Neighbors are a dime a dozen

Dear Editor,

I have been following the Zagustin case with some interest, not just because I am a Cal State Long Beach employee, but because our street had a similar resident.

However, compared to Zagustin's neighbors, we were lucky.

The only visible things they did was carpet their driveway (that is correct - indoor/outdoor maroon carpet from their gate to the street), mess up the front of the house and stucco by changing out the old windows that were still in good shape and park 14 cars up and down the street.

They were attempting to sell used cars from their house.

Oops, almost forgot that we had to call the police at least three times to break up their noisy, drunken parties.

In each case our property values were probably going down, but the most troublesome aspect was the seeming inability of the city to respond to our complaints in a timely fashion. It seems that the old adage that a person's freedom to swing his or her fist ends at someone else's nose does not apply well here.

In our case, those neighbors, and a another shorter-lived group who physically trashed the inside of the house, all moved out and new ones, who cared more about fitting in, moved in.

I can only wish that Zagustin's neighbors will be so lucky.

­ John R. Powell

Network Support Coordinator, CSULB