Neighbor problem from hell, and dogs barking all the while...

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ve got a dog problem here in my very neighborhood. Neighbors to my left have a funny-eyed little foofball that barks when the wind blows, and they have a husky mix that they tie out from 6 a.m. until dark. Their theory is that the husky will somehow become a “guard dog” by them doing this. Yet I’ve never seen them pet the dog or pay it any attention, much less take it for a walk or let it exercise at all. Yes, they are idiots.

The neighbors on the other side of them have a similar runny-eyed foofball that yaps incessantly. They also have some kind of medium dog that doesn’t make much noise. They also have had extremely loud parties, equipped with a dj and amplifiers, the last two weekends that have gone into the early hours of the morning. I tried to be cool about it, but now I have lost my ability to let these things pass.

Both of these neighbors let their dogs out to do their business by opening the door, shooing the dog (s) out, and letting them roam around indefinitely until they decide to open the door and let them back in the house. Sometimes this takes 10 min., sometimes 45 min. Meanwhile, all of the dogs seem to wind up in my yard, yapping and making all kinds of noise.

Today I’d had enough. I work nights. My husband is ill. And we are sick and tired of putting up with this shit. I went over to speak to the neighbor two doors down and she pitched a fit, including threatening to “kick my ass” if I didn’t get off of her property. Then she said she was calling her mom about it…like I give a fuck.

I left for a meeting, but my husband was still here. Evidently, the mom parked in our driveway and proceeded to scream and yell at my husband over what she thinks happened. Then she threatened to have her husband come over here to talk to my husband. Really, who handles conflict like this? It’s obvious that her daughter exaggerated and added false details to the story.

All of this could be fixed by them just keeping their mutts in their own yard. There is no reason on earth why these dogs should be in my yard every day. I was advised by local police to call Animal Control when I see the dogs out again, but who knows if they’ll even make it on time the next time this happens. It’s incredibly frustrating and I don’t know what else to do.

2

Is anyone else in the neighborhood disturbed by the dogs/parties?

3

Call the police. I guarantee that this family is “known to police”

My motto is to never be “cool” about a party that goes on loudly past 12:00 midnight. I also tend to only talk to neighbors that have a reasonable chance of being sane. If I were you I would deal with these neighbors only through a third party (police, animal control, bylaw enforcement etc), and never confront them directly - that will get you nowhere.

4

Your neighbors are lousy neighbors, and lousy dog owners.

Is there a leash law where you live? If so, keep reporting the roaming dogs. If not, find out who’s in charge and talk to them about the problem, see what it takes to get an ordinance passed, and enforced.

We did this here a couple years ago. Lucky for us, the mayor is a retired fellow who has no fear. As soon as the ordinance was passed he started knocking on doors and threatening fines, or impoundment of the dogs. It took awhile, but now we have no loose dogs.

From the myriad threads here about loose dogs and cats, there are apparently several pet-deterring products that can be sprayed on yards.

5

It’s hard to say. This isn’t exactly a close-knit group of neighbors. And my husband and I are in the minority–not that it’s necessarily a racial thing, but it does make me hesitant to go knocking on doors to find out what others’ opinions are. I don’t want to make this problem worse than it already is.

The night they had the party with the DJ it sounded like a fucking amphitheater. People blocks away had to have heard it, not to mention the elderly people who live just across the street and down the road. My bedroom windows are about 50 feet from their backyard, so we couldn’t even go to bed that night until after things had quieted down (after 2 a.m.).

6

I did call the police on the night of the loud party—twice. The first time, a cop pulled up in front of the house, flashed his lights, talked to some passersby, and drove off without even getting out of his car. This makes me think they might have connections with local law enforcement.

I don’t know. I just wish I didn’t have to think about all of this.

7

Call the cops. We called the cops on our idiot neighbor who was shooting his new gun into a shed on his property. I don’t give a fuck that we live in the woods. They don’t know who’s walking around out there. Fucking morons. Some people need to be taught a tough lesson.

8

Do you own or rent?

I hope it is the latter, and your lease is up soon.

The only 2 real options are to talk to the folk, and call the cops. And you see what good results both of those have gotten you.

Lousy neighbors really suck - you have my sympathy.

9

I own. And I’ve lived here for three years with no problems. If they would just keep their animals out of my yard, I could live with the occasional loud party. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to have yapping as the background noise of my life.

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Why can’t people just be reasonable?

10

The reaction of Indygrrl’s neighbors is an answer to the question someone always raises in “obnoxious neighbor” threads: “Why don’t you just go over and ask them to keep it down?”

Because people who are clueless noisy idiots stand a very good chance of also being psychotic borderline personality disorder shitheads, that’s why.

11

Yeah - that would be nice, wouldn’t it?
The type of thing you describe is the reason I’m seriously thinking about moving somewhere out in the (relative) sticks where I’ll be able to put more space between me and my neighbors.

12

This is very true.

And it sucks that the police did not help you out…

13

My husband and I were talking about it tonight and I said that if a neighbor came over and said that my cat got out and made a nuisance of himself on their property, I would be mortified. I’d be apologizing all over myself, trying to keep the peace. And I’d be hyper-vigilant about letting him slip out the door as I’m coming and going, which I try to do anyway.

While I’ve got an open Pit thread regarding neighborhood annoyances, I also have a real problem with door-to-door salespeople. We get at least five a week, and that’s just when I’m home. Despite a No Soliciting sign prominently placed on the front door, they still knock. And then they get indignant when I throw them off of my property.

Today I went and got three Private Property–No Trespassing signs that I lined up along our long driveway. There’s no way these could be misunderstood. I hate to have to be like this, but I work nights, my husband is ill, and most of the time I’m home alone. There’s nothing like being woke up to someone pounding on your door, only to look out and see a couple of men standing there. It’s kinda scary, and in this area I’m not about to open my door to strangers.

I’m tempted to make up some flyers and distribute them throughout the neighborhood. If we could get a general consensus that we don’t want salespeople in the neighborhood, maybe we could get law enforcement to help us out. Actually, all of this might be just the push I need to try to get a neighborhood association put together. It’d be better than nothing.

14

I feel your pain. We had great neighbors until the folks in back of us sold to a rent-a-cop and his girlfriend. They moved in with four large dogs that daily jumped the fence and terrorized my neighbors kids (she wouldn’t even let the kids out anymore) and barked their fool heads off at me as I picked strawberries. I couldn’t even enjoy my backyard anymore.

We went thru a process:

  1. My husband went over and politely asked that they keep their dogs in their yard. They said the dogs never went into our yard. I subsequently took videos of their dogs in my yard growling and barking at me as I took refuge inside. They threatened to sue me for taking videos of their dogs in my yard without their consent, hahahahaha. Rent a cop husband came over when my hubby was at work and threatened me. NOTHING CHANGED with the dogs.

  2. We called the police, they came out, didn’t see anything and nothing changed. Except the evil dog neighbors installed spot-lights focused on my bedroom and blasted music til midnight every night.

  3. Called the cops again and again and they finally saw the dogs barking like mad, frothing at the mouth in my yard. They also saw the evil neighbors grabbing the dogs, dragging them back inside and then lying that they weren’t ever outside, hahaha. Major fine for neighbors ensued. Dogs got electric bark and barrier collars.

  4. We moved. Best decision I ever made. You can’t fix bad neighbors.

15

My mother in law was being bothered by a door to door salesman who was trying to sell her a new roof. She sent him away a couple times in a short period of time. She finally called us, and we called the cops. They went to the address on the literature they left and wrote them four tickets. Many communities have rules about licensing prior to soliciting. You might want to check it out.

16

In an unfortunate follow-up to yesterday’s events, this morning I encountered the woman of the house. She was walking the runny-eyed yapper, and I was on my way to class. As I passed her, she raised her hand in the air and flipped me off and then turned to make sure I saw her in the rearview mirror.

I’m not proud of this, but my anger got the best of me and I threw the car into reverse and backed up to her. I said, “Did you flip me off?” with an incredulous tone. She started going on about how I threatened her “child,” which I did not. And btw, the daughter is certainly no child. She’s 18 if she’s a day. I started to defend myself, trying to tell her that I don’t use violence to solve my problems, but by that point she was yelling and cursing at me. Among other things, she told me I have messed with the wrong people, and that I need to move to the country if I don’t want to hear barking dogs.

After about 60 seconds, I realized I wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise, and even if I did, this bitch wouldn’t hear it. But after she said, “I bet you won’t come knocking on my door again,” I said, “Yeah, now that I know a bunch of psychos live there you’re probably right.”:stuck_out_tongue:

Again, I know that backing up to talk to her was stupid. I should have just ignored her completely, which is what I will do from now on.

After this incident I called my husband to alert him in case anything else happened. Then I guess she was outside talking loudly to her husband, who was puffed up and staring my husband down. And just about two minutes ago, as my husband was leaving the house with his two kids, the man came out into the street and stood there glaring menacingly at my husband as he drove by. I took two steps outside to close my garage door and they were both out there talking loudly and looking in this direction.

I just can’t believe this situation. I never would have imagined that asking a neighbor to keep their dogs out of my yard would turn into this. We feel threatened by their behavior, my husband more than I, but both of us agree that these folks are psycho and might be the type to do something to “retaliate.” I don’t know what to do.

Do I wait for them to do something? Or should I make a report about what has already gone on? I don’t even feel like I can go out and mow my grass because of this. My husband thinks we should get a restraining order, but I guess I don’t want to believe that is necessary. I honestly don’t know what to do.

17

Sometimes people make me want to move out into the mountains and become a hermit. Yesterday morning I woke up to the sounds of a woman screaming that she was being raped and crying somewhere above us (we are in a basement apartment so everything that happens happens above us) so we called the police. They came and searched for the rapist or his victim and in the search accidentally broke a figurine of the woman who lives in the apartment above me. She left her window open so they went in to check and make sure the sounds weren’t coming from her apartment and knocked it over. She screamed at my boyfriend and I for about 20 minutes when we came home from work and then called the police on me for calling the police in the morning. :smack:

They basically said that while they were sorry they broke something she cannot file a report on someone for calling the police because they can hear someone being raped. Now I don’t know if she will ever talk to us again or if she will go out of her way to make our lives difficult. I love living in a big city but I wish people weren’t such jerks sometimes.

18

Don’t plan on being seen going on vacation any time soon.

19

I’d also like to add that at no point in any of this have me or my husband resorted to name-calling or cursing beyond a couple of references to the “fucking dogs.” That’s as close to the high road as I’m gonna get. haha.

20

If the dogs come in your yard off leash, can you call the animal patrol/dog catcher, or whatever department handles that in your city?