Mean Neighbors

It all started approximately 1 year ago when our dog Lexi decided she wanted to play with our neighbors children. The neighbors I am referring to live behind us. While the children were jumping on their trampoline, Lexi climbed the fence and was barking at them. The mother of the children (I don't know her name so I will call her Meany) came over to the house in scrubs and no shoes (imagine that) and knocked on the window (strange!). Meany told Toni that Lexi "trapped her children on the trampoline" and "trapped her in her own backyard" and "they were all in fear of their lives."

Let me explain a little bit about Lexi. She is approximately 2 1/2 years old. She weighs about 65 pounds. She reminds me of Dory from "Finding Nemo". She is VERY forgetful and barks at everything. If Toni and I leave the room and come back in a few seconds, she barks at us. I am assuming she is saying something like "Oh hi. Who are you? My name is Lexi. Nice to meet you." I believe she is scared of everything. Her bark is quite intimidating but not really because she walks AWAY from you while barking, not towards you. Once you pet her she stops barking and is VERY lovey dovey.

Now back to Meany...she told Toni all of the crap mentioned previously. Toni responded with a nice thank you and that we would take care of the situation. Since that moment, Lexi has not been left unattended in the backyard. Not 30 minutes later, Animal Control showed up. The officer gave us a warning for "Dog at Large." Not only did Meany tell us about Lexi, she called Animal Control!!!! Un-freaking-believable. Two days later we got another knock on the door and it was Animal Control AGAIN. The officer said that Meany said Lexi climbed the fence. I told the officer that that was impossible because Lexi has not been unsupervised. The officer said that Meany signed the paperwork saying that her statement was true so if we wanted to take her to court and fight it we could. We decided to just pay the $30 ticket instead of hundreds of dollars on court costs. I installed an electrical fence approximately 1 1/2 feet from the chain link so Lexi will not even go close to the fence. Apparently it worked because Meany has not called Animal Control since then.

Approximately 3-4 months ago Meany's dog was in our yard just hanging out. Toni and I took the dog back to her house without calling animal control because we are nice people. We gave the dog to her daughter. Stay tuned for more to come on this subject.

On to Meany's daughter (we will call her Sassy). Sassy constantly climbs the back fence to cross into Levvie's yard to play with his grandson. Levvie is our neighbor to the left. (We know his name because he is nice.) Sassy crosses the fence diagnally. She has done this so much that the bars on top of the chain link are bending. We asked her to stop climbing the fence because she is damaging it and she could fall and get hurt. We have asked Meany and her husband to ask her to stop climbing the fence for the same reasons. Sadie, our red-nosed pitbull, is in the back yard and could one day decide she doesn't like Sassy and bite her if she falls into the yard. Although Sadie is a very sweet dog, she is a dog and dog's are animals and animals can be unpredictable.

Sassy continues to climb the fence even after multiple attempts to stop the behavior. Toni and I put up a sign on the fence that reads "No Trespassing, No Climbing on the fence." We also installed a lock on the gate that joins our backyards (the people that lived our house and her house were friends in the 70's when the fence was installed). Sassy continues to climb the fence. You will find out later why she still does this.

Two weeks ago, I unplugged the electrical fence and removed the poles and stuck them in the top of the chain link so that I could mow along the fence line without getting the wire caught in the mower blade. The stakes have a small spike on the end so they are easy to insert into the ground. The day after I mowed, the stakes remained in the fence because I completely forgot to reinsert them into the ground. Instead of Meany asking us to remove the stakes from the the top of the fence she called the Sheriff department. Don't you love your tax dollars going to such ridiculous things? I know I do. The officier asked us who the fence belonged to and I said us. I assumed he was talking about the chain link fence. He said Meany said the chain link belonged to her. She said her father in law put the fence up in the 70's when in fact the people that owned my house in the 70's put the fence up when the pool was in stalled in '75. The officer said that I was not allowed to put metal spikes on a fence. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said that if anyone gets hurt by the spikes that it could be a lawsuit. I still didn't know what he was talking about. He was not beng very nice and his voice was quite hasty. He finally pointed to the electrical fence posts. I informed him that I placed them there the day before, temporarily, so I could mow along the fence line. His tone changed entirely and said "Oh so those aren't permantent?" I said, "No sir, I know that you can't have things like that on your fence." He asked if we had trouble with them before and I said yes all of the time. He advised me to put the posts back in the ground as soon as possible so they would stop causing issues. I immediately returned the posts to the ground. I asked him if he could take care of the fence climbing business and he said yes. He also said if Sassy fell into our yard that it would be considered trespassing. WooHoo, I hope she falls.

Now onto the matter of the fence. Toni and I are so fed up with Meany that we decide to put a 6 foot board on board privacy fence inside the back fence line. My cousin Ryan and I prepared to install the first post and Meany storms outside and says that we need a 2 foot gap inbetween "her" fence and our new fence. We stopped construction so that I could research the matter. She said "Tell your worker to stop working." I said, "I will not say that because I am not a mean person." She said, "Yes you are. We have had trouble with you since your dog climbed the fence." I said, "I took care of that didn't I?" She agreed. I told her that I could put up a fence wherever I wanted to because the chain link was mine anyway. She said it was her's because her father in law put it up in the seventies. I disagreed and said that the fence had to be put up before the pool was installed. She said she would call AJ (which was the previous owner of my house) and contact her father in law. I said I would call property appraisers and county code enforcement to figure out if there was a 2 foot rule. She said she would too of course. I offered her the number :).

After about 20 minutes of calling around (of course everything was closed at that point) we reconveined at the back corner. She brought back up, in the form of an older couple (I am assuming either her parents or her in laws). They live next to her. Meany said this fence was put up in 1971 and that pool was built in 1974. I disagreed because property appraisers says the pool was built in 1975 but that was beside the point. Before arguing resumed, Toni chimed in and asked what the problem was and that we were trying to install a privacy fence so we could be done with each other. She didn't have anything to say to that.

I asked why did it matter how far away the new fence was. She said she didn't want it leaning on her fence and damaging it. I said it would be approximately 6 inches from "the" fence and wouldn't touch it. Toni pointed out the bent bar on top of the chain link because Sassy continues to climb the fence. She said, "she keeps climbing it because I told her to." What kind of mother tells her daughter to climb a fence???? Wow. She continued to say that we have had issues with each other since Lexi climbed the fence. I pointed out that that was taken care of. And again she agreed. I brought up the fact that she could have just asked us to take the electrical fence posts down instead of calling the sheriff's office. I continued to tell her that we returned her dog that was in our yard instead of calling Animal control. She said, "not my dog!" I said, "Yes ma'am, ask your daughter." That just goes to show that she has no idea what is going on in her house when she allows her 7 year old daughter to answer the door without knowing. Her mother and father in law didn't say a word the entire time and when we made those points they walked away.

Of course she didn't stop. I said that I was going to call code enforcement first thing in the morning and she of course said she would too. As she walked away she said, "you must think I am an dumb blonde." I replied with, "No ma'am just uneducated." I should have replied with, "you aren't even real blonde." Hahaha, I make myself laugh sometimes.

After much research this fencing dilemma, this is what we found out. My dad called fencing companies and they do not keep records back that far. They said that chain link fence polls are installed on the customer side of the fence. Our chain link has polls on the inside of our fence all the way around (including the back). Meany's fence, however, has poles installed on the inside of her fence line on the sides but not the back because they are installed on OUR side of the fence. What fencing company would install poles on the inside of the fence on the sides but the outside of the fence on the back??? NONE.

The law also states that if the fence is installed on my side of the property line it is my fence and vice versa. It also states that if the fence is installed exactly on the property line that it belongs to both parties because the property line doesn't belong to anybody. My dad said there are metal stakes in the ground on all corners that a strong magnet will be able to find. When those are found the property line issue will no longer be an issue. I contacted code enforcement and they said there is no regulation on how far a new fence needs to be setback from an existing fence. I printed out the regulation from the land development code and posted it on the one post that we installed so she can read it. Needless to say, construction will resume as planned when Ryan and I can get our schedules to match.

If we find out that the chainlink is on the property line, we will request in writing that the pole be repaired since by law, maintaince is the responsibility of both homeowners. If we find out the chain link is on our property line we will request in writing that the pole be repaired and then rip the fence down. :) ahahahahah I just love being right. If she wants to play hardball, I am ready and waiting.