The neighbors we had in FL are the reason we live on about 90 acres of wooded property now. I can't decide which neighbor was the BEST one- the single woman who was very nice but never home and her house alarm would sound for hours and hours, just blaring. Or the married man across the street who would come home at lunch time for nooners with his girlfriend. Ick. To our left was the couple who stripped every tree off their lot, built a house and opened a day care center, in city limits out of their home. Legal, I called to ask, as long as they never had more than 6 kids there, including their own. And very often, he would mow his yard as soon as we went out on the screen room to eat dinner. The house behind us, nice enough people but they kept their poor dog staked out there in the swampy, mosquito-y area and that poor dog barked and howled all day every day. I felt so badly for him. Catty-corner from us was a guy with a big dog that used to poop a loose stream of yuk all over our yard every day. He wouldn't keep his dog in his own yard so Woody would scrape it up with a shovel and deliver it back to his driveway every day. We fenced our back yard so at least that part stayed clean and we could go barefoot out there. The man was a real jerk and threaten to come over and kick our butts but he was all talk. And a karate instructor, to boot. What a great role model. We just called him "Glassbowl". Sort of. There was a young mother who would take her kid and let her play in everyone's back yards on their toys and playsets and she even came in our yard to sit on our back porch. HUH? We ended up having to put locks on our gates. And the best one? The kids across the street who stole plywood from every nearby construction site and built this huge, wonderful skateboard ramp and had 20 kids over every night to go ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk,ker-thunk, KER-THUNK until the wee hours of the morning, like 2 AM, until I would have enough and go flash our outside lights at them. That was their warning, next call was to the police. The City told me they had a permit for that thing, which was a LIE. We had to put up with it for over 2 years until finally the power company made them tear it down, then the city said it was illegal all along. They had built it right under a power line, it was amazing no kid was killed there. I think that and the crappy dog and the kids next door were the most annoying things about having neighbors.

Dana Plato was involved in a robbery with a pellet gun and she plead guilty. Bridges has had a number of brushes with the law but the robbery with a gun charge against him was dropped during the investigation and never even went to trial. He was tried for attempted murder of a drug dealer but was acquitted. He was also involved in a stabbing of a tenent but the charges against him were dropped and it never went to trial. There have been many other charges he was found guilty of or he pleaded 'no contest'; carrying a concealed weapon, making a bomb threat against a business, deadly assault with an auto, drugs, ect. Bridges wrote a book, "Killing Willis", discussing his drug addiction and various criminal charges. It's all there in the book although the autobiography presents his version of the events surrounding the controversy. :grain of salt:

When i started to notice alot of my step-son's strange behaviors i realized something was definetely wrong.i knew it had to be more than just ADD(which was what he was first diagnosed with)I spent days researching different types of conduct disorders and negative behaviors.I found a website that talked about RAD,and "all of his behaviors" matched their description of the disorder.I talked to his therapist at the time about my concerns but they blew them off and told us that he did not fit the "profile" because RAD children were alot more problematic.I was really frustrated at the time because nobody had a clue how much of a problem he really was.The school was just as useless,they kept minimizing his behavior at school insisting that he was acting up "just for attention" and the only solution they could offer was to change his medication.This was the same child that was litteraly "kicked out" of three different daycares because they just couldn't handle him.Mind you,this child was also getting suspended on a regular basis-almost monthly since the first grade!We continued to advocate for this child,in the hopes that someone would believe what he was really like.It was sad to see how not only his mother but the "community" had turned their backs on this child. After the abuse occured, we were just too distraught after the terrible shock of finding out that one child in the family sexually perpetrated upon the other children in the family.Here we were a couple by most standards, two people joined by love . Each of us was the birth parent of one of the kids involved. We were both horrified and almost inconsolable. The tears could not be stopped. The anger and disbelief on our faces was painfully obvious. The grief was too much for us to bear. I felt our sanity and health were in danger at that moment. I felt so much raw emotion that it sickened me. There were the victims; which were safe and basically unharmed physically. But would all the family love and support be enough to keep this nightmare from returning to haunt them as they reach adolescence? Will this horror cause them confusion about their own sexuality and will meaningful relationships be impossible for these kids when grown? Whether confinement or treatment will ever rehabilitate this boy is questionable. We only can pray. All I know is that this unfortunate choice on his part has damaged all involved and will be a horrible end to any life he may have had along with his innocence, and childhood.As much as i pity the circumstances that have created such a monster of a child,i just can't bring myself to "trying to help him" or advocating for him to get better treatment.I know alot of people may think i am a horrible person,but i just can't bring myself to trying to help him -when my daughter is still healing from what he did to her.I already have so much guilt to deal with over what happened after i found out.For the next few days-while my husband were still recovering from the shcok and figuring out what to do,i had to continue to care for this child...who suddenly asked me for hugs and kisses almost constantly.I tried my best to put my feelings aside and not treat him any differently then i had previously until My daughter saw me hugging him and ran into her room crying. As you can imagine,she was inconsolable and angry at me at the same time.I remmember leaving her room and walking into my bedroom and just collapsing on the ground where i stayed and cried for over an hour.I left after that,and stayed at my moms and did not return until my husband took him to his grandmother's house. That did more harm than good-soon after staying with her he recanted his story and said my daughter had "started it" and later we found out that she was actually "encouraging him" to defend himself and let everyone know he was innocent...When CPS stepped in and removed him from her home ,although it wasn't what we had hoped for we were relieved that he would be away from her influence.Unfortunetely all that CPS has done is put him in a theraputic foster home instead of an Intensive residential treatment Center for young offenders which is what "all of the therapists that have seen him" recommend that he go.Their agenda is to basically keep him in a safe home where there are no other kids and close the case.This is a high profile case,as our caseworker has told us.The main problem is that he is the "youngest offender" in the state of NJ and all of the programs available in resedential treatment settings are for older kids.We have written to the commisioner and various others for support but unfortunetely it hasn't done anything to get him the treatment he needs.I've spent so much time trying to advocate for this kid-that its just added to the guilt i have by neglecting my daughters needs and making him a priority.Disengaging for me was a matter of self-preservation.I just can't do it anymore.Sometimes i feel as if this marriage was a mistake,and i wonder how things would have been had i not made that decision.I just have alot of conflicting emotions about the entire thing. So here I am on my day off trying to get a bite to eat and make sense of all this. I'm feeling overwhelming pain and sadness. I'm questioning my husband and myself about the world we live in that creates such a problem. Out loud I wonder how we can protect kids and raise children who have no wish to ever do these things. How can this happen in a home like this where there was love, caring, and watching? I want badly to blame something or someone, but who? (sorry for the long vent-i really needed it today)

How is not telling them personal information about your marriage lying to them? It's not like someone is making up a fabrication of why they divorced. Do you really think that children should know everything that goes on in their parents marriage? I don't because I believe that to be more scarring. I experience that first hand. TOS: If your argument holds any water, then my husband should tell his children that the reason he divorced their mother is becuase she is a mean person, a liar, a thief, and who was abusive to her children, her husband, and her family. I don't think that they could possibly benefit from that information. As a matter of fact, I can guarantee that if my DH told his sons that information, they would be very upset, and it would affect their relationship with their mother in a very negative way. It's not our job to highlight their mother's shortcomings, but to foster a positive relationship with her. So rather than tell them what they probablly already know about their mother (kids are very smart), we foster a positive environment for them to grow their relationship with her. See, if you tell children things that are personal and private about your relationship with the other parent, you are opening up a can of worms called "he said, she said" and the only one's who get hurt, are the kids. They get put in the middle of a war of words. If my DH told his boys all their mother's transgressions, she would lose it, and potentially say untrue, mean things about their father in order to "defend" herself and he actions. And that wouldn't be good for anybody. I just don't see how that could possibly be in the best interest of the children. Trust me, there are times where my DH has been tempted to say something to the kids. I've gone so far as to discuss this with our family counselor, who said that by sharing that information with the kids will only burden them, and make them feel worse and unloved by their mother. I just don't buy that it could do any good.