Anonymous
05/08/2026 16:32
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Mind your own business.
You might be able to address the food trash. Unlikely to be able to address out-of-season holiday decorations.
Sorry, we plan to sell our house in the next 12 months. This feels like our business as it will affect how prospective buyers perceive our home's value.
Your neighbors don’t have any duty to maintain your property values. You should’ve bought in an HOA if you weren’t prepared to live near people who keep out Halloween decorations year round.
Serious question: Are you a real estate attorney? I ask because my neighbor erected an eyesore. I am planning to sell my house in the next few years, and I worry that my neighbor's eyesore may have a negative effect on my property values. He's not part of our HOA. Is there no recourse?
I’m an attorney with experience in real estate law but I do not presently practice real estate law. You can bring a nuisance claim, but generally for nuisance, you have to show the challenged activity substantially interferes with your own property rights, which is a tough standard. You can bring a public nuisance claim, but that typically requires an actual health or safety issue. If you’re trying to just get the condition remediated, the best course of action is to report to your city/county an actual code violation. And even then, only the actual code violation (like grass too tall) will end up remediated.
No matter how decrepit or unsightly, Halloween decorations left up year round won’t cut it basically anywhere absent an HOA or possibly being in a historic district (though even then, those rules are typically about physical structures). That’s partly because how you decorate your property is a form of speech, and you have to have a really good reason to restrict speech, especially speech on the speaker’s private property.
Sorry, one question, when you say “erected an eyesore,” what do you mean? Did they build a structure? Does it require permits? Did they get permits?
Anonymous
05/08/2026 16:31
Subject: Re:Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: 2 people who claim to live nearby say this doesn't bother them. I just have to know, would you mind living next door to it? I'm so curious. The skeletons are more than one story tall!
No. I’d think it was funny.
Even the yard food trash that's attracting rats???
I have a feeling op is exaggerating with that.
OP, again. I'm truly not trying to exaggerate or mislead. Imagine 6 people got take out and left the open containers on the front yard under the leftmost window in this image (thank you to the PP that found a more recent picture of this home): https://maps.apple/la/9B~fPA5g1q-TTb (FWIW, this picture is from 2ish years ago when the Easter decor was new -- please drive by if you want to see their current condition, and you can also view the many items I have not even mentioned: more than 7 garbage cans, a large metal storage container in the driveway, the 2-story ladder unsecured and up against a tree, and so on. I do not take issue with these other items, though they are unsightly as well. I recognize that we all have to live and let live to some extent. However, the decor is excessive in size, quantity, condition + the # holidays on display.)
In an effort to be as accurate as possible... the food was exposed, the trash was there for at least 2 days... the food is now eaten (I have assumed it was by animals), and the 6-ish containers remain. Is it a heap? No, but it's still unsightly and unsanitary. And, yes, they are home.
The link looks fine to me. Leaving food out for two days is unlikely to get you county involvement. An extended period is a lot more likely. You’re going to have a lot more success trying to remedy actual sanitation and safety issues than getting the skeletons to come down, which it sounds like is the actual primary concern from a home sale perspective.
Frankly, I think there are plenty of buyers at your price point who won’t care about the house next door. I’m not a fan of the chain link fence (though it wouldn’t stop me fr buying), but the skeletons are funny and harmless to me.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 16:28
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Mind your own business.
You might be able to address the food trash. Unlikely to be able to address out-of-season holiday decorations.
Sorry, we plan to sell our house in the next 12 months. This feels like our business as it will affect how prospective buyers perceive our home's value.
Your neighbors don’t have any duty to maintain your property values. You should’ve bought in an HOA if you weren’t prepared to live near people who keep out Halloween decorations year round.
Serious question: Are you a real estate attorney? I ask because my neighbor erected an eyesore. I am planning to sell my house in the next few years, and I worry that my neighbor's eyesore may have a negative effect on my property values. He's not part of our HOA. Is there no recourse?
I’m an attorney with experience in real estate law but I do not presently practice real estate law. You can bring a nuisance claim, but generally for nuisance, you have to show the challenged activity substantially interferes with your own property rights, which is a tough standard. You can bring a public nuisance claim, but that typically requires an actual health or safety issue. If you’re trying to just get the condition remediated, the best course of action is to report to your city/county an actual code violation. And even then, only the actual code violation (like grass too tall) will end up remediated.
No matter how decrepit or unsightly, Halloween decorations left up year round won’t cut it basically anywhere absent an HOA or possibly being in a historic district (though even then, those rules are typically about physical structures). That’s partly because how you decorate your property is a form of speech, and you have to have a really good reason to restrict speech, especially speech on the speaker’s private property.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 16:16
Subject: Re:Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: 2 people who claim to live nearby say this doesn't bother them. I just have to know, would you mind living next door to it? I'm so curious. The skeletons are more than one story tall!
No. I’d think it was funny.
Even the yard food trash that's attracting rats???
I have a feeling op is exaggerating with that.
OP, again. I'm truly not trying to exaggerate or mislead. Imagine 6 people got take out and left the open containers on the front yard under the leftmost window in this image (thank you to the PP that found a more recent picture of this home): https://maps.apple/la/9B~fPA5g1q-TTb (FWIW, this picture is from 2ish years ago when the Easter decor was new -- please drive by if you want to see their current condition, and you can also view the many items I have not even mentioned: more than 7 garbage cans, a large metal storage container in the driveway, the 2-story ladder unsecured and up against a tree, and so on. I do not take issue with these other items, though they are unsightly as well. I recognize that we all have to live and let live to some extent. However, the decor is excessive in size, quantity, condition + the # holidays on display.)
In an effort to be as accurate as possible... the food was exposed, the trash was there for at least 2 days... the food is now eaten (I have assumed it was by animals), and the 6-ish containers remain. Is it a heap? No, but it's still unsightly and unsanitary. And, yes, they are home.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 14:53
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
I would never buy a house next door to this one. It signals an inconsiderate neighbor, which I'd prefer not to live next to. Eccentricity is fine, but leaving those decaying decorations up year-round for six years is not eccentricity -- it's mental illness. No thanks.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 14:42
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Mind your own business.
You might be able to address the food trash. Unlikely to be able to address out-of-season holiday decorations.
Sorry, we plan to sell our house in the next 12 months. This feels like our business as it will affect how prospective buyers perceive our home's value.
Your neighbors don’t have any duty to maintain your property values. You should’ve bought in an HOA if you weren’t prepared to live near people who keep out Halloween decorations year round.
Serious question: Are you a real estate attorney? I ask because my neighbor erected an eyesore. I am planning to sell my house in the next few years, and I worry that my neighbor's eyesore may have a negative effect on my property values. He's not part of our HOA. Is there no recourse?
Anonymous
05/08/2026 12:55
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
OP, I would be upfront with her. Tell her you are planning to list your property and you think it would help if she cleaned up the old decorations. Have you tried being upfront and direct?
Anonymous
05/08/2026 12:53
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Separate but related question...are houses that are located in blocks that are known for everyone going all out decorating (either Halloween or Christmas or both) and attract visitors each season, given a premium when selling or is it the opposite...that you sell for a discount because you scare off buyers who don't want to the obligation to go nuts for decorations (or are there enough buyers who want that and not enough neighborhoods)?
I’m sure it differs by area but any house listed on Jackson St in Ashton Heights references that they’re known for going crazy for Halloween
Get a sense if any premium or discount is applied to those houses?
I know that homes in downtown Salem now have a premium...but not sure if that's because families AirBnB rooms during September/October or that it's impossible to drive into downtown Salem on most weekends in September/October, etc.?
Anonymous
05/08/2026 12:48
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Separate but related question...are houses that are located in blocks that are known for everyone going all out decorating (either Halloween or Christmas or both) and attract visitors each season, given a premium when selling or is it the opposite...that you sell for a discount because you scare off buyers who don't want to the obligation to go nuts for decorations (or are there enough buyers who want that and not enough neighborhoods)?
I’m sure it differs by area but any house listed on Jackson St in Ashton Heights references that they’re known for going crazy for Halloween
Anonymous
05/08/2026 12:41
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Separate but related question...are houses that are located in blocks that are known for everyone going all out decorating (either Halloween or Christmas or both) and attract visitors each season, given a premium when selling or is it the opposite...that you sell for a discount because you scare off buyers who don't want to the obligation to go nuts for decorations (or are there enough buyers who want that and not enough neighborhoods)?
Anonymous
05/08/2026 12:06
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would not buy a house next to this nonsense. She sounds like an inconsiderate jerk. I’d start an anonymous FB account and NextDoor account and start posting photos of her yard, and her name and profession, with comments.
Hot place in hell for people like you ...
Anonymous cruelty designed specifically to interfere with someone's livelihood is a nasty thing. You send that around you might not like what comes around.
God, my life mission is to shutdown these absurd busybodies. Do something that actually matters with your life. Good god.
It would take less time to set up an account and post than it took this lady to assemble 15 foot skeletons and other yard trash that she then left for over 6 years. The local government evidently had to cite her for not caring for her property, according to people upthread. This isn't some person who got sick and needs help mowing her lawn (when this happens in our neighborhood, people pitch in. And we shovel for those who can't as well. This lady is a totally different ball of wax).
This sounds like an eccentric antisocial person who doesn't care at all about her neighbors. She had to make great efforts to create her yard scape, but she can't pick up food trash???
I’m confused. Why is the amount of time it takes to assemble the skeletons relevant here? Sounds like she wants to keep them up because she likes them.
Bc PP is calling people on here busybodies. The term implies people who care have too much time on their hands.
Regardless, it's good many people say they don't care, so that OP can sell her house and wash her hands of the skeletons.
I don’t think you know what a busybody is. In any case, I promise you the homeowner is saving time by leaving the skeletons up rather than disassembling and reassembling annually.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 12:03
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
I don’t like these giant skeletons. Weird trend. I can understand why people don’t want to take them down after the hassle of putting them up and then the hassle of storing them. That amount of skeletons would be a lot of work too. I see plenty of properties across the country with one of these in the yard but not this many. It wouldn’t bother me really I just do t personally like it and think it’s a strange trend.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 11:56
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would not buy a house next to this nonsense. She sounds like an inconsiderate jerk. I’d start an anonymous FB account and NextDoor account and start posting photos of her yard, and her name and profession, with comments.
Hot place in hell for people like you ...
Anonymous cruelty designed specifically to interfere with someone's livelihood is a nasty thing. You send that around you might not like what comes around.
God, my life mission is to shutdown these absurd busybodies. Do something that actually matters with your life. Good god.
It would take less time to set up an account and post than it took this lady to assemble 15 foot skeletons and other yard trash that she then left for over 6 years. The local government evidently had to cite her for not caring for her property, according to people upthread. This isn't some person who got sick and needs help mowing her lawn (when this happens in our neighborhood, people pitch in. And we shovel for those who can't as well. This lady is a totally different ball of wax).
This sounds like an eccentric antisocial person who doesn't care at all about her neighbors. She had to make great efforts to create her yard scape, but she can't pick up food trash???
I’m confused. Why is the amount of time it takes to assemble the skeletons relevant here? Sounds like she wants to keep them up because she likes them.
Because they are a pain in the ass to set up and take down…and people in general like to avoid things that are a pain in the ass.
There is someone on our block who just has one and leaves it up through Christmas but admits the main reason to leave it up is that it’s such a pain to set it up and take it down that they are going to get some mileage out of the seasons.
Also, as someone else noted…very few people appreciate how hard it is to store these things. They realize their garage or shed or attic doesn’t have the space…so just leave it up.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 10:02
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I would not buy a house next to this nonsense. She sounds like an inconsiderate jerk. I’d start an anonymous FB account and NextDoor account and start posting photos of her yard, and her name and profession, with comments.
Hot place in hell for people like you ...
Anonymous cruelty designed specifically to interfere with someone's livelihood is a nasty thing. You send that around you might not like what comes around.
God, my life mission is to shutdown these absurd busybodies. Do something that actually matters with your life. Good god.
It would take less time to set up an account and post than it took this lady to assemble 15 foot skeletons and other yard trash that she then left for over 6 years. The local government evidently had to cite her for not caring for her property, according to people upthread. This isn't some person who got sick and needs help mowing her lawn (when this happens in our neighborhood, people pitch in. And we shovel for those who can't as well. This lady is a totally different ball of wax).
This sounds like an eccentric antisocial person who doesn't care at all about her neighbors. She had to make great efforts to create her yard scape, but she can't pick up food trash???
I’m confused. Why is the amount of time it takes to assemble the skeletons relevant here? Sounds like she wants to keep them up because she likes them.
Bc PP is calling people on here busybodies. The term implies people who care have too much time on their hands.
Regardless, it's good many people say they don't care, so that OP can sell her house and wash her hands of the skeletons.
Anonymous
05/08/2026 10:01
Subject: Would you buy a house next to this?
Deep breaths. You can’t control what your neighbors do with their property. Release control.