Neighbors are what they are, and if you're really lucky, you have good ones, and they think the same of you.
We have been singularly blessed with ours for the most part. For instance, they've all put up with our taking care of the ferals around the neighborhood - in fact, many of them help us out.
Can't beat that with a stick.
And when we were all a couple of decades younger, we'd go to war over the silliest things, and just crack ourselves up trying to out-stupid the other. For example, the Flamingo Wars of the early 2000s.
I would perch a couple of those hideous plastic pink lawn flamingos on top of the fence, facing one of our neighbors, with a big signs around their necks. The little Pepto Bismol-hued messengers would be wishing him some sort of happy day or other syrupy, Hallmark sentiment.
Nothing ever rude - gaggingly cloying, if truth be told.
Then they started disappearing. Oh, well - at six bucks a pair, I figured just wouldn't put them on the fence anymore.
The first ransom note was taped to our door a couple of mornings later.
We weren't to alert authorities or the press, and had to deliver three cases of Natural Lite (in cans) to an undisclosed location... or the undercover Fed flamingoes would pay.
It escalated from there as we don't pay ransoms.
Some of the flamingos escaped, but others, sadly, were never found. After mutual midnight spray-paint tagging attacks on each other's 3/4-inch plywood hurricane shutters (this was post-Rita/Katrina in 2005), our neighbor woke up to a sign on his garage exposing his cruelty for the whole world to see.
Well, everyone in the neighborhood who had to go to work and was wondering how it was turning out, that is.
He was going to get the beer anyway, the big baby. We always laid it in to keep his generator going after big storms (And here you thought generators ran on fuel...).
The ongoing conflict was canceled when the Great Lawn Flamingo Extinction Event hit (Another sad day in American history.).
At least we got to share it with the best folks, unlike what happened recently in a Los Angeles County neighborhood.
Just yesterday, I read where a citizen's complaint about neighbors in the city of Walnut led to the most amazing bust.
It took a couple of months of police work, but the cops, to their credit, were on it from the start. The details are horrific, and the numbers are staggering.
A brothel discovered in a house in Walnut led to an extended investigation, the rescue of various victims and the arrest of numerous human trafficking suspects, authorities announced Tuesday.
...Operation Reclaim and Rebuild, a weeklong statewide crackdown on human trafficking, resulted in hundreds of suspects being arrested and adult and juvenile female victims being rescued, including one who is just 13 years old, officials said. The arrests and rescues were made by the L.A. Regional Human Trafficking task force, which also seized a number of firearms.
Luna said more than 600 arrests had been made and more than 150 adults and 14 children were rescued statewide. In Los Angeles County, 12 adults and five children were rescued.
The Walnut brothel house was the subject of a citizen complaint, Luna said.
One single call from a neighbor led to an operation that saved all these children and trafficked women.
...A single tip about a quiet suburban home in California exploded into a massive human trafficking takedown that rescued nearly 20 children, uncovered residential brothels and netted more than 600 arrests
...Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the entire investigation began with a single citizen complaint about a suspicious home in Walnut. That tip led to months of surveillance and the discovery of multiple trafficking locations in nearby suburban neighborhoods.
Among the 611 total arrests were suspected traffickers and hundreds of sex buyers, though authorities have not yet said how many will face felony human trafficking charges versus lesser solicitation offenses.
...Officials said some of the victims rescued came from as far away as Illinois, Oklahoma and Missouri, underscoring the scope of the human trafficking ring.
"We have traffickers that are putting barely teenage girls on the streets of Los Angeles to be victimized, repeatedly, over and over again," said LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton. "These children did not come from one place. They came from Chicago, from Oklahoma, from Missouri, tribal lands... and from communities right here in the state of California."
What a miracle.
JUST IN: Los Angeles Law Enforcement officials announced the results of their week-long sex trafficking crackdown titled “Operation Reclaim and Rebuild.”
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 4, 2026
-156 adults rescued
-14 children rescued
-71 suspected traffickers arrested
-328 sex buyers arrested
-16 non-human… pic.twitter.com/TBLEn6vKMg
Judging by some of the stills from the San Gabriel News, I have a sneaking suspicion there will be some sort of illegal alien angle to this.
A residential home in Walnut Califronia was discovered to be operating as a br*thel triggering a major law enforcement investigation into a wider human trvfficking network spanning multiple cities across California.
— Mike Netter (@nettermike) February 4, 2026
According to authorities, the investigation began after a… pic.twitter.com/lJfvReEOaQ
Maybe it's the cynic in me.
That lone call about neighbors in the San Gabriel Valley was all it took to free those dozens and dozens of trapped women and children.
...Authorities urged residents to report suspicious activity, emphasizing that the investigation was launched because one person spoke up.
That a single house could lead to so many arrests gives you some idea of the scale of the trafficking nightmare and what law enforcement is up against trying to combat it.
Good Lord. It has to feel overwhelming and nearly hopeless until days like this come along.
Like I said, we have always been extraordinarily blessed with our neighbors.
It sounds to me as if all these sexual prisoners were finally blessed with a really good neighbor, too.
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