Being a Good Neighbor

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may know that I have had trouble with my neighbors to the south. They have screamed at all of us (my children included,) raised at least two vicious dogs (the first of which killed the bloodhound of the neighbor next to them and was banished from the village,) stolen vegetables from my garden, threatened to call the police, reported garbage sitting at the curb (for garbage pick-up,) and generally made life miserable.

Today, my two older children noticed the woman taking pictures of my yard. Sigh…undoubtedly this will be followed by a notice from the village people regarding something about my yard that they find offensive. Really? I mean, there’s the couch that they threw out almost two months ago that has been sitting outside their gate. Have I reported it? No. Of course not. You don’t do that. My yard is neat, save for the bright orange flags and spray paint that the telephone company installed for the benefit of the road construction crew redoing our part of the road. So, what’s the problem?

As a good neighbor, you try to overlook the mistakes your neighbors make, just in due course. You are not perfect either. We are definitely not. There is yelling. Yup. That happens when you have a special needs child who likes to use their words (at high volume!) However, I am tired of being attacked, and threatened. They have threatened to call the police on us because our tiny dogs got out. I told them to go ahead. I mean, who is threatened by three tiny dogs with a total poundage of 20 pounds? I was not the paragon of Christian virtue that day!

It’s not like I’m afraid of the police. In fact, with child #3’s mental health struggles, we are quite familiar with our village police department. They, too, are familiar with our neighbors (and not because of us! Our other neighbors don’t get along with them either.) The law does their best and I’m sure, would be so happy to have them move on. Yeah. Me too.

It all makes me so sad. I have tried to be a good neighbor. After they first moved in, I took a plate of cookies over with my children. All I could hear was screaming and swearing when I knocked on the door. We left. It hasn’t gotten better. Sad.