How can I stop people from hanging out at the empty house next door?

Call the cops and report them for trespassing.

Frequent calls to the police and the zoning department of your town might help.

The house next door to mine has been vacant for over a year. I have called the police three times because of people parked behind it in the middle of the night or early morning. After they were actually caught (on the 3rd call), nobody has been back. There was no red tape. I just called the police and told them people were at the vacant house next door. They did not even care if they had my name or address.

@optimisticpessimist It really only takes one ticket for underage drinking to make people try and find a new place to get wasted.

@MyNewtBoobs In this instance, I think they were just sleeping in their car behind the house. The police did not find any drug paraphernalia which was what I was concerned about. However, they still had to get caught on the property.

I am welcome to any suggestions and thank you all for them so far. I thought that contacting the police would not help matters because I’m not sure if they can do enough about the problem, but it has helped to hear others’ experiences. I just need to get this nipped in the bud. None of the neighbors have called the police and unfortunately I am the only one who has wanted to take any action. I know that the former owners moved not too far from here (in the same neighborhood) and do come around once a month to get their mail, but they don’t know what’s going on and they won’t fix anything. They are friends with the neighbors across the street, but obviously nothing is being done. I have thought about telling them what’s been going on myself, but I may just be talking to a wall. I’m just about ready to do it though.

@MyNewtBoobs: Yes, I was concerned about staying anonymous with the police just in case of retaliation.

The problem you are having is compounded by the lack of a prosecutor, if someone is arrested. The previous owners do not care and have gone. Owners of the property now is probably a bank or mortgage company and they will not prosecute, unless something major occurs.

I have run into this situation many times.

Keep calling your local police. Maybe, one of the trespassers has an outstanding warrant.

You never now.

I have been told by someone to take a camera and record the trespassers on the property as well. Hopefully this will help with the problem, as it has and will be getting worse. I also tried looking up the listing for the house as well but no luck really on who exactly owns it. Thanks to everyone who responded.

Just call the police. Problems that are not known cannot be fixed. If you don’t tell anyone you called, no one will know you called.

Get a hockey goalie mask and a sword….cover both liberally with fake Vampire blood…when they are good and stoned….kick open the front door….scream like a banshee and hack up all the furniture….problem solved.

@espearite You can call the cops on them while remaining anonymous. I do it all the time when my neighbors are being too noisy (and once when I thought a man was getting violent with a woman a couple apartments over).

See if you can get the name of the bank the people lost their home to, maybe you can get the mortgage company to do the right thing and board up the house so people do not break in. I would continue to call the police when people are there but maybe by putting it on the mortgage companies radar by you calling them they will hopefully finally do something with the trespassers as well.

Stink bomb.

@creative1 has a good idea. You can often find this data on your county assessor’s website.

Because there are so many foreclosures there days, many cities and counties have special programs to maintain them (or to insist that the banks do so.) You might contact your city’s inspection department to see if this is the case.