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Web site lets residents spew undiluted bile
By Bob Dyer
Beacon Journalist columnist
Published on Thursday, Jan 31, 2008
If my next-door neighbors were any more enjoyable, my serotonin level would be so high that my head would explode.
But that's not the case for everyone. Hence the Web site ''Rotten Neighbor.''
This is not a site for generic whining. These people are kicking reputations and taking names.
If you cruise the site (http://www.rottenneighbor.com) for local neighborhoods, you'll discover dozens of residents who could probably provide rewarding work for a libel attorney.
In a normally placid neighborhood in Cuyahoga Falls, some ''skanky troublemakers'' are called out by name. They are ''very noisy, up all night. Steal things from other people's property. The female . . . runs prostitution
out of their house at night when they are low on money.''
The house number isn't included, but the street is.
Another Falls resident goes unnamed, but his exact address is posted next to this: ''Hates black people but he's gay. Has 30-50 cats in his house. It smells . . . . He's a miserable nosy gay man who (performs a lewd act) at night in his window when he sees people coming by.''
Even in towns with upscale demographics, the bile is undiluted. A Hudson resident who runs a company in Twinsburg is attacked by name, along with his wife, for being ''rude, self-important a------- who enjoy intimidation. . . . (He) never shovels walk, rarely mows lawn.''
Another Hudson family allegedly has an ugly home that is matched only by ''the ugliness of their character.''
A family in Peninsula consists of ''glorified hillbillies.'' A man in Streetsboro ''suffers from a Napoleon complex.'' In Akron, one woman's house ''is so full of trash she can't open or shut her door.''
An attack on a ''homewrecker'' in Canton includes not only her name and address but a photo of her with a baby. ''A 22-year-old b---- lives here. She'll lay down with anyone, especially if he's married, established and as old as her father. Keep clear.''
Below the photo is this: ''Sorry, no info on the baby. Maybe from some other affair. . . . Doesn't she look like a weasel? Even my husband said he had to be real drunk to do that!''
The site supposedly welcomes both good and bad comments — green houses for good neighbors, red houses for bad — but it clearly is dominated by the disgruntled.
And the people who post green houses seem a lot less enthusiastic. ''Courteous and friendly family'' is the sum total of an assessment of a place on Tonkawood Drive in Tallmadge.
Given the name of the Web site, we shouldn't be surprised that venom dominates. But the degree of hostility is truly amazing.
One Falls resident was shocked to learn that she is the subject of a 200-word tirade that starts like this:
''These people are the pissiest, meanest, most irritable people I've ever come across. The woman is a baby-making machine who needs to go on the pill.''
I tracked down the ''baby-making machine'' — not hard to do given the Google maps that pinpoint locations — and asked how she liked the anonymous cheap shot.
To her, it wasn't anonymous. Although she had never heard of the Web site, she immediately proclaimed, ''It's our next-door neighbor — the only person on the entire street we don't get along with, and nobody else on the street gets along with.''
This ''baby-making machine'' has three children; the neighbor has two. (The victim asked that she not be identified, and I figure she is suffering enough already.)
The bad blood allegedly started when the neighbor's teenage boys ''broke two fluorescent light bulbs and put all the glass in our yard. We have young kids who play in the yard. The cops made them clean it up.''
The online character assassination stunned her.
''I'm very offended,'' she said. ''I can't believe they would let anybody post that.''
So how do they get away with this? We requested an interview with the site's creator but got no response.
''Rotten Neighbor'' reportedly was launched six months ago by an Internet technician in San Diego. Supported by advertising, it bills itself as ''the first real-estate search engine that helps you find bad neighbors before you move so you don't regret the purchase of your new house, home, condo or apartment.''
And all of the information is unbiased and entirely accurate. How could it not be?
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
If my next-door neighbors were any more enjoyable, my serotonin level would be so high that my head would explode.
Get the full article here.
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