A tenant of a landlord is harassing me. What can I do?

You have to move out. This is a dangerous situation. Tell the landlord why you must break your lease if you have one and find another place to live.

Move. Just get out of there ASAP. There’s no point in ruffling their feathers with police. It’ll just piss them off and cause you more problems.

Pack up in the middle of the night if you have to and GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!

Yeah, what they ^^^ said. Meth heads are extremely dangerous and can get psychotic and very violent, just get out and do what you have to do to stay safe.

When they kill someone or OD in the landlord’s apt, maybe he’ll care then. What a jerk.

If you insist on staying, arm yourself including the training that entails.

Welcome to Fluther, first of all.

You are not exactly being “harassed”; you are being “intimidated”, and with a fairly high degree of success, too. You can’t really pass the buck on this and expect others to make things nice for you. You may think that the landlord is “afraid of losing rent”, and that’s likely not an insignificant consideration to him. After all, who would want to live in such a dodgy neighborhood if they had the choice not to? The fact of the matter is that he is just as afraid of these guys as you are. Apparently there is good reason for that.

I would suggest getting out if you can manage that. Failing that, @WestRiverrat certainly has sound advice: arm yourself and learn how to maintain and properly use your arms in self defense. (That doesn’t necessarily mean “guns”, although that’s the common perception, and their effectiveness and utility cannot be argued against.)

I would also suggest that you meet with and organize your neighbors on this issue – including the landlord, if you think he’s not complicit with his bad tenants – to make a common complaint to the police, being very specific as to times, places, events and persons present. If you all stick together there is much less likelihood of you being picked off one by one.

This is, after all, how “bad neighborhoods” are “taken back” by the peaceful and law-abiding residents. In fact, it’s the only successful strategy that I’ve ever heard of. You and the other neighborhood residents don’t need to be confrontational or physical, but you do need to be allied with each other – at least as far as all of your security is concerned – and be willing to at least call the police when one of you gets into trouble, and be willing to testify and press charges when necessary.

Most felons with a two-strike count aren’t anxious to appear in court again. This can also make them dangerous, especially when combined with some drugs, such as meth and PCP – or alcohol – that do crazy things with their already-addled brains, because they sometimes feel that they’d rather not be taken alive for the third strike. So do be careful, but do unite your neighbors in the necessary effort to get rid of the criminals.

It is time for you to spend $300 for a low budget 4 or 8 camera security that will record any motion day or night. It will also send the images to the IP address of your choice. You can place the cameras around and inside your house.
Any violation will be timestamped and recorded and can be sent automatically to the police if your town/state allows a permit to do so.
The bad boys will recognize the cameras immediately and know what they can do.

Move as fast as you can.

Unfortunately I cannot move I own my home. I am looking but so far I cannot afford what is out there with the sale of mine. I have cameras but cannot place them at an angle to record what is happening or that would be encroachment. (already checked with P.D.)

I have armed myself at this point. I have tried organizing the neighbors but most of the homes in the area are now rented out and the renters are too afraid to get involved. I contacted several land owners but they also don’t want to get involved which puzzles me as the value of their homes would go down as this problem gets worse. One of my long time neighbors is willing to go with me to have a meeting with the Chief of Police at least.

I agree that the landlord, being very elderly, is afraid of his tenants. He literally begs for the rent every month. I keep hoping they will not pay but with the sale of drugs they manage to pull off the rent. The two striker is quite careful and takes his drugs out to sell now but has at least stopped having people come to his apt.

I have tried just about every angle to solve this problem. It’s hard doing it myself but I try. Now that there is proof of the problem these two brothers are causing hopefully the Chief of Police will be of some help.

I also wonder if having an attorney write up a formal letter informing the landlord he is on notice for the drugs and gang banging on his property is a good idea? Then send it certified mail? I was told that maybe a landlord can be held liable for allowing blatant drug use on his property. I really appreciate the advice I’ve received already! Any more ideas anyone?

If it is feasible, consider fencing your whole yard and get a German Shepherd or Great Dane.

I do have 99 percent of my yard fenced w/ 6 feet. Believe it or not I have a male ostrich that keeps everything out.,,,so far anyway. At this point it’s better than a pit bull. My female ostrich died mysteriously and they shoot at my animals with bb/pellet guns at times but not since my other ostrich died. I’m always picking up dead opossums (absolutely full of pellet holes) and occasionally cats. I’ve reported the dead animals but I have to know exactly who did it. There is no way to protect my poor ostrich and I don’t like to leave my dog out for fear they will poison or shoot her. I just wish their landlord could be held responsible for allowing the drug consumption but so far he may not have any responsibly in the matter. I keep researching the subject.

If you contact the Fish & Wildlife authorities for your area you may get some cooperation from them, at least in terms of investigating the animal shootings, especially the wild animals. Once you get them to cooperate in finding out – with evidence – who has committed these crimes, it may be easier to get the police to make an arrest.

Good luck to you; this is a pretty awful situation to be in.

By the way, I would also attempt to enlist the landlord as an ally, since he would more than likely rather be rid of these miscreants, too, and have other decent tenants in place, more in keeping with your family and the other neighbors. If you get on his good side, then you may also be able to get his family, if he has any, to help out as well.

The landlord is afraid of losing rent. His tenants went across the street with weapons, graffitied up the neighbor’s block wall and disrupted their party with threats, The adult son of his tenant was arrested for felony weapon possession and vandalism that night. I gave the landlord the police report number. After all that the landlord tells me his attorney said he has to have cause to evict. I cannot get through to this landlord. Other neighbors except one are afraid to join me to do something. At this time I’m contacting an attorney to see what I can do regarding a landlords responsibility. Doing anything about these scary neighbors is dangerous at this point.

@Dnia321 Can you move? It seems like the time to.