As you know, I've been following this since your first post and I'm firmly in your corner. But there's something that's been troubling me, and for the life of me I couldn't put my finger on it until I read this post! Um, is there a particular reason why she's doing all the complaining? I'm sure you have a good reason - after all, you're there and obviously I'm not - but it struck me that instead of waiting for her to complain to P&Z about Spock or any of the million other things she goes to them for, why not go to them this time? Tell them about her activities...the music, the dog, the spying, the destruction of stakes put up when you got ready to put up your fence, the lights, the obscene screaming...tell them all of that. Then REMIND them that you have been cooperative and staying well within legal limits this entire time and that you have complied to the best of your ability under the circumstances, but this time YOU want to file a noise and harassment complaint against her. Let them know, too, that the last thing you and DH wanted to do was become like her, running to P&Z for every little thing, but that the same laws that she is using to "protect" her family are also there to protect yours. Make sure they understand that the last thing you ever wanted to do was use the town offices for a neighborhood dispute - that you'd have preferred to be able to come to an agreement as neighbors but since that was impossible you've done everything you can to lessen your impact on her.
The other thing I don't understand, unless your town charter is set up differently than ours, is why P&Z? Here their purview is making sure that structures, fencing, and land use conform to the local development code and nothing else. Disputes between neighbors are brought before us (the town council) or the court for mediation. Your Planning and Zoning commission did their job when they came to your house to check your setup for compliance, and when they approved your 6 foot fence as opposed to granting the variance for the 8 foot one you wanted. At that point, at least here in Cowley, P&Z should then have reported to the Town council that they'd investigated your request and denied it, given the reasons, and left you free to go to the council for additional assistance. As I said, I'm here, you're there, and your community's division of responsibility might be set up differently. But I was just curious. If I've read everything correctly, your big fear is that if you go to your city officials (whichever one has jurisdiction over this situation) is that you're kinda opening the Spock Box up again and I can see where you'd rather let that sleeping dog lie.
Oh Blooie...sounds you live in a community that does sensible things...I live in a dysfunctional one. We have an anti-blight ordinance in our town that the Zoning office is responsible for enforcing. So that's why we went to zoning about the garbage next door. They had the power to make them clean it up... if they felt like it. We have a Noise Ordinance. However, that is enforceable by the State Police. Disputes between neighbors... the town stays out of it. In fact if they feel it is a "neighbor dispute" they will walk away and tell you that's what they are doing. That's what happened to us with the garbage next door. The town ignored us for a year. We begged, pleaded, help us please. Then the 11 year old son in the garbage house set fire to their entire back yard. He started it with gasoline. It burned within 25 feet of our barn. It burned really fast because their lawn was two feet high. That got the town's attention and they did get the health department out there shortly out after that and made them take down the pool. We purposely did not go to the town about Crazy Lady because we knew it was useless.... it took a 1/2 acre grass fire to get them to do something last time!
