So we were leaving our house to go have lunch and run some errands a couple of days ago and our neighbor, who was sitting in a lawn chair at the entrance to his garage, calls out to my husband to see if he can take him up the street to a nearby shopping center because his car is broken down. My husband doesn't know this guy at all -- we just moved in -- but he tries to be nice and tells him that maybe he can later when we get back if it's just for a quick errand.

Sure enough, when we get back a few hours later, the guy is still sitting there, expecting to be driven up to the shopping center. So I head inside with Baby Y and Papa Y takes this guy up the street. Well, he got back a little while later and it turns out the guy wanted to go to the liquor store. Apparently he was shaking the entire trip, and the kicker was that he had some open cuts that were bleeding. He literally bled on our upholstery. He lives with his mom (who we had met before) but she had gone out of town with this guy's sister and presumably took the keys to her own car with her. I had heard the sister shouting at someone in the driveway earlier that day (something along the lines of "I can't help you if you won't help yourself!" and on and on) which made no sense at the time, but of course, now it did.

This evening, sure enough, the dude was out in his chair again as we went to go have dinner, and he calls out that he needs to go up the street again. Papa Y tells him that we can't right now and we don't know when we'll be back. We were desperately hoping he wouldn't be out there when we got back, but of course, he was. So the dude is all amped up and ready to go and SHAKING. I told Papa Y to use the baby as an excuse -- got to give him a bath, put him to bed, etc. Neighbor asks how long this will take, clearly not getting the hint (not that I expect an alcoholic in withdrawal to get it, really) so Papa Y tells him to ask another neighbor, since there are other folks out and about. The guy whines that he doesn't "know" any of them. Papa Y tells him, "And we don't know you either!"

At this point I'm fed up and the Mama Bear in me comes out, and I tell him "You're making us uncomfortable, we have a little one to look after here, please don't ask again." And after that, we went in. Lo and behold, we went upstairs and I looked out the window to see that he had gone and talked another neighbor into it.

Papa Y is going out of town again for the next few days, so I am really, really hoping this guy doesn't bug us. Our houses are too close together for us to come and go without him noticing, especially since he sits in the same spot for most of the day. And obviously addiction is a powerful thing, and who knows what kind of drunk he is. Hopefully just a sad sack, but if he's a mean drunk, now he has an ax to grind with us.

I'd love to hear if if anyone has any advice, but mostly I'm just venting Our new 'hood is actually very quiet and nice, but of course we had to move in next to this guy.