After 37 Years, 'Neighbors From Hell' May Finally Face Eviction

We've seen plenty of cases of homeowners displaying brazen disregard for their neighbors.

There was a resident who tried to sabotage the sale of a home next door by trumpeting all the reasons why he'd be an awful neighbor, for example, as well as a man in Australia who erected an outdoor sculpture of a hand with an upraised middle finger to remind his neighbors of his feelings toward them.

But a group of people sharing a house (pictured above) in Berkeley, Calif., who have exasperated and intimidated their neighbors with nuisance and even criminal behavior for nearly 40 years, may rank as the worst neighbors ever. But maybe not for much longer.

"For 37 years, we've lived next to the neighbors from hell," Beebo Turman told the Contra Costa Times. "We want to live next door to a civilized family. Please do something about this."

Fifteen people with criminal histories list the home as their residence and have produced over 40 "criminally related reports" in the last 18 months, continuing a trend of illicit and disorderly behavior that has endured for decades, the Contra Costa Times says. What's perhaps most alarming, six of the residents reportedly have ties to the notorious Nuestra Familia prison gang.

The newspaper reports that since 2009 authorities have visited the home five times in response to reports of fighting, three times to reports of fireworks, and seven times to reports of screaming and yelling. The house has also been the source of three gun- and drug-related arrests since 2009.

The property's owners, Roberto and Ramona Alcala, have been told to tear down several unpermitted additions to the home or bring them up to building code.

Several of their neighbors finally mustered the courage to testify against them recently. That's spurred the Berkeley City Council to take measures that could evict the group from the home and close the house for a year. On May 29, the council is set to formalize a resolution that declares the house a nuisance and lists 11 conditions that must be met for the owners to avoid having to vacate the property.