r/GirlDinnerDiaries • u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 • 2h ago
Rant & Ramble School Bus Stop changed due to Boomer spite
Dinner is a Burrito that Hubby took a few bites of before he realized it wasn't his. Oopsie.
So I live on a road with no outlet and is a whopping 1.5 lanes wide. Have absolutely no idea why they built it like that but here we are. Off this road are several other roads, all with street signs and street names. *They're all privately owned*. This comes into play later.
For *at least* the past 20 years (we moved here in 2006), the juncture of one such road served as the school bus stop. They'd pick up the kids, and back into the junction to turn around, and leave. Just like the trash truck drivers and I'm sure other municipal vehicles have always done. *For decades*.
Cut to this past Friday (kids were on break) and I get a call during the workday from the school transportation department - effective immediately, they are no longer allowed to use that location as a bus stop. They float the idea of sending a small van to pick up the kids and then have them transfer into their bus in the neighboring McMansion subdivision. Ooohhkay? No clue what the catalyst for this was, my husband hadn't seen anything amiss when he took the kids to the bus stop (which I might point out is only one house down from us so it was super convenient).
By Tuesday, they've procured a van from the next district over, and are now going to pick up the kids at the *next* private road down, 20 minutes earlier. I press hubby to leave his comfort zone this morning and talk to the other parents to get some tea.
Tea, according to mother of my son's classmate:
*"Older lady drove up dangerously fast on the bus. Said she was sick of it blocking her drive and damaging her road. She allowed it for years when her kids went to school but she would sue anyone who drives on her drive again including neighbors. Lots of cursing apparently.*"
The reason we weren't privy to all this is it apparently happened at the drop off, and we only use the bus service in the mornings.
I do a bit of digging, as I know my way around an auditor website, and find the owner of this drive (it's not readily apparent as there are ~4 houses that can only be accessed using this road) is the neighbor whose backyard butts against the side of ours. She's 67 (thank you internet), and I'd already known her daughter owned a well-reviewed bakery as I'd been gifted cookies once because her kids (lady's grandkids) repeatedly hit balls into our backyard.
I mean I know there's nothing I can do about the situation; it's legally their property after all. But I'm really disappointed that this tiny neighborhood has such shitty residents. So much for "it takes a village".
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u/ComfortableGround403 APPROVED✨ 2h ago
Keep an eye on her. This kind of sudden change into nasty behavior is one of the first signs of dementia
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u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 1h ago
Ooh I could spin that - go to the bakery really concerned because of the outburst...
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u/ComfortableGround403 APPROVED✨ 1h ago
Exactly. Still keep nice with her. But say something to the daughter. Maybe even get more dirt on this bus incident.
Hey, I heard your mom was having drama with the school district and damaging her property?
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u/lily_spiderlili Smoothie Queen 2h ago
Ew. People are really hating school bus stop stations?
Shitty residents ruin neighborhoods.
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u/ccsparkles Baked Fresh Daily 😚💨 2h ago
Right? It’s like all of 10-15 minutes a day folks are there then gone.
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u/look2thecookie Yappy Yenta 2h ago
That sucks so badly for you guys. Nice of the district to troubleshoot so your kids still have transportation close by, but 20-25 mins in the morning with kids is a BIG difference.
She's also adding expenses for the school district, which she should care about since she pays into it. They had to get a van AND a driver.
Can one of the parents drive everyone to the new rendezvous point? I only ask bc it'd be really weird if that parent happened to have a minivan that was also a carpool karaoke type vehicle that drove by her house 20 mins earlier every morning singing with the windows down to get the kids HYPED FOR LEARNING
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u/bakeacake45 APPROVED✨ 56m ago
Check whether an easement for the bus was granted, the term of the easement and whether compensation for the easement is/was being paid by the school district. In most states easements are required for school busses to use a private drive or road. Same for any municipal service vehicle such as garbage trucks.
Legally the easement must be terminated and of course so should any compensation.
You can also formally request a “school transportation risk assessment” given the change. This should include your concerns as to whether the van and driver are both legally certified. Also include concerns about kids being bused to a second bus stop 8n a neighborhood they do not know and that you cannot trust is safe.
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u/Ok_Sky9647 Livin' on a Purse Snack 👜 2h ago
Oh it sounds like its time to go meet up with a friend at that bakery in town (make sure the daughter/owner is working), and gossip loudly with your friend about your neighbor's complete meltdown over a busstop, and how you might bring her some cookies because she needs a kindness or some very self righteous bs. Lol, small town response.
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u/fatbellylouise APPROVED✨ 1h ago
Re: your husband-bitten burrito. one time my brother and I got burritos, he scarfed his down while I ate half of mine and put the rest in the fridge for later. a bit later he opens the fridge, sees my half burrito, and eats it, thinking his fully eaten one magically regenerated in the fridge I guess? and when I came around later looking for my burrito, he said “oh I just ate the rest of my leftover one, I would’ve offered it to you if I’d known you were hungry!”bitch what your leftover one?! that was MY burrito!!! this happened like 10 years ago and he did buy me another burrito that night, but I still bring it up from time to time
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u/themagicalelizabeth the secret ingredient is autism✨ 2h ago
How funny would it be to get a camera facing the road and record her driving too fast and use that as means to petition your relevant council/authorities to put a speed bump right outside her house! I mean regardless of the bus stop, if she's wheeling up reckless like that on a BUS, she can't be trusted to drive safely around the home that house those children, and now the kids don't have protection of the bus and will need to commute farther to and from the bus stop. She sounds like a danger to the kids walking the neighborhood/playing outside. At least that's how I'd go at it, work up some worried mother tears, say how worried I am for my kid and the other kids now that they're having to commute farther outside the safety of a bus stop around such reckless drivers!
Not saying it would work. But I can't stand people like her and will go 10 toes down just on principle to try and make her life as annoying as possible. If also be calling enforcement about ANY possible infractions on her property. Is become so knowledge about things like trash pick up, yard maintenance, code enforcement on any structures like sheds. If it's been a while since you had a survey, I'd be getting surveyors out to enforce my property line and force her to remove anything on my property.
I'd also go to school district meetings and bring up exactly what you said about garbage trucks, like are other municipal services expected to not use that road just bc she's selfish and grumpy?
God damn I hate her for you lol
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u/kellzbellznhellz Short Story Long™️ 1h ago
Speed bump in front of her house also ensures that everyone has to hit the accelerator in front of her house. Every. One. 😂
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u/themagicalelizabeth the secret ingredient is autism✨ 56m ago
Haha yesss you get it 🤣 idk how easy it is to get a speed bump made, but I'd spend way too much time trying to figure it out and get it done just to annoy her lmfao
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u/themagicalelizabeth the secret ingredient is autism✨ 2h ago
Also just saying but mint propagates easily in yards and is a BITCH to get rid of. If any mint ended up seeded in her yard, it would likely be super annoying to her. Or catnip! Let her yard become the street kitty night club lol
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u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 1h ago
We already have bamboo on that side of the yard we planted 15 years ago 😁
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u/AggravatingTomato159 Foraging Bog Witch 1h ago
As funny as that is plssss don’t do this, getting back at her is not worth hurting local ecosystems
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u/themagicalelizabeth the secret ingredient is autism✨ 58m ago
Fair point, although it was more of a wishful thinking suggestion haha maybe some local wildflower seeds instead? Helping the pollinators and annoying that cranky bitch feels like a win win lol
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u/Tarotgirl_5392 Snack Goblin 1h ago
Dandelions too. And blackberries. Mint was my first thought.
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u/themagicalelizabeth the secret ingredient is autism✨ 59m ago
Omg I got paid a nice chunk last summer removing blackberry plants from my coworkers yard when her husband was laid up with an injury and she wasn't in a shape to do it herself. NIGHTMARE to get rid of! Beyond how they take over so fast and grow out so far, the THORNS, omg I was getting stabbed through my thick gardening gloves and had to wear jeans and flannel in the summer heat to protect my skin! Blackberries would truly be a nightmare!
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u/AggravatingTomato159 Foraging Bog Witch 1h ago
Why do we let the connivence of Boomers ruin everyone else’s lives? Truly. I’m so fucking sick of some old fart with a lead-paint-stare taking away any semblance of normalcy for the people around them and then bitching about “kids these days.” If you had an ounce of humility, patience, or empathy in your old sack of bones then the world would be infinitely better than it is now. Sigh (I have had too many personal experiences like this so pardon my raging lol)
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u/AdTop9663 Tater Thot 1h ago
Same people that call the cops on kids playing outside !! Sick selfish generation
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u/AggravatingTomato159 Foraging Bog Witch 1h ago
I’m saying. If someone ever does that to my kids I’m calling a welfare check on them because I refuse to believe anyone of sound mind truly believes that’s a good/productive thing to do
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u/snowwhite2591 🩷Bi💜 1h ago
I’m so glad my house is the bus stop but they had to move the next one closer to our stop because elderly people complained. Now they try to place all the stops at a student house.
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u/Zeal_of_Zebras Assigned Hungry At Birth 42m ago
Report her to the DMV and say she’s driving erratically.
Have all the neighbors call Adult protective services and ask for a welfare check.
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u/multipocalypse 🍨 I scream, you scream, we're all screaming inside 😀 2h ago edited 1h ago
I wouldn't preemptively assume you can't do anything about it! Perhaps you can get together with some similarly affected neighbors and write or talk to this woman, maybe offer to cover any damage the bus does to "her" road (it doesn't sound like the bus actually enters her driveway?), ask what it would take for her to permit the bus stop to remain in its long-standing location. Have you gotten definite info on the ownership of these roads? I know some HOAs own their roads, but have never heard of an individual owning actual roads that aren't just a long driveway on private property.
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u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 1h ago
Nope the auditor records show the whole strip deeded to that owner (whose actual driveway is ~250' down the road). We're in suburbia, but we picked this road because it was decidedly not part of any HOA.
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u/tross1140 Ranch Evangelist 1h ago
This.
You’ll need to find the plat map for the property to determine whether the road is owned by an individual, an HOA or some other entity. Here we can access those through our county assessor’s website. Once you have that info, and if you want to try to engage, you can form a strategy.
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u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 1h ago
Yep, mentioned in post I'd already done that (in a previous life I used to do environmental property assessments - got very used to county bureaucracy, and now I just use those powers to be nosey about who owns what and what they paid for it.)
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u/tross1140 Ranch Evangelist 25m ago
I did read that. The next layer to this kind of thing is appreciating how much it costs someone to own that property.
Asphalt has to be maintained. Multi-axel vehicles turning around on a private road over decades in all kinds of weather causes wear, which leads to splits needing replaced at certain increments, followed by resurfacing.
The city and the school district should be having these conversations with the property owner.
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u/multipocalypse 🍨 I scream, you scream, we're all screaming inside 😀 1h ago
So I think you're saying that you did verify that this road is owned by a private individual, even though there are several houses that can only be accessed via this road? Have you checked whether that's legal in your jurisdiction? If so, there must at least be easements for the owners of the other houses.
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u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 1h ago
None of these houses are much older than 40ish years iirc so it's not like anything got grandfathered in to the best of my knowledge. But I haven't really dug beyond who the owner was cause sadly I was at work and also coming down with a cold - brain squishy.
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u/johjo_has_opinions Well-Read & Well-Fed 1h ago
What the fuck. So it was fine while it personally benefited her, but now no one can have it because she doesn’t need it anymore? What a sack of shit
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u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 1h ago
I mean isn't that the exact boomer stereotype?
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2h ago
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u/Arcane-Botany-1024 Foraging Bog Witch 2h ago
Holy fucking Christian, just when I didnt think people could get more fucking miserable. Why is it always kids bringing it out of old people too? Like, what do I have to do to not be like that when I am old???
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u/Distinct-Crow4753 what that mouth do is gossip 2h ago
Put bamboo seed in her yard
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u/Nanashi_Kitty just here for the garlic bread 🖤🩶🤍💜 1h ago
Probably already done given its propegation tendencies...(Our bamboo patch is on that side of the yard because we were in our 30s and thought it would be cool)
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u/Environmental_Tip738 Internet Auntie 1h ago
I would set up a new Gmail account and email the daughter’s bakery.
Maybe a polite email would help her convince mom to let it go.
It can’t get worse.
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u/Expert-Welder-2407 Well-Read & Well-Fed 2h ago
Submit her for property tax re-assessment. Call in any structures or work that looks like it might not be to code.