Rude camping neighbors

[idiotsniff]

Originally Posted by Nancy Merigold

Yes, it's experiences like that that can get the best of a person. Times that I encountered rude/obnoxious neighbors I try to see if there is another site I can move to. There was one time where a group of campers came and set everything up like they were at a tail gate party, also invaded our camping space as well! There were no other spots to move to, so we went and complained to the office, got our money back and left.

I run into rude neighbors more in private campgrounds so we tend to camp in state parks where the rangers make the rounds and enforce the laws, at least in MN state parks.

Nancy, I would have complained and asked the park people to kick them out before I left, guess who wins there, the ignorant SOB's that are disturbing everyone else. seems they always get to do whatever they please with no consequences. no way would I leave and let them continue. thats awful

[yyyyyguy]

I know this doesn't exactly fit the topic but in over 50 yrs. of camping from Wi to Ca. and many places in between I have never had a camping experience to remotely compare to any previously mentioned, hoping it stays that way...

Pete

[floyd]

We twice had a very large and noisy party on the other side of my back fence until 3am. There were beer cans and cigar buts thrown in my pool and lights shining in my window... on a work night!
After the second time, I got up at 6AM to go to work. On the way out of the house, I took a boom box and a weed whacker motor to my back fence. The Boom Box was set on very loud Mexican Polkas and the weed whacker motor was set on WOT! I hung them both on the fence and left for work.
Great therapy for hangovers

[rgrugg]

By contrast: summer of 2010 we were camped in one of the campgrounds in Glacier Nat Park. Next to us was a Boy Scout troup and there was another across from us. ALL were very quiet and respectful. Nice to see.

[yyyyyguy]

Originally Posted by floyd

We twice had a very large and noisy party on the other side of my back fence until 3am. There were beer cans and cigar buts thrown in my pool and lights shining in my window... on a work night!
After the second time, I got up at 6AM to go to work. On the way out of the house, I took a boom box and a weed whacker motor to my back fence. The Boom Box was set on very loud Mexican Polkas and the weed whacker motor was set on WOT! I hung them both on the fence and left for work.
Great therapy for hangovers

I like ur attitude

[Jim Hovind]

We were camping at Itasca State park and our site was along the road that goes to the bath room. Many people lazy people cut through our site despite our asking them not to. Even walking between us and the campfire.
The worst one was Temprence river State park, and the park staff. We were staying there for 4 days and before we left the engine in the Suburban went out. We towed our Buro with a 4 cyl Sonoma and drove a second car. We had the largest site there. At that time my back problems were at there worst so I put the firewood in bigger bags in the pickup a little at a time and also the same with the cooler. The park ranger would not let us keep a second car at the site, so I had to lift a full 75 qt cooler in and out of the pickup every day and unload 30 gallon bags of oak lumber scraps from the truck. You could still have parked a 40' moter home in there on the pad with our two cars, Burro and tent and had room left over but the rangers said two cars was crowded. Yet the site across from us was for a 35' or so rig and there was a 40' motor home and large fishing boat there and the site to the left of us had the largest motor home I've seen and an enclosed car trailer in a 40' site. I missed 2 week of work from lugging the cooler and tubs of cooking stuff and we stay at private camp crounds now when we go to the north shore.

[CindyL]

At that point, Jim, you produce medical proof and call upon the Americans with Disabilities Act. That kind of BS is what the law was passed to prevent.

I speak as a professor of special education.


CindyL

[DannyH]

A couple of years ago we were tent camping and had some party people setup a near us. Late at night, from 10:00 to 2:00, they were all around the fire and as they got drunker they started doing the soft yelling to each other across the fire, followed by high pitched laughing. A couple of motor homes next to them asked if they could quite it down, which worked for a good 2 minutes. They were at a site that had a trail to the bathrooms, so the next morning I stood at one side of their site while my wife was near the restroom and asked her how she slept last night. I had to sort of yell to have her hear, but we did have a great conversation. As I passed by the other neighbors they gave me a smile and started making a lot of noise making their breakfast outside, by banging pans and talking loud. It didn't take long until we heard groans and complaining from the party peoples tents on how noisy everyone was. As we went back to our site, it looked like even the kids were getting into the jest of it by playing on the street in front of them. I'm sure the parents asked them to be quiet, but kids will be kids.

[Jim Hovind]

CindyL we did take pictures and took down names and made notes, but when I got home I decided you can''t you can't fix peoples lack of common sense and after that I finally found a doctor that fixed all of my back issues with exercise which I will have to do the rest of my life ( I feel 20 years younger ) . We also stay at a wonderful private ground and reserve way in advance the site that is on a rock overlooking lake Superior. So in the end we are better off, and funny thing last year we stayed at the other camp ground in Itasca state park and had the same trouble with people two lazy to walk 5 more sites away to the path to the bath rooms, It must be something unique to that park.

[Bill in Pittsburgh]

Only twice in 40 years of camping have I had to deal with neighbor campers that would not listen to reason. One fellow ran a generator almost the entire night. When we asked him to give us a break he just responded with a litany of foul language. Early in the morning I made some adjustments to the carb on his generator. He didn't (couldn't) use it any more that weekend.
Another time we had some young adult campers getting drunk and playing loud music most of the night. They just ignored us when we asked for them to quiet down. The following morning, when they were very hungover I made sure my son's two cycle dirt bike rattled their tents.

[Sue and Henry]

I love the giggling girl scout story!

[Ellen B]

My personal pet peeve is overly friendly neighbors. I'd love to chat, but please give us 20 minutes to set up first. And we might be more cordial if the first comment was something other than: "So how much did you have to pay for that tiny little thing?"

All in all, we've covered a lot of miles & stayed at many campgrounds with very few unpleasant experiences.

[Rick G]

We have also had very few bad experiences with neighbours, but we did cause one once, unintentionally. This was our most disastrous camping experience.

When my kids were little, we would camp a lot on Vancouver Island most of the year. Tent or van camping, no trailer then. 25 years ago, when my daughter was barely 1, we went on a spring weekend to a southern Island provincial park for the weekend. We pulled in around dinner time on Friday night, my wife, myself, our 7 year old son and our daughter. Our area of the park was deserted. Unfortunately, my daughter became slightly ill after dinner, and became very uncomfortable. From about 8 pm to midnight, she cried continuously and had ongoing diarrhoea. By midnight, campers on both sides of us had come in, set up, packed up and left, twice. We had used up our entire reserve of several days of clothes for her by then. She finally quieted down and went to sleep.

The next morning we put her in her usual backpack/seat (with fold-out legs so she could be vertical but still sitting) by the fire (she loved the fire) to cook breakfast. Since she was learning to walk and was feeling much better, she started rocking back and forth and within about a minute had dumped herself head first onto a rock, where she cut a long 2 inch cut on her forehead. This bled like crazy, though we were later told that surface head cuts bleed a lot but are not very dangerous. In about 2 minutes we determined that it was beyond our ability to control, so we abandoned the campsite and drove to the hospital near Victoria, about an hour away. There they had to give her about 12 stitches, all without anaesthetic because it was a head wound and she was so young. Even though we were separated by several doors and hallways, I can still hear the continuous screams for about a half hour during the stitching, with the women’s tennis final of the French Open on the hospital TV. After that we went home. Less than 24 hours camping and an ignominious end. I am pleased to say that it didn’t cause any long term effect though, we still camp a lot and all our 5 kids do too.

Rick G

[theresa p]

our worst camping experience was experienced in jekyll island, georgia's campground.
the only spot the host would assign us was a handicapped site (we are not handicapped) immediately adjacent to the washroom. and i mean, almost inside the washroom....
there were many other vacant sites, but he kept insisting that those sites had to be kept available for georgians who "might" show up looking to camp. it was a tuesday night in february....what are the chances????
however, there WAS a large group in the tenting area....a very large group. they were all there over their spring break from college/university taking part in an ultimate frisbee tournament. needless to say, our night's sleep was non-existent. when we finally settled after quiet time, which the noises from their numerous campfires extended by several hours (with no intervention by the host/staff)....then, the banging of the damn washroom screen door began. can girls (the washroom closest to us) go to use the facilities at night by themselves? of course not! they need to bring 2-4 friends with them, talking loudly all the way to and from the facilities, and of course, let the door bang! on the way in...and bang! on the way out....
oh my goodness, i am still tired, just remembering it.
the next morning, the campground owner/host expressed "great disappointment" at our decision not to book for another night!!! obviously he stayed somewhere else the night before.
left a decidedly bad taste in my mouth......

[RogerDat]

We once had a very loud, rowdy and intoxicated group of young people camping next to us. Quite time was supposed to be 10:00pm to 7:00am finally at close to 11:30 I went and asked them if they could lower the volume on the radio and maybe stop shouting as we had kids trying to sleep. The response was loud and belligerent. I'm not here to teach other peoples kids manners, and there is no point to getting in a fight over being young, stupid and drunk so I let it go.

Fell asleep that night at 2:00 am to cries of "Ted Nugent" as his song came on their still loud radio.

I was however in the habit of getting up for work at 5:00 am so by 7:10 in the morning we are all up and around getting breakfast. At which time I opened the windows on that side of our converted school bus motor home, flicked the switches to turn on all 10 speakers, fired up both of the 50 watt per channel booster amps and enjoyed a little Janice Joplin with my morning coffee.

From the loud angry noises coming from their tent I'm guessing they were not a fan of Me and Bobby McGee as a hangover cure. They went to bed that night much earlier, maybe they were tired?

[jenbooks]

I've learned a bit from camping.

1) Some parks are known for partiers. Check ahead of time with hosts, rangers and so on. They'll tell you which parks are rowdy.
2) Yes you can call the police. I never got that far. We were tent camping in a park during a deserted midweek. 135 spots, about 5 campers through the whole park. We went off for the day and when we came back the host was laughing his head off. He said, you have four tents on the site next to you now. I said yeah that's a funny joke. He said no seriously, it's true, they wanted the site next to you.

It turned out to be some day laborer and his son and friends. His girlfriend had kicked him out. Furniture, tv, various stuff. They were up until about 2 am drunk, and the conversation between the two "boys" (20 something) before the father came the next day to join them went like this,

"Dude! My almanac says to fish at 1 a.m."
"Dude! This is like having four hotel rooms!"

As they drank more and more they got progressively louder. Dude #1 was on the phone with somebody. I just got really pissed and yelled out to shut up.

"Some crazy lady is yelling at me to shut up! Lady, we're on vacation from North Carolina!"

Well eventually I made my partner go with me to the host, and woke him up. He came by and scolded them but they were already half drunk at 2 am and fell off to sleep before they woke at 6 am to go off to their day labor job in their noisy diesel truck.

The next night the same. I went to the host again who pretended not to hear me knocking until finally he came to the door. "Call the police," he said irritably. I said no, I don't feel like it, you go threaten them and tell them you'll call the police.

He was pissed. He did it though. He was harsh with them. They fell off to sleep.

The next day I asked them why out of 135 sites they picked the site next to us.

"We like it" they said brattily.

We never did figure it out and the host was too much of a weeny to get them to move, so we moved. Which took half a day.

But you can call the police and they'll come and kick them out.
I just didn't want to do it.

[Anne H]

Luckily, I've only had a couple nights (out of many years) with noisy neighbors - memorably a group of motorcycle touring campers - drinking and loud until the wee hours.

But last summer at a KOA campground in Washington (my plan for that night fell through and I ended up picking this place at random), my neighbors were a slightly dodgy group of young folks with a really old trashy stick-built. They were outside being somewhat noisy - but mostly it was really rainy and they stayed inside.

The bad part came the next day when I was in Canada and got pulled over by a mountie for not having a license plate on my trailer. YUP - my license plate and it's holder had been ripped off my trailer - I believe it was swiped off the trailer in that campground while I was away from my trailer walking my dog. Goes to show that one should pay attention to those 'bad vibes' - I had second thoughts about staying there but since it was late and pouring down rain, I ignored my intuition - never again!!

[BCDave]

Originally Posted by jenbooks

But you can call the police and they'll come and kick them out.
I just didn't want to do it.

And then, after the police leave and "your friends" return at 3:00 AM, drunk and angry about having been kicked out........

[Andrew GPSMapNut]

Originally Posted by Anne H

Luckily, I've only had a couple nights (out of many years) with noisy neighbors - memorably a group of motorcycle touring campers - drinking and loud until the wee hours.

>>>>

And than, there was that egg camper standing at the Pearly Gates.
St. Peter checks his book and tells him "I can't let you in, you haven't done a single good deed in your life!"
Eggie says "Wait, check again, I stood up to a group of drunk bikers who were disturbing peace and enjoyment of all the campers, it must count as a good deed!"
St. Peter checks his book again and says "Nothing here about it. When did it happen?
Eggie replies "oh, about five minutes ago..."