Letter from a lawyer...

I hired a lawyer and a letter was sent to the neighbors. They received it on July 17th.  Nothing has changed.  How long do I wait before we get the courts involved?

Dogs out again today

More videos from today. And they told me that their dogs never get out.  And if they do they go get them and put them back right away.  That husky is the one that came up on me and growled at me when I was in my yard.  And when I said I feel like I can't even use my back yard, they said "you can use your back yard. What is stopping you?"  Well here ya go! THIS is what is stopping me!

It's not just the dogs but the humans too

Last video was from today 7/7/21.  They just don't get it!

 

The dogs aren't running loose?

 

Security camera video  from June 22nd.  

Transcription of security camera clips 5/20/2021...

 

5/20/2021 at 7:10 PM – Handed letter to Wife, who was sitting on her porch, and went back to my car to get my groceries.  Removed their names from this transcript:

Wife: Who is this letter from?

Me: If you read the bottom of it, you’ll know who it’s from.

Wife: You know, you’ve become a real asshole.

Wife: I’m going to go to the township about those trees you planted in the yard.

Wife: I will.

Me: Okay

Wife: If I had known you were going to be my neighbor, I never would have moved in here.

Me: I feel the same way.  I’m very disappointed.

Wife: You haven’t been here much longer than I have, okay?

Me: I know.

Wife: Did you have someone mark the property line before you had that guy put those trees in? How do you know they are not on our property? I’m going to the township and complain, and you might have to move those trees.

Me: But then your fence will have to be moved again too.  It’s right on the property line, which I’m okay with, but if you want to keep this going, I guess I could complain too.

Wife: I can play dirty too. How do you know where the property line is? Did you have someone come out and mark it?

Me: There is a spray-painted arrow with a circle around it in the alley.

Wife: Well who put the spray paint there?

Me: I don’t know.

Wife: We had someone come out here to make sure of where the property line is.

Me: Okay.

Wife: And we are going to mow right up to those trees on our side.  We have every right to do that and you can’t stop us.  And when you talked to SON (name removed) about the fence, you told him how nice it was and then turned around and was two-faced and complained to the township about it.

Me: I never talked to SON (name removed) about the fence.

Wife: Yes you did.

Me: No. I talked to HUSBAND (name removed) about it the day they were building it and told him it was too far over.  I never talked to SON (name removed) about it.

Wife: Well we’ll find out from him.

Me: You really don’t think you’ve done anything wrong?

Wife: No. We haven’t done anything wrong. You started out acting so nice and then turned into a real asshole.

Me: You think you’ve done nothing wrong and I’m just doing this to be mean?

Wife: Yes. We’ve done nothing wrong. I haven’t done anything to you.

Me: You personally haven’t but you guys have been doing things since you moved in. You let the dogs run in the yard and dig holes and poop all over. You said SON (name removed) was gonna pick it up every day…

Wife: We did. And we’ve been on him about that.

Me: You put a fence on my property and then took my gate down…

Wife: We didn’t take that gate down! Your ex-husband took it down.

Me: HUSBAND (name removed) took one side of the gate down and replaced it with an ugly pallet with chicken wire on it.

Wife: I don’t know about that.

Me: I have pictures of it.

Wife: Yeah, you have pictures of everything. But those dogs are not out anymore. They aren’t on your property.

Me: I have videos of them. Why are you yelling?  Can’t you just talk?

Wife: They are not on your property and they are in a fenced-in area! If they get out they might be, but we go and get them and put them back right away!

Me: Why are you yelling? Can you just talk?

Wife: No because you’re making me mad!

HUSBAND (name removed) opens the door to see what the noise is about.

Wife – to HUSBAND: When you took her down there that day to show her the fence, did she tell you it was over too far?

Husband: yeah.

Me: I asked several times about that fence and you guys said you were going to move it.

Wife: And we did move it.

Me: I talked to HUSBAND about three times about it and he kept saying was gonna move it and nothing ever happened.  I think you are just mad because I am standing up for myself.

Wife: (inaudible)… you couldn’t fucking take it and be a woman and say something.

Me: ok.

Went in my house to end the conversation and she was still talking as I walked away.

Letter to my neighbors 5/19/2021

 

This is the letter I handed to my neighbor.  I was bringing groceries in from my car and she was on her front porch:

May 19, 2021

Please do not walk between or push your lawn mower through the spaces between the newly planted arborvitae trees.  These trees will grow together and touch each other and should not have pathways made in between them.  This could damage them or affect their growth.

Also, PA State dog laws say “All dogs must be under control and must not be allowed to run at large. Dogs are personal property, and owners are responsible for damages caused by their dog.”  To officially restate our previous conversations, please keep your dogs out of my yard.  I am still finding dog feces and have security videos from the backyard camera of them running loose in my yard, peeing on the side of my house, and pooping in my yard.  The holes that have been previously dug by your dogs have been filled in and I expect to not find any further damage to my property.

Finally, please find another way to access the rear of your property without using my gate opening or cutting through my yard.  Thank you in advance for respecting the property boundaries.

Sincerely,

____________________________

The reaction I received from her was sudden and severe.  She started screaming at me.  Luckily the security camera recorded several clips from the assault, which I used to help me transcribe the conversation to the best of my recollection after the conversation was over (see next post).

Planting trees

About two weeks after the Officer made the report to the Code agency, the neighbors must have received a letter or a fine or something.  Because I was sitting on the porch on day, minding my own business, and here comes the husband out of his house with a letter and envelope in his hands, shaking it at me.

He said "why would you go to the township about this? You're really two-faced aren't you?  You're not being very neighborly."  I said "I asked you several times about it and you kept saying you were going to move it."  He said "WE ARE MOVING IT! We are building it so the dogs have a place to be so they aren't in your yard."  Like they are doing me some favor?

I finally got security camera shortly after that incident.  One for the front porch and one for the backyard.  I have several videos of the dogs running loose.  They continue to have free-run of the whole yard.  I haven't been able to use my backyard at all this summer.

The security camera picked up a clip of the son and his girlfriend walking up the yard and he was telling her what an f---ing b---- I was because I called the police. I guess they didn't realize the camera was there or didn't realize it recorded audio. 

So I got quotes for fences for the yard and they were all very expensive.  A more affordable solution (I thought) would be to plant arborvitaes down the property line.  They are just babies right now but should be 12 to 15 feet in about three years.  This didn't stop any of the behaviors and they actually started pushing their lawn mower between the trees to get to the back of my yard.  They have been mowing the back of my property since summer began. I have no idea why they are doing this. 

Oh, forgot to mention, as you can see in this pictures, not only the trees I planted but I also took the ugly gate down at the end of the yard.  I decided there was no way in hell I was going to contain their dogs in my yard to poop all over and dig holes.  So I sent them a nice letter (see next post).

My awful neighbors won't stop!

I am a 53 year-old single woman who is an Air Force Veteran.  I was finally able to purchase my first home in November 2020.  The Bible says we should love our neighbors.  But I have no idea how that is humanly possible after my new neighbors arrived in March 2021. 

Things started out okay.  I was trying to be friendly.  There is a husband and wife, their grown son and his girlfriend living next door.  They also have 4 dogs that are not house dogs.  Here's where the trouble started.

The back yard of the two houses was enclosed as one area by fences of the neighbors on both sides of us.  A garage at the back of the property, which belongs to my neighbors, and a gate at the back of the yard, which was on my side of the property.  My new neighbors assumed that the whole area could be free-range for their four large dogs.  I told them that I was concerned about dog poop and they said they would have their son pick the poop up every day.  This never happened.  I complained about it one other time that there was poop again and the wife told me she would tell him.  I stopped complaining about it because I didn't want to make waves.

Then the dogs started digging holes in my yard.  They dug up a plant and I thought they had probably killed it.  I covered it back up and luckily it lived and has bloomed this summer.

It gets worse.  I told the husband that I was having a new gate built for the back yard because the one there was getting old and ratty.  For some reason, after that conversation, he took it upon himself to remove one of the gates and replaced it with a pallet with chicken wire on it.  ON MY PROPERTY! Who does that?  Never asked, never said anything.  Just one day I see that it is replaced with this ugly monstrosity that he made.

Then, what I though was the last straw, they started building a fenced-in area for the dogs connected to the back of their garage.  ON MY PROPERTY as well!  Never said anything, never asked again.  One Saturday, I hear a buzz saw in the back yard.  So I go out to see what is going on.  They had already placed the posts on the fence - half on my yard.  I told the husband that the fence was over too far, and he said "oh really? I didn't realize that.  How do you know where the property line is?"  I told him to look up the back yard at the trees and he would see that it was over too far.

They continued building.  I mentioned this to them two time after that asking them to move the fence.  Then they started getting pissy.  Wouldn't look at me or address me anymore.  I thought, well that's fine if that's how they want things.  They aren't really people I would be friends with anyway.  But I thought we could at least be civil.  NOPE.  I ended up having to call the police.  The Officer told me there was nothing he could do about the poop and the holes dug by the dogs because I had no proof it was their dogs.  But he did come out and talked to them about the fence.  They told the officer they were going to move it.  The Officer told me it was a civil matter and he reported them to our local zoning agency.

This all happened at the end of March, beginning of April 2021.  There is more to come but can't write any more tonight.  Stay tuned.