Warning: Bad neighbors abound

Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS MORRIS

Pity the citizen silently suffering his neighbors - their barking dogs, shrieking kids, rusting cars, reeking barbecues; their meth labs and miserable parties that rattle even the most congenially clenched teeth.

We do not choose our toxic neighbors. We endure them. And now we can parade our pain, like everything else, on the Internet.

Behold RottenNeighbor.com, where anybody can sign in and shame on.

The site is what it sounds like, a repository of complaints filed online against hated neighbors everywhere. Input an address and you're directed to a satellite map of the area in question. Arrows on the screen pinpoint the locations of offending neighbors, down to the streets they haunt. Click on that arrow and their defects are detailed.

In Las Vegas, our ( neighbors') faults contain multitudes.

In a neighborhood near UNLV, one resident instructs readers to beware the "wrath of Tom and Tammy." The author goes on: "White trash tweaker leaches. Avoid at all costs."

In Boulder City another complainer takes on the entire neighborhood: "Between the punk ass kids that run a meth lab out of their house and the creepy insane woman who talks to herself, this neighborhood is crazy ... Deer statues, gnomes, the whole ten yards."

The site has been up for two months and already there are about 200 complaints posted in Clark County. The largest cities , such as Los Angeles and New York, of course, have far more complaints, but site founder Brant Walker of San Diego says it's just a matter of time until every city is replete with grievances, accusations and gripes.

Walker, 27, says he didn't start the site for money or fame. No, his motivations are born of back-handed benevolence.

"We want to be a useful tool for any potential home buyer or renter who wants to find out if they have bad neighbors," Walker said.

The inspiration? His own bad neighbors. Or more specifically, their grease-fire cooking, the scent of which wafts into his apartment and won't leave.

Exact addresses are withheld, though a determined person could narrow down the offending household pretty easily.

Common issues involve barking dogs, loud music and drug use. Annoyances indigenous to any neighborhood, anywhere.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, one site user writes of the neighbors: "The peoples are very antipathy and very gossip monger."

In Karoi, Zimbabwe, a user who appears to live on the very outskirts of the city writes of his neighbor: "I can't take this guy."

In North Las Vegas another angry neighbor reaches for poetry: "A shrew to be tamed, a boy to be loved, a dad that deserves, and a mother that oddly holds it all together."

Make of that what you will.

But whether any of the RottenNeighbor complaints are valid is unknown. This is the downside of an Internet forum for blame; the anonymity that emboldens us to criticize also invites us to fabricate. And perhaps to sue. Walker will not discuss whether anybody has brought legal action against the site, though Nevada ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein says an argument could be made for defamation, depending on the nature of complaint posted online. Pursuing the case would require identifying the anonymous poster, but if the neighbor were angry enough, it's not impossible.

Walker has taken down contested complaints. In two weeks he's launching a program that will allow users to moderate the commentary. Though not knowing whom to believe puts a dent in the idea that prospective buyers can visit the site for a glimpse of their future neighborhood. Or at least that's what real estate agents would remind you.

"We have to be very careful in subscribing to this kind of information, because it's pretty much hearsay," said Rob Wigton, president-elect of the Nevada Association of Realtors.

Still, from a "populist standpoint," Wigton said, "it's always good when people contribute to their neighborhoods."

Who knows what real estate agents will think of Walker's next idea: to mail postcards to every address complained about, informing the households there's a problem on the block: them.

The postcards are part of what Walker hopes will be RottenNeighbor's greater purpose: mediation.

"This is the first step towards mediation to resolve any kinds of problems," he said. "We want to be the first step and the last step."

Though one wonders whether any amount of mediation could reconcile the problems on Sloane Avenue and Washington Boulevard, where someone has written of a certain "burrito eating motorcycle rider": "He rides his motorcycle in CIRCLES in his YARD?! Who in the world does that?"

The answer, for better or for worse, is that your neighbor does that.