OK, so me and the girlie have lived here since August and never really got to know our neighbors, other then seeing them in the yard or some nonsense like that. They're middle-aged, and we've never had a problem with them other than that they don't dress well and look like burnt out hipsters.
Well, recently I started driving a new way home from the office because I got Smart Tag and at the corner of this one side street are these two bums who are always panhandling cars and the guy holds a sign saying "homeless." I never really paid that much attention to them because I was driving and they're filthy. I mean, if I was walking down the street, I'd probably give them something, but not while I'm driving.
So anyway, earlier today, I got stopped at the traffic light there for the first time, and I looked over and realized that these bums who are camped out on this same corner everyday are, in fact, my neighbors, who live just a few blocks away. I thought I had to be mistaken so once I got home I parked and went over to the neighbors house to see if anyone was home. Nope. So, then, I decided I had to be proactive because, fuck, I'm in my mid-twenties and in a committed relationship and have to think about more then just myself. If I was 22 and wanted to live next to vagrants, that's one thing, but I have the girl to think about, and this is not what she signed up for.
Anyway, I walked back over there, and they were still there and I called out my neighbors name and the guy asked what was up. I asked him what the hell he was doing and he was like what do you mean? I was like, um, you're holding a homeless sign and asking people for money and you live next door to me. He said they'd been doing it for years and it was better than working construction -- ew!! -- because as long as he did it in Cary Town it was consistently like $25/hour and more on the weekends. I asked him if he had any qualms about lying because he was purporting to be homeless when he in fact had a home, and he told me to fuck off and mind my own business.
Needless to say, I am pretty freaked out. I called my friend Ricky who's an appraiser and had him pull up the property info since he has access to the cities database and all that jazz, and sure enough they own the house and have for 2.5 years and it's worth over $400,000, which probably isn't alot in you guys' area, but is definitely above-average for metro Richmond.
So, I guess, I don't know what to do. I mean, this is my neighborhood, and we chose to move here because we liked the Cary Town community, so I cannot, in good conscience, just watch people like this live on my own street. It's like living next to a child molester. I called the police non-emergency line and asked if they could be arrested on some sort of fraud charge or tax evasion thing because they are collecting money under false pretenses and clearly not paying taxes which I'm sure is some sort of defrauding the charitable spirit of others law or something, and the officer laughed at me.
I just don't know where to go from here. Obviously I have to tell my girlfriend eventually, because she has a right to know, but she's going to freak out even more than me so I need an action plan. I don't really want to move, but I guess we're going to have to unless we figure out someway to stop these people or force them to move. I suppose I have to tell the other neighbors, and maybe we can all take shifts hanging out on the same corner as these people telling everyone who comes by that they're not homeless and they're big frauds and after a few days of no money maybe they'll quit. I dunno, they'll probably just go to another side of town and still live there though, and they might get belligerent or something.
So, does anyone have any advice -- legal or otherwise -- about how I should proceed? Has anyone ever found themselves in a situation like this before?
