Do you see the contradiction here? Not only did you mention it, you threatened him.
I do not think you have a clear understanding of how this relationship has gone down hill. I do not think this is a case of the other guy just going nuts for no reason.
Maybe before you consider anything else you should have your property surveyed to find out EXACTLY where the lines are and move on from there.
I don’t think you need a restraining order, per se.
As your yard is private property, you have the right to exclude anyone you want. If you were to send him a letter asking him and his wife from setting foot on your property (and generously offering to do the same for them), then you have proof that they knew they were not welcome.
I am told that, at least in my community, if they know that you don’t want them on your property, just setting foot in your yard is criminal trespassing. So you don’t have to go through the whole “I asked him to leave and he wouldn’t” dance in front of the police officer (which usually ends with the officer saying “When I asked him to leave, he did. Problem solved”. Snap a quick photo of the guy in your yard, show the officer the photo and the letter, and your neighbor is leaving in handcuffs.
This WILL escalate things if you use it, but it might be handy to have in your pocket even if you never plan to use it. Just send the letter (registered mail, to prove he got it), and if at some future date things come unraveled and he come into your yard to murder your shrubs or threaten your wife, you can help the responding officer figure out what to do by pointing out that him just being in your yard was a crime, since he had been notified in writing that he wasn’t welcome.
My experience with this is generally in retail stores, where there are people we have “banned” by telling them they aren’t welcome, and then there are the people who we have “banned” by telling them they aren’t welcome in the presence of a police officer, who made note of witnessing it. So that if the person so much as enters our parking lot, even as a passenger who remains in the car, their arrest is automatic since an officer could attest he knew that they had been notified.
Where I grew up, we had a longstanding tradition of vengeance against unreasonable neighbors. Try to work things out face-to-face, try to be reasonable, but if the other guy is being a jerk, even if he is entirely within his rights, go nuclear. Not sure its a good way to live, but it does make for fun stories.
How is that a threat? I didn’t threaten him. Not even close. I pointed out that if we are going to go by the letter of the rules in our neighborhood, that he isn’t clean, either. There was no threat. I pointed out the law. How different is that from telling me that he could cut the plants back? None. Except, one of us acted on it, the other didn’t.
If you were my neighbor, you are telling me that you would take that as a threat? So, instead of me pointing out that nitpicking things to the letter of the law can be a bad thing for both of us, (because perhaps he didn’t think about how he has a lot to lose by having the light shined on some of his decisions), or more likely, he did it thinking I wouldn’t either know the law or wouldn’t do anything about it), I should have behaved like him and just had the township issue him a fine and give him 30 days to move the fence back to where the law requires? Interesting.
I am not the one who doesn’t have a clear understanding of how the relationship went down hill, and for you to suggest that is just silly. You don’t have a clue. That’s not exactly your fault, because I haven’t gone bullet by bullet through everything that’s gone on. For me to explain everything would be more than anyone would read and much more than I want to type.
Funny you should mention this.
I did.
And. I did this before planting these arbs, because I didn’t want to plant them on his property line or over. I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything wrong.
And this specific action is what I was told set his wife on the warpath, because for some reason, she interpreted this as me trying to do… Actually, I have never understood why this pissed her off, and the husband didn’t explain it at all. He just told me last year, that when she saw the markings and lines up from the surveyor (6 YEARS AGO as of last summer, by the way), she was upset. I asked him why, he said he didn’t know but what was he supposed to do, he lives with her, and I let it drop at that.
What am I supposed to do, call his wife a nutbag to his face? Or better yet, call him a liar because he could have made that whole story up because it makes no sense? I have talked to a number of my friends about this situation, and none of them could come up with a rational reason that someone would be upset that they were having their lot surveyed… And not to ask them to move anything, but to make sure what I was doing was ok.
Oh ferchrissakes. Eat the damn tomatoes, apologize to the guy for getting all crazyface at him, let him know that in the future if he’d like you to cut the trees back you’ll do it with a smile, and find a hobby. He’s definitely not coming across as the unhinged neighbor. I seriously can’t believe anyone would hold a 10-year grudge over stray tomato plants.
This must be terribly frustrating for you. Really. It sounds really, really shitty, and they sound like assholes. But I think you should drop it. I don’t see how anything you do from here makes the situation better, other than perhaps drafting a letter of apology/truce, and avoiding the couple as much as possible. Of course, this would be massively unfair to you, but if the end goal is to have a peaceful home, that is probably your best bet. Don’t cut their tree. Don’t make them move their fence. Do you want to live in a war zone? Hope their craziness leads to divorce and the eventual sale of their house, and that you can then be rid of the both of them. But don’t escalate. It won’t make your life better.
What if they move out and someone even worse moves in? Shit!
You are sorely lacking in communications skills. You have told someone that you can force them to do something, whenever you want, with a phone call to the authorities. Imagine you had witnessed him committing a crime, and you mention in passing that you saw him do it, and just maybe you’ll call the cops about it, unless… well, who knows, maybe when a whim hits you, or maybe when he does something else that annoys you.
If he was a murderer, he would kill you, because you have unambiguously threatened him.
You might argue that making such a threat was entirely justified, and perhaps it was, but not even recognizing it as such means you better stop talking to this guy all together. If he’s as unstable as you think he is, then you are undoubtedly going to say something that will set him off, and you won’t see it coming.
What kind of fence is in the wrong place? And what kinds of fencing does your township allow between houses? Can you put up an 8’ privacy fence?
You got a joint survey of the property line done without telling them?
The property was all marked up?
Yep - I’d be annoyed if that happened. Of course, I’m pretty mild mannered and wouldn’t bear a grudge …
huh? The whole purpose of a hiring a professional surveyor is to mark your own property boundary on the ground, where everybody can see it. It doesn’t have to a joint survey, and you don’t have to tell anybody else or ask anybody’s permission.
The OP did so, and it is 100% legal–and also just plain good sense…
And now that he’s got the line marked, the logical thing to do is put up a privacy fence and never see the neighbor again.
But it sounds like the OP wants a good fight, instead. 
It has not been fun. But, it will probably go away one way or the other. Unfortunately, there will be no divorce, and they will not be moving any time soon. They are dug in like ticks, and he doesn’t work so he won’t be leaving her. And she is very unattractive, so she won’t be leaving him.
We could move. That would certainly be a permanent solution.
I don’t understand you, so one of us is lacking in communication skills. I would suggest it is you. I don’t know you, but you come off as illogically to me as he does.
All i did was point out to him that his fence was installed improperly. I don’t think explaining to him that the township could move his fence is exactly threatening him. I also don’t claim I can do anything, the township will or won’t have him move his fence. There is no threat there.
Again, unless you consider what he said to me (your trees are growing over my yard, I will cut them) is also a threat. I didn’t take it as a threat even when he told me it the first time. I figured he could cut the trees back. I just wished he wouldn’t do it. If I told someone he threatened me, they would look at me like I am looking at your post. Like I was nuts.
You sound a lot like him, in fact.
Is about as far as I am going with you. WTF are you talking about? I didn’t threaten to beat the shit out of him or punch his wife. If someone from the township saw the fence, they would force him to move it. Even more to the point, if I decide to move, I will HAVE to get the lot surveyed again, and his fence will come to light. At that moment, the fence issue would have to be resolved per the township, not me.
And your example of me seeing him committing a crime and suggesting I would call the authorities if I saw him do something else… What? You think you are communicating well here? I suspect I know where you live. Or at least a very close relative.
It’s just a metal fence, between 3 and 4 feet high, and it has vertical posts between two horizontal metal bars. I am looking into putting a privacy fence right next to his. That would solve a couple of problems, but who knows what else that would trigger?
Two things. Marked up isn’t exactly what I’d call it. There is a common border. The land between the two properties is flat. One stake was put by the road, one stake was put at the other end, and a string was run between the two.
No marks were made on his property, and. I didn’t leave the stakes up. I noticed that the developer or township painted the curb between our yards at the front of the property at the dividing line, and I used the string as a guide for the planting of the trees.
If that is enough to get someone in a twist about, and hold that grudge for 6 years, Ok. But I don’t see what was wrong with it. If someone was going to plant border trees with me on a common border I would have appreciated the effort (and the cost) incurred. And if he was a nice, normal person, I doubt very much if I would have cared what he was planting, as long as it wasn’t invasive or obscene.
Just for reference, why would I have to tell them? If I was selling my house, I wouldn’t tell them. I have a right to know where my property boundaries are.
Oh, and I don’t know why I am addressing you, but Left Hand of Dorkness, there is no grudge over the tomato seeds, for christ’s sake. I only used that story as an example of how the guy is. I could list a dozen things, and god only knows why I chose that one… I guess it was because he brought that up during our talk last summer, and it was the closest one to my memory. And you would have to be in my shoes to appreciate the guy and the story. But no, I am not holding a grudge over that. Or anything else for that matter. I don’t have the energy for a grudge. I don’t care enough about him or his wife to give them daily thought.
But how about a better story? His dogs used my backyard to crap and piss in for years before my house was built. After the house was built he continued to let his dogs out and he’d guide them over to my yard. I asked him politely if he would stop having his dogs use my yard as their toilet, and he got pissed at me. He told me that his dogs were using my yard for the 3 years his house was there before mine, and that’s what they were used to. I told him that although I was glad the dogs didn’t have to use his yard while the lot next to him was unsold, now that it was owned by someone and they were going to use it as their yard, that I would appreciate not having his dogs visit me. This went on for the entire first summer I lived here and part of the second. Now what would you call a neighbor like that? If that was your neighbor, would you think it was just some harmless issue? Or would you be pissed?
This continued trough the winter and into the spring. I didn’t call the cops, or anything like that. I spoke to him again. When he refused to change his dogs habits, I just started depositing the dog shit into his yard. I’m sure that people like you and Boyo Jim would say that I am the problem and I’m the dick neighbor… But if that’s the case, fine. I just thank god that you don’t live on the other side of me.
Oh, and after the dog crap found its way into his yard, he finally stopped letting his dogs into mine. Problem solved, but I’m sure that didn’t sit well with him either.
There has just been a resentment since we moved in, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that he cannot use my yard as his personal dumping ground any longer. Apparently, my lot was the place where neighbors would bring their leaves, or sticks, or whatever and dump it. When I first walked the property, there were tires, beer cans and bottles and all sorts of debris in the yard. My neighbor behind me is a very nice guy and he told me a number of stories about how people used my yard. It was mostly trees, and overgrown, so people couldn’t see much of what was on the ground unless they went looking for it.
My neighbor was apparently one of the biggest users of my lot. And the seed story was just one of the things he told me he tossed into the yard. And the tossing was AFTER I moved in, according to him.
Am I supposed to punch the guy out? Call the cops? What kind of proof did I have or need? I guess I could stand watch 24/7 to make sure his dogs didn’t shit in my yard, camera in hand, but why should I have to do that? Why isn’t it just common decency to keep your dogs out of a neighbors yard? Before it was my yard, I didn’t care what dog shit in it. But after? Yeah, i cared.
That’s the last story I share, because as I said earlier in the thread, this wasn’t supposed to be a gripe thread about my dickhead of a neighbor. I could have opened a pit thread about that. That’s why I put it in GQ and not IMHO. But now that it is here, I guess I can’t stop you from having opinions, misguided as they might be.
So apparently you’ve chosen “be pissed off and keep poking at this” instead of “stop interacting with him”.
On a side note, if you have extra tomatoes you don’t want I’ll take them off your hands.
mmm
Guy walks into a bar holding a handful of dogshit. “Hey everybody!” he shouts. “Look what I almost stepped in!”
When you’re picking up dogshit and moving it from yard to yard, you STILL aren’t coming across as the sane neighbor in this exchange.
What Boyo Jim was saying was perfectly clear to me. How many other folks will it need to be perfectly clear to before you concede that maybe you’re the one with the communication problem?
Nice joke, but it’s not quite relevant. I’m gonna side with the OP on this point.
The OP didn’t go into a bar–he went into his own backyard, his own property–and has to deal with the neighbor’s dog shit. So, naturally, he wants to clean it up. He uses a shovel or a broom, sweeps it into a dustpan or a bag,-and then what?
What would you do?
You have to dump the shit somewhere–you can either carry it into your own house and put it in your trash can, or you can dump it back where it belongs–on the neighbor’s property. Seems legit to me, in this case.
This is easy to say when you are sitting there without dealing with this. But what is sane? Just letting his dog shit in my yard?
So tell me, oh wise one. Since you are so able to communicate so well, what would you have done?
I really want to hear what you would have done with a neighbor who won’t keep his dogs from crapping in your yard. I spoke to him twice. What were my choices? Keep picking it up for the rest of the time I live here, and say "gee… People like LHofD and Boyo Jim think I have a communications problem.
After you tell me how you would deal with this situation, I will tell how it wouldn’t work. My choice was either to do something about it, or pick up his dog shit forever. I picked it ip for a few weeks and tossed it into his yard. That solved the problem. I haven’t had to pick up his dog shit ever since.
They’re yours!
I’ve never had to deal with this, but I have had to deal with a neighbor who parks in a really annoying place that makes it very hard to get out of our driveway. Frankly, I figure that the stress of getting out of our driveway in a weird way is better than the stress of having a hostile relationship with a neighbor.
In your case, straight up, I’d probably just deal with it. If it was a really big deal to me, though, I’d talk to the neighbor a ton of times in a forced-cheerful manner, and then I’d take a picture or two and turn it over to animal control. Throwing poop isn’t something I go in for.
I’d suggest that you see the problem as solved only because you’re taking a very narrow view of what the problem is. I don’t think your neighbor comes out of all of this smelling like roses, but I do think that both of you are responding to conflict through passive-aggressive escalation, and that’s why you’re in the fix you’re in today.