The Hmong's Next Door

Gramma

I was glad when Steve moved in next door.  The Hmong's on our road had all been foreclosed on and Steve had bought a foreclosure.  I could often hear him talking loudly on his phone while outside, which didn't bother me.  His rooster and my rooster called back and forth from the ass crack of dawn till dark.. 

The Hmong's had spray painted the walls in Steve's house with bad and angry words aimed at the bank.  They left enough garbage behind to fill two dumpsters.  The blinds were all bent and disheveled, the carpet destroyed and filth everywhere. 

Dave and I had come home from Bike Week  in Sturgis to find them moved in.  There were hoards of Hmong's there.  The field was full of  cars.  A volleyball net had been set up.  Somebody was sitting on a tall ladder in the center calling the shots.  The din was awful.  One of my peacocks was hopping around the yard with a snare trap on it's foot.  The high pitched ying ying of their language had no volume control. 

Every weekend the Hmong volleyball team showed up for playoffs.  During the week, there were screaming brats and older boys hitting a basketball backboard non-stop.  The kids were unsupervised. The man of the house would sometimes be outside at dawn running a chainsaw.  There was no peace.  I cried. 

Meanwhile, my animals were disappearing.  Elvis, the pot-belly pig went first.  Peacocks and Guinea hens were caught and put in a pen down the road at another Hmong residence.  To no avail, I left a large cage by the pen and asked them to put my birds in there and return them.  There was an attempt made on the alpacas.  The fence was torn open and they were running loose in the area. 

In the off-season they poached deer from the DNR land down our dead end road, leaving behind the guts and heads.  Neighbors had them on trail cam cutting through their land to hunt.  The Hmong's had cockfighting rings in nearby areas and were regularly in the news for being shut down.

I forwarded the house phone to my cell phone.  It was unnerving to get unidentified numbers with no message or a hang up when I answered.  Reverse lookup revealed numbers in the twin cities area.  When I called, angry sounding Hmong's answered in their language.  They always sounded angry when talking.  I knew they were casing the house, but I have iron gates and you need a code to get in.  They frequently drove up and down the road slowly.  I guessed that they had garage's and sheds full of other people's things. 

I reported the suspicious activity.  None of the police would help.  The city cops said my area was not in their jurisdiction.  The county cops said they had no jurisdiction over people in the cities.  Eventually, I began looking for a new place to live.