Owners won’t do anything. I don’t feel like I can trust the police. Junkies hassle me every other day. It’s annoying.
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Owners won’t do anything. I don’t feel like I can trust the police. Junkies hassle me every other day. It’s annoying.
You don’t feel you can “trust the police”? Would you care you expound on this?
Unless you want to enact vigilante behavior, the police should be your first choice – followed by your landlord (assuming by ‘building’ you mean your residence). Hell, call in anonymous tips if you’re overly concerned about these untrustworthy law enforcement officers.
Or buy a gun and harden the fuck up.
Call the cops anonymously from outside your building.
If you can’t trust the Police that far, you are on your own.
I’m totally not surprised the owner won’t do anything. It’s probably because the dealers are paying him a little extra moolah for a place to live and deal from.
I wouldnt trust the East Precint either, trust me, get it? Ha. Anyways, like the other guy said, “Buy a gun”, or, if you want to be creative about it, drug dealers and users get really really freaked out when they think the law is casing them out. For example, go totally in cognito durring their busy times, stand outside across the street and with a total disguise on just take pictures with a decent camera and an ear peice in. Or you could rent a crown victoria with tinted windows and keep it parket right infront of the apartment or accross the street, they will start tripping and set up shop somewhere else. Or, like the old saying goes, “If ya can’t beat em, join em.”
Next time they leave their apartment, go solder some metal into their keyhole so their key no longer works. Write up an eviction notice and tape it to their door. Make some ominous mention of “illegal activities” and that “any follow up will force me to involve the police.”
A few years ago my street corner (14th & E Denny) became a popular drug dealing site, which I found annoying and scary. One day I called East Precinct to report a particularly blatant deal. A patrol car arrived and apprehended a couple people. A few hours later I got a very grateful call from an Officer Slaughter who thanked me for helping bust a “black tar heroin” deal and urged me to report any further similar activity. I felt noble until a few months later when Officer Slaughter appeared in the headlines. See:
http://www.google.com/search?q=officer+slaughter+Seattle&ie=
Just sayin…
Call the cops (anonymously if you want) each and every time the druggies are being threatening/invasive/scary. Nothing will change otherwise. There are a lot of good cops in this city but unfortunately a few really, really bad ones (the assholes who make the headlines). Anyway, if you’re persistent the druggies move their sad and tragic lives down the street where you can visit once in a while, in moderation….
The simplest thing to do would be for you to move. Guns seem like a crazy alternative, but hey, to each his own. I’d be more concerned about the dealers shooting at each other & accidentally killing me with the odd stray bullet. The owner may know these folks, be related to them, or afraid to do anything about them in fear of reprisals.
Here’s something some friends of mine did, when dealing (har-har) with a noisy party house across the street from them. Called the cops, called the owner of the house, blah blah & kept very careful records, took discreet photos of everything going on there for about 6 months. Then they wrote a letter to the owner of the house which basically said, “if you continue to allow this activity to go on we will be forced to sue you for the value of your rental property and take it away from you.” Those noisy folks were out of that house within a month. Nobody wants to deal with a lawsuit. They’re a costly headache. But don’t threaten anything you can’t back up. Personally, I liked the soldered keyhole & eviction notice idea, but you have to do it when nobody’s home. Dealers rarely leave their homes unguarded by someone. Good luck!
From personal experience, I know that the police will follow up to the landlord with a letter forcing him or her to evict the dealer. The landlord has to or the City will threaten to abate the property. The police have to do the investigation and come to the conclusion themselves because they are the ones who will be forcing this and they will be the witness at the court hearing to evict. The landlord cannot get out of this when this happens. What this means is that your best course is to get it to the attention of the police and give them enough details so that they will follow up. Without endangering yourself, if you can come up with names, address and what is going on you have your best chance. I suppose since the police resources are stretched a bit, your best response will be if you can give them something to go on.
I remember hearing about a community in Oakland that was having the same problem and the pd didn’t want to help. Criminals don’t like attention. Put up signs that say “get drugs here!” and “drug dealers live in this building” and you’ll solve your problem without police help. Now as to the issue of if these people should be considered criminals… That’s a different issue entirely…