Who has bad neighbors?

[chickenjones]

Sonoran Silkies:
Yes we went over numerous times to ask them to keep their dog up. We called the police and they said to get proof. Well I got proof but that same day it snowed 10 inches and well, we are in Texas and the cops wouldn't come out on a snowy day. I KID YOU NOT. They said I could take them to small claims court. Previously they told me I could shoot the dog if we had too. We really didn't want to but he turned on my husband. It really shook him up, having to shoot the dog and we both knew the neighbors would be hacked.

My DH keeps wanted to try to talk to the dad, which has gotten us nowhere. We can't talk to the son. He isn't there or will speed off. I agree he is going to hurt someone.

Seriously, we live in unincorporated Burleson, TX so we are left to fend for ourselves. No laws. It really sucks. We put up an electric fence but it hasn't really stopped any strays from coming in. So far our coop is very safe and since that dog is dead we have seen dogs on our camera but not in the coop. We are putting aside funds now to get a "real fence" put in. We have three acres so I know it won't happen overnight.

 

[EweSheep]

I've got one neighbor besides me that he used to live on the farm and worked with cattle. He moved into the city as he got older. At first he didn't mind my chickens and then after using the chicken compost, he called the city on me and I thought crap. The city officials was tired of him and one did say that he has nothing better to do except to complain everything going on in the neighborhood. I would love to put up a privacy fence. Hubby and that neighbor usually have a stare down and sometimes words were exchanged. Other than that, as long we don't talk to him or acknowledge him, he is ok.

He is the type that wants a cookie cutter neighborhood and he would be an excellent choice for HOA candidate. His yard was perfect, golf course type trimmings, chemically sprayed lawn and his tomatoes were constantly sprayed and fertilized. I swear his tomatoes must have been mutated to something of a smiley faces on the surface of the skin. As for me, I do not spray or fertilized my plants and good old chicken manure did the wonders until a fungus came and attacked it.

We can wish for a home out in the country but right now I do not think it is possible at this time due to high 21% unemployment rate and hubby still on part time job with his work. So we gotta keep hanging in there.

 

[Pelican49]

When I moved to my little 5 acres a couple years ago it was so quiet. Notice I said was. If you opened the back door during the day you heard birds, and occasionally, off in the distance, a cow or donkey or rooster. At night when you opened the back door you heard crickets, frogs and ciccadas. Now you hear 4 wheelers. I really really hate 4 wheelers and the mostly inconsiderate jerks that play on them. A Father and son team bought the property behind me and built a 4 wheeler race track right at our property line. All you can hear now is revving engines morning, noon and evening. The poor guy next to me. His chicken and guinea coops are right on the property line by the track. We're all ready to strangle these jerks.

My solution? I'm waiting to close on 36 acres so I can move.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Any noise or zoning ordinances? Being out in the country does not necessarily change zoning to allow a race track. We used to race go-karts all over the country. Many of hte tracks are outside the city, on county land, and almost all have noise ordinances they must follow. Our local tracks are on a county park and were put in many YEARS before there were any neighborhoods within hearing distance. But once neigborhoods were built and became occupied, the county changed noise restrictions and began seriously enforcing them. For a period of time racing had to cease at 10pm, which is fine in the winter when racing during the day is possible, but in the summer it is far too hot during the day, and 4 or 5 hours is not nearly long enough to go through all the classes. The county finally came up with some revisions that allowed racing on weekends to midnight or thereabouts. Anyways, my point is that there is a good chance that the noise is against county code, or that you can urge the county to create code regulating noise and also setbacks for that type of activity.

 

[Michele_Lynd]

Ok heres my story I live 3 mile from town with 3 neibors the little old lady who love to watch my chickens, the couple across the road with chickens horses pig goats and any other critteer u can think of and we get along great and the the one on the other side of me when we first moved here it was ok untill I got horses 2 of them one was real old about 20 + and a 4 yr old the old horse was pregnet when we got her dont know why any one bred her but she was so nice and heathy( Vet said she be ok ) well she had the foal and it dieded I was up set ofcorse had the vet back out he said mare will be ok ... Well she never put weight back on NO matter what I gave her tried all Kinds of feed vet said she was just to old to bred just keep doing what I was I loved this mare very much next thing we know humane soioty is called they come out have attudes with me even tho I have documents of vet visits said I need to do this and that I tell them what the vet said, they leave call vet he comes out more documentaions this goes on for about2yrs non stop they tell us the (humane sosity) that all call are anonumes but guy next door keeps telling us how he hates farm anamils dont like horse becouse of flys get in his house keeps asking me about my old girl and tell me to start feeding her I tell him she is under vet care then the humane is out again DUH .. We finnally put them on a friend farm way out in the country and she died this yr just layed down and went to sleep and never woke up I miss her But guess what no more phone calls My DH has deside to get pigs the guy thinks fly couse of horse are bad just wait..

 

[QuinnP]

the motto of our apartment complex is "YIKES!! THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM!!"

One neighbor is addicted to Methadone
one neibbor is so fat she cant walk, has 5 cats & never cleans the litter box
one neighbor looks like a martian
the landlady while a nice lady is clueless
the lady across the street married her stepfather after her mother divorced him

a man just mo9ved in who speaks no english, poor guy.
across the parking lot another poor jerk was dead for 2 weeks & nobody knew it until he got really narly, & then they had to carry him out in buckets
someone calls the cops for every tiny thing. Including if a cat walks across her porch
Ginger's live in guest has feet so stinky it'd chase a banshee across the sea.

almost all of them have whats known as TB--Tillamook Butt.

 

[Pelican49]

QuinnP - I don't know what tillamook butt is and don't think I'd want to. But I'd move.

 

[Vnctan]

I hit the neighbor jackpot. I have an old woman who has about 40 cats on one side and an old woman whos blind dogs bark at nothing ALL NIGHT LONG on the other. And just recently one of my neighbors died and they rented their house out and who should move in right next door to us but some tweekers that we've had problems with before when they used to live 30 minutes away. My neighbor is the biggest A**Hole known to man. As soon as we moved in she hated us because she wanted to buy our property and missed her chance (she built her house 9' 5" from the fence line becuase of it, which is against code). We decided to rescue dogs so she calls animal control and tells them that we are breeding rescued dogs which not only wasn't true and costs us $600 in fines to try and do a good thing but now animal control comes once at least once a year to harrass us. You are only allowed to have 5 dogs per property in our county and you can't get a kennel license. I have 5 small dogs (mostly Chihuahuas) all under 20 lbs. I am currently unemployed and my property is not all the way fenced. Generally my dogs stay on our property but my neighbors fencing is 4" square field fencing and my dogs can squeeze right thru the holes. She has goats and chickens which my dogs have never touched and yet she still has a heart attack every time one of my dogs ventures onto her property. They have never hurt anything over there and are never over there long enough to even take a dump but she has a cow about it anyway. I have a 2 lb purebred AKC registered Champion line Chihuahua that follows my other dogs wherever they go so one day he follows one of my other dogs in my neighbors yard. I come outside and see him, standing in the middle of her driveway, not doing anything at all and she runs out of her house with a BB gun and shoots him. My dog weighs 2 lbs! Not only was he not hurting anything, he couldn't even if he wanted to. Shooting a 2 lb dog with a BB could kill him. When I confronted her about it she said that he was chasing her chickens. I saw where he was when she shot him and he was no where near her chickens and if he had been in with her chickens he would have been the one that got hurt not them. We realiated and needless to say she won't be shooting any of my dogs again. But she still complains about everything. I have 3 horses and her property line was already fenced when we moved in so we fenced the other 3 sided and put our horses in their pasture. Now all she does is complain because her crappy 3' field fence and 2 strands of barbed wire are all saggy and bent becuase the horses lean over it to eat the grass. Her fence is her responsiblity and we live in a rural area. Everyone has horses. She should've taken that into consideration and put up a better fence that would keep out whatever her neighbors bring home. So instead of listening to her complain about how I should redo her fencing, I put up peeler posts and 4' woven field fence and 3 strands of barbed wire so my fence is 6' and hers continues to look saggy and crappy. Eventually I want to plant 10' tall shrubs all along my property line so I won't be able to see her house at all and vice versa.

 

[horsejody]

Quote:
If the location of the house is an issue, report it to the county for the code violation.


Quote:
If you weren't in violation, why were you fined?

Quote:
Is it possible that your dogs have harrassed the chickens when you didn't see it? Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. If a dog bothered my chickens, I might shoot him too (even if he was just sitting in the driveway when I took my shot. It's a dog owner's responsibility to keep their dogs in their own yard. It's not the neighbor's responsibility to keep them out. Her choice of fencing keeps her animals in. She has met her responsibility.

Quote:
She was within her rights. Your dog shouldn't have been there. You might want to reconsider who the problem neighbor is. Read through some of the predator posts regarding dogs. No matter the size, loose dogs are trouble around poultry. If a dog even bothered my chickens once and came back, a BB gun would be the least of its worries. It wouldn't matter if the dog was 2 pounds or 200, especially if the owner had been made aware that it was not welcome on my property.

Quote:
Legally (and morally), any damage your animal does to her fence is your responsibility. Again it's her responsibility to fence in her animals, not fence yours out. Nobody should be expected to take into consideration what types of animals a new neighbor might bring in and build their fence to accommodate them. If one of my neighbor's animals damaged my fence or any other property, you can bet that I would want them to fix it.

Quote:
That's probably a good idea. You may want to do the neighborly thing and fence your dogs in and repair the damage that your horses did too. Sorry if I sound harsh. JMHO

 

[Horsegeek101]

WOW! Reading this thread has been so awesome, I feel for you all and am jealous of all the nice neighbor stories. I live on 42 acres that adjoins a friends rented property on one side, and some wooded yards on the backside, only one incident with loose dogs in my pasture on that side, and once where 4 wheelers ran my horses out into that neighborhood. Pretty OK on that side. I bought the farm because my horses were here first. I boarded them with the neighbor who rents the 60 acres in between us (we actually come close to adjoining each other in one corner. The couple we bought the place from was in their 90s, and it's been poorly maintained for at least 20 years. It was in the same family since 1880 when it was built.

Now our driveway is at the end of a neighborhood street so we have neighborhood in front of us. 42 acres goes back away from it. Neighborhood is really a nice word, it's really worse than a city ghetto. There are feral cats from two families, everywhere. No one, and I mean no one, in the ghetto knows what leashes or fences are. They recently passed a garbage ordinance, which forced them all to pay 12$ a month for garbage pickup, but forces no one to actually put garbage in the cans.

The biggest problem though, is, the neighbor right in front of me. We are seperated by my 2 acre front yard, and her postage stamp. First few weeks here, her pitbulls killed all 7 of the barn cats we inherited with the farm. Don't know why they survived before, unless because the old lady never met a person she didn't like, the neighbor was better about keeping her dogs in. She actually has a LARGE chainlinked yard off to the side of her and my property. So I call the cops the first time, because the last cat to be eaten, was snagged in my yard, while myself and my child watched, I literally dropped what I was doing, grabbed my daughter and tossed her bodily in the house. She was headed across the maybe 20 yards distance to stop the dog. Cops came out, told neighbor keep dogs up. SHe said, they aren't pitbulls, they are pit/mastiff mixes. Oh, that makes it better, they are bigger. After cats were dispatched, they brought into my yard and attacked my dogs (Shelties and one coonhound mix) Cops again, asked her nicely. Then, they completely dispatched my chickens, the last of which, the cop told me I could make her pay for my chicken. I don't care about the money, I want the chickens.

Cops called again, dogs chasing my child and her friend on bikes, down the street. Cops say, nothing we can do, except shoot dog on our property. Husband shoots dog with 22, only wounds it, neighbors son comes to my house harrassing husband, cops again, tell her dogs need to stay on her property. She begins putting them in the yard, sometimes. bad weather hits, dogs out again, she's to bothered by having to drag them on leashes the 20' to the yard. Next Spring, dogs attack my dog in my front yard. Cops again. Same story. Dogs nearly attack my nephew, cops again, same story. Then, last Labor day, daughter is riding my good horse up the street to the neighbors, dogs attack horse, horse attacks dogs, husband drives car to seperate them, we get to neighbors, she had called the cops to report us for threatening her with a car.

That's when I gave up. Since then, she has called the cops on us twice. Once when my horse was out in the other neighbors yard, and while we were out there catching him, immeadiately after he got out. The other, was when she called on our guineas, again, on the other neighbor's yard, but graciously, the cops never even came out. I rehomed the guineas though, the stupid things were forever in the other neighbors yard, instead of my 40 acres of wood and pasture. I also forget to mention that she has been in and out of jail, the property was bought for her by her parents, and she is a meth head, I call them Methalyptics. There are cars in and out, all day long, 4 wheelers, lawn mowers, in and out, drive up, go in, leave. Over 80% of this county is on public assistance of some sort, it's the poorest in the state. Anway, I am scared to death of her. That's just my personality, I am scared of alot. My hiusband, thinks I'm a big wussy baby, but I fear she will confront me at some point now that I am home all the time. The other day, the dogs just came running right into our yard while she was talking to a car that had drove up, we happened to be out too. She called their names, and turned around to resume her conversation.

Husband told me to call cops, I wouldn't, we don't get any help anyway. I am trying desperately to save the $2k to get a survey done, so I can put a permanent fence up. We've already been told that some of our property is in a neighbors fence. That's all I can do. I can't shoot her dogs, it isn't her dogs fault, and, I'm scared to death if we did, she'd do something to my horses. It's very, very easy to poison horses. I've thought about buying a coyote trap, and may still do that, and drop them off at another counties night drop run in their shelter. We had a chicken die the other day, and I made my hubby take it to the far side of my woods away from the horses, and a few days later, it was dismembered all over her front yard. So I can't just fence the line between us, they'll just go around to the back.

My daughter can't play in the neighborhood, and she hates that. But with dogs loose, drunk drivers, druggies in the streets, you don't let your kid play in the hood. But sometimes, I just sit on my porch and cry, because this was my dream, turned nightmare. My husband made me promise I wouldn't switch my daughter's school again (we pulled her out of this counties school, for a whole longer story, and pay tuition to take her to a school in a neighboring county 20 miles from here). She's in 5th grade. I now dream of the day, 7 years from now, that this place is in my rear view mirror. The next time, I will do more research on the neighbors, and make sure we by vacant land, so the house can be built in the middle. In the meantime, I am building stuff out of the trees to clear out brush, and trying to make a garden, so there's something to make me happier. And I'm working on the fence between us, maybe it'll cut down the occurances. It was so awesome to read other people's nightmares. Not that I wish them on anyone, but at least I know I am not alone.