In other writings on this blog, I have compared the tactics of mobbing—for hate, for real estate or both—to McCarthyism. I have not yet described the visit of the Albany Police officer who showed up at the door and, with no legal documents whatsoever, told me that the owners of the house to the south claim ownership of a strip of land that runs along the south boundary of the property at the Albany house. The officer told me, essentially, that they wanted to build a wall and a fence that reflects that. I was stunned and told the officer that there were no legal documents or orders that settled any claim these people might have.
The officer told the people to the south that he could not stick around. This made it clear that they expected the officer’s visit to clear the path for their immediate destruction or removal of the components of a sprinkler system, plants, a tree, and two areas of fencing that have stood for decades.
So I told the people to the south that if they believed they had a claim, they should do what people do and assert it in civil court. A twenty- or thirty-something man who, I’ve been given to believe, is one of the home owners, flatly stated that they didn’t want a lawsuit.
Upon hearing power tools today, I looked out the window. Two workers had removed the planks of a portion of the fence built decades back to enter the enclosed side yard of this house. They’d strung a piece of twine to mark the area they would take and were preparing to sink fence posts. I grabbed my phone and went outside.
Over the course of the afternoon, as I photographed what they were doing, they erected their own fence where they claim they are entitled to put it. In the process, they damaged plants, destroyed the sprinkler system (sinking some of it in concrete from what I could see) and fenced a mature tree planted decades back onto their side of their fence after lopping off a limb that would have crossed it.
In response, perhaps, to my statement to the Albany Police officers who showed up, said they couldn’t tell who owned what and refused to do anything, the apparent male owner said my name wasn’t on any records and that I had no interest in this, my childhood home. If that’s the case, then perhaps they shouldn’t harass those of us whose names are not listed in the property records of those houses in which we live. At any rate, this seems to be the attitude of real estate speculators who prey on rental houses: “Why should you care if I dig into the foundation—you’re just a renter!”
Why should we care? Because these are our homes. Because we have an interest in supporting our landlords’ interests. Because we have an interest in available housing. Because we care about our civil rights. Because it is abhorrent to prey on your neighbor, on the elderly, and on those who live alone or are otherwise vulnerable.
The Albany police officer who showed up last week as through to consent to the neighbors’ tearing down the existing fence to put up one they liked better regardless of the lack of any properly filed legal claim, said he was here on a “civil” matter. His willingness to come to our door and assert the neighbors’ claim emboldened the neighbors. Oddly, the officers who came today refused to discourage the neighbors even when they repeatedly announced their intention to chop down a tree and remove the front fence as well as the interior segment. Like the first officer, these two also said it was a civil matter. Except the first officer didn’t tell the neighbors they should file a civil suit instead of claiming the land and destroying plants and possessions. Instead, the second officers told me that they would not interfere and that I would have to file a civil suit after the fact.
It was the claimed contractor relative of the new owners to the south who tried to intimidate me with accusations that I had said something racist. Didn’t you hear that, he asked one of the others. The other quickly agreed, and they exchanged a sly smile. This is sadly typical of the kind of tactics these people use to try to intimidate their victims. If intimations that you’re dangerous to children don’t do the job, perhaps lies painting you as a racist will. This is the same kind of thing the Albany block coordinator did when she involved herself in making false reports that I might have harmed my elderly relative when the block coordinator was engaged and continues to play a pivotal role in a harmful tech-enabled scam, or the Seattle block captain who made harassing false reports to police that a couple renting a single-family home she apparently wanted to turn over were coke dealers. Making false accusations that someone is racist to shut them up while you leave threatening letters in their mailbox and breach their fence is particularly sad because it makes it harder for those who are truly the targets of racism to be heard. Frankly, the racism they used to try to intimidate me is a sentiment more characteristic of those involved in mobbing than someone like me. And coming from a new neighbor in the city of my childhood, it’s ironic since I was always proud to be from an intellectual and cultural center people came to from all over the world like Berkeley, somewhere as diverse and broad as the San Francisco Bay Area. The entirety of this blog is focused on human rights and civil rights. In this case, these new “neighbors” were trying to bully and intimidate me out of documenting their aggression as they continued on their drive to develop their lot.
Tonight they appeared to be putting some new IoT outside in the area of the yard they took; they at least momentarily retreated away from the fence toward their exterior generator or air-conditioner, turning off blinding lights when I paused at a window to watch them set up what the contractor or worker had said, as an apparent warning to me, would be a camera. Video cameras are strongly associated with interference. Any camera they add will probably be motion-activated, packed with IoT features like speakers, and will allow for the extension of stronger WiFi signal into this house and anywhere I walk in the side yard. They’ve already posted motion-controlled or otherwise sensing lights, which might include cameras of some kind, front and back. I saw the planks they removed from the fence to gain entry to the side yard thrown into their driveway with other debris.
What happened today was encouraged by the willingness of the Albany Police to make that recent visit. The City did nothing when I complained about that visit. No one from the city responded to my email about the ramifications of what the officer did. No one said anything to discourage what happened today. And the radio-based harassment into the house and with sabotage of utility continues. If my elderly relative had been here alone instead of me, there probably wouldn’t even be the documentation I got only because I braved a highly unpleasant situation that could easily have been dangerous. But then, when you’re living in the condition of being mobbed, the situation is inherently dangerous. Given the events of today, it’s clear that in Albany, when the block coordinator and the mobbing scam don’t clear a property, real estate speculators will try to take it anyway. One wonders how this affects any kickback or “payment” that might be received by other participants in the mobbing, including those in the lowlife house to the north or the residence of the block coordinator across the street, a woman who appears to be more involved with creating disaster than remediating it.
Though today’s incursion was done under the ruse of taking a strip of land at the border, based on all the times I’ve heard in the harassment the words “Move on!”, it’s clear that turning the property over is the desired goal. Last month, I think it was, I went to open a front shade on a weekend morning and heard a man say (in another likely case of open microphone that might also be an example of how an exploit that leverages a kind of backscatter might work), “We don’t think we’re going to get her out.” There were two men standing across the street close to two older-model sedans, one of them with Nevada plates that I’d seen driving around the neighborhood. They saw me as I pulled up the shade and left pretty immediately, but not before I got photos of at least one of the license plates. I wrote this up for a blog entry that I haven’t. yet published but feel it’s important to properly contextualize what is happening here, which is a wholesale attempt to force the turnover of property.
I expect there are readers who find my descriptions familiar and who might realize from my writings, that they have been or are being harassed in similar ways. As activists say, “the truth will out.” There are people out there who understand the technical underpinnings of mobbing. All it takes is enough victims to come forward to expose it and prosecute it. The price of ignoring reports like mine as isolated will be greater difficulty apprehending the same people as they victimize greater numbers of people who might be less prepared than I’ve been to try to document and report on its technical underpinnings and may be greatly harmed without understanding how it occurred. Medical devices are a case in point. And regardless of whether the technical nature of what I report is ignored, the fact of the matter is that city-appointed representatives seem to be making deals with speculators for the acquisition of neighboring properties. That completely undermines the civil rights of residents in any city where this occurs. I’ve got lots of Airtool data and Wireshark data I would be more than happy to share with investigators who have an interest in showing the kinds of criminals who mob that wireless is not invisible.
You can find the online complaint form of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Real Estate Fraud Unit at https://www.alcoda.org/cewpd/files/real_Estate_Fraud_Complaint_Form.pdf.
