Welcome to one of XR_7's rants.
I'm pretty sure I've said before, but the neighbors might just be some of the worst people we'll (my family) ever know. I'm here to give a story and find opinions on what everyone thinks, cause we're having major problems with them now.
It all started in 2012. The previous neighbors who had been living there since we moved to our house in 2009 moved out. A new family moved in. I'll share first names, Rob and Carol, a couple who moved from about 70 miles away. They also brought their dog zoo with them (at max, they had at least five dogs at one time). We went over and introduced ourselves and they seemed like nice people, with Rob being a firefighter. We had four dogs; they had four dogs; we talked about dogs. Carol said something like, "Oh we don't mind if your dogs run over here. We love dogs!" My mom wasn't going to let that intentionally happen of course, but we knew we had some insurance just in case of an accident.
The neighbors apparently twisted that phrase to, "Any of us can let our dogs run loose on each other's properties." Within a couple of weeks, their two Dalmatians, Shi Tzu (or maybe a mix with that), and an old cancerous chocolate Lab were running loose across our property. I'd see them going into the woods up and down our trails, across the front yard, leaving messes in the grass, getting into our garbage, etc. My dad went over and asked them to please leave our stuff alone. They just acted happy-go-lucky and were like, "Haha oh sorry!"
Then the big problems started. My dad and Rob were out mowing on their big Cub Cadet mowers (Rob bought his after liking my dad's) and my mom was letting the chickens out to walk around. Carol was letting her dogs run around in her yard. Out of nowhere, according to my mom as I wasn't outside, one of the Dalmatians took off after one of the chickens and grabbed onto its tail. A struggle ensued and the chicken got away. My mom yelled for me to come outside. I go out and there are feathers covering the entire area around the chicken coop. The chicken that was attacked scrambled underneath the chicken coop so I pulled her out and closed her up. The next day, I was out giving the chickens a new vat full of water and Carol screamed across the space between our houses, "IS YOUR CHICKEN OKAY?!" Thankfully, she was.
After that incident, things began to get more and more awkward. They seemed to form an alliance with the annoying neighbors across the street with aggressive dogs (a pit bull and a rottweiler). I kept seeing them conversing by the road occasionally gesturing towards our house, but I never understood what they were saying.
In September 2012, we were down to one chicken, Lacey. My favorite one, Xantia, was paralyzed for an unknown reason and my dad had to shoot her. The other two were killed in the major 2012 heat wave. I was doing schoolwork on the computer and my brother ran in. He said that the pit bull from across the street got Lacey. I loaded my airsoft gun with heavy .25s and went out the back door. I saw the pit bull inside the fence ripping apart the already obviously dead Lacey. I shot the dog once and it looked up at me. I shot it again and it started backing away. I gave it two more hits and it freaked out screeching and yelping. Someone from across the street came over and got the dog and offered to pay back for the chicken. We decided that we can't have chickens without them being eaten by the neighbor dogs, so we just told them to screw it.
The worst event happened in April 2013. I was out with my grandpa and brother and we got a call from my grandma. My parents were out on a date and my grandma was babysitting my sisters. My grandma was absolutely hysterical. I was sitting next to my grandpa at Arby's and I heard him say stuff like, "What?!" and "How did it happen?!" After he hung up, he turned to us and said, "Ramsey (one of my dogs) has been in an accident. He needs a couple stitches." I really wasn't that worried about it. It wasn't until I was at the vet the next day that I saw the extent of the damage.
Apparently, my grandma had put Ramsey on a leash while my sisters were playing outside. She opened the fence gate to lead him out and one of my other dogs pushed past her legs and ran loose. While my grandma lunged to stop her, Ramsey pulled out of her grasp. He went dashing towards the neighbor's house barking. Instantly, the two Dalmatians, a yellow Lab, and a Great Dane pounced on him and started tearing him apart. The neighbors started trying to break up the fight and offered to drive Ramsey to the vet. I'm not sure if they did or not, but he ended up at Webster Groves Animal Hospital (the big emergency vet of St Louis, which is about 35-40 miles from my house). The dogs obviously were going for his neck but ended up ripping into his shoulders and down to the organs. He went into shock and was practically crippled for a month.
For extent of damage, I may have some pictures on my computer that I can PM to people, but they are too gory to post here.Rob offered to pay for as much as half of the vet bills, even though the accident occurred on his property. Because of all the trouble his dogs caused on our property, we took him up on his offer. Five days or so after the incident though, my dad called him and was like, "So....how are we splitting this up?" Rob responded with, "Well....I've been talking with my lawyer, and he said that I don't have to be obligated for it,
so I'm NOT going to cover for any of it". My grandparents jumped in to offer us up to 1/4 of the $2000+ bills. Money issues and fretting ended up in a family crCIA and a bunch of drama. About a week later, we got a call from Animal Control saying that Rob wrote up my mom,
who was not even home when the accident happened, and ticketed
us for letting our dog run at large. He tacked that onto our bill, just because he's a firefighter and has cop friends who can do that.
We have not really talked to them ever since. We've been scrambling to get pictures of their dogs touching our property line so that we can ticket them, but they've been so much more careful about it. One time, it happened and we didn't get pictures, so my dad went and confronted Rob. My dad told him, "By Missouri Law, I'm allowed to shoot your dogs if they cross the property lines and pose a threat to life or property." Rob went into a yelling fest and said, "NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!" My dad said, "I'm not saying I will, I'm just telling you that I can."
The neighbors have just recently found a new way to make us mad without interfering with our property line
physically. Our house is for sale on the market, and they are now downgrading our property value with smells and noise. They've built horse pastures next to our driveway on the edge of the property line where the horses poop all over the place. The smell completely fumigates our property now. They also play blasting music, drive ATVs in their yard before 6 A.M., yell, have parties, etc.
tl;dr -- Our neighbors are interfering with our life, cost us thousands, and there's no way to get away from them.
We seriously don't know what to do with these people. What do you think about it?
Poll