.

There's no way in hell the dude was just drunk. He had to have had something else in his system or he just has some real mental issues that need to be addressed. He and his girlfriend are rumored meth heads so who knows.

After finding out that the old woman also shot her gun, it made me better understand the conversation that the CSI was having with the other cops when they were talking about digging the bullet out of my wall. They were debating on whether or not they needed to dig it out for evidence. I told them that since we know exactly where it came from and who shot it then it was okay to leave it (I didn't know at the time that the owner of the shot could be in question). But anyway, I didn't really want them to dig a big hole in my wall unnecessarily. I'll eventually dig it out when we paint the house. I've got other patching and painting to do so I'll just do it all at the same time. Plus, I want that damn bullet so I can mount it in a shadowbox and display it.

No mention of where the other bullet went, btw.

So there you go. I've got 2 crazy neighbors that can't aim for shit and don't think twice about firing their guns in a crowded neighborhood. The old man told me when he paid for my window that he was planning on moving in a year or two. Probably for the best.

And for the curious, meet the guy at the center of it all. He's still in jail on only a $3k bond. Hopefully he stays there until he's sentenced. He apparently has a record, so I imaging he'll be going away to the state pen for a couple of years at least.

https://inmatesearch.tarrantcounty.com/ ... ID=0761599

What a mess and what a fucked-up dude. He needs to be put away, but I would be surprised if it happened.

Good on your nosy neighbor.

The moral of the story. Practice practice practice target practice.

About a week before Craig got his house shot up I decided to have a tree removed from my yard. I did not take this lightly either. I really stressed over the decision because I like trees. Do you like trees too? I bet you do. We had several intense spring storms this year however, and on the neighborhood walks with my dogs I had observed 3 houses that received substantial damage from fallen trees. Most of the houses stayed damaged for a couple of months before repairs were started. It would suck living like that. Tarps covered the roof damage. All of the tarps were blue. Blue seems to be the dominant color for tarps. I wonder why.

At the end of each walk as I approached my house I would notice the tree in my yard. It really stood out. It was a huge pine tree and seemed to be a good hundred feet tall. The first twelve feet or so the tree stood straight but after that there was a sharp lean towards the house. Did it always lean that much? Is it getting worse? It really got in my head. The tree was just to the right of the driveway right next to the property line of my neighbors. My neighbors, by the way, had always been pleasant enough people. Actually pretty darn amicable. I generally had more dealings with the wife, who my wife never cared for but that is par for the course. I will say the neighbor lady had always had an over the top, syrupy Southern belle sweety-sweet sweetness that would make me wonder "is she fucking with me?" She's pretty easy on the eyes though, in her early 50's, so I cut her some slack. Anyhoo, I was more worried about my wife, who is not syrupy sweet, and who had gotten it in her head that the tree was going to fall at any second after I mistakenly pointed it out to her and asked for her opinion. Rookie mistake on my part, but it got the process started.

I will admit it was quite a jarring spectacle the morning the tree crew arrived. They brought a convoy of trucks too. A couple of them were custom Freightliners with cranes positioned between the cab and the dump body. The cranes had claw-like attachments for grabbing the heavy tree parts. A huge bucket truck with an 80' boom rambled down the street and backed into the driveway. Out in the street the tree crew dudes were hooting, hollering, and cussing as they unloaded skid loaders and revved their chain saws. It was as rough a bunch of dudes as you would expect to find and I immediately was self conscious for greeting them while holding a glass of red Tazo passion fruit iced tea with a straw sticking out. What a Nancy I've turned into. The lead guy didn't say much. He just kind of squinted at me and aggressively inhaled his Parliaments. I'm usually really good at bantering with work dudes that have to come out to the house but this dude wasn't having any of my shit. His colleague, the one that came out for the initial inspection, assured me they would have it all done by 2PM and not to worry. He looked and sounded an awful lot like William Forsythe's character in Raising Arizona and called me sir at the beginning and end of every sentence like a seasoned ex con. "Sir, you want some Lay's, sir?" was his morning greeting. (he was eating a bag of chips) They seemed set up and ready to go and I was a bit nervous to witness the festivities so I left it with them and went to work.

The neighbor lady flipped out a short time later via text. Sensing a decidedly dramatic tone to her writing, I called the tree dude for an update. Apparently the neighbor lady and a few other people confronted the tree crew and demanded them to shut down the operation. They also stood in the street and videoed with their phones. The neighbor lady also called the police and the police actually showed up. That's the part that irked me the most. I even drove back to the house and when I witnessed what a shit show it had turned into, I just turned around and exited. I wasn't about to serve myself up for that and loose my temper. The cops were in the process of leaving at that point, but I did see the group standing in the street with the neighbor lady at the forefront. When I went back home at 2 to inspect everything and settle up, I was also informed that neighbor lady had called the tree people's office and threatened the owners with a lawsuit if her property was damaged in any way. I was pretty blown away about how crazy it all was and avoided them for a couple of weeks after that. She sent an apology text about 3 weeks later without really apologizing. I let her off the hook. I still go out my way to avoid them though.

Fast forward to last Thursday evening around 6 PM. I was having dinner and heard an extremely loud sound, like a gunshot or collision. The dogs went buck wild. I figured it was a wreck or something, but I saw some neighborhood people walking and pointing. I went outside to inspect and what do you know? A huge pine tree in my neighbor's yard fell on their house. It was the darnedest thing. I wonder if she made any kind of karma connection in her mind. At any rate, a different tree crew than the one I hired came out this morning and cleaned it up. There's a tarp on their roof right now. It's blue.

words

I love stories with a happy ending.

Gam, go ahead and re-up the forum for 2020.

Outstanding story. And you're right, I do like trees.