Do You Have A Neighbor From Hell?
The names have been changed to protect the innocent children and animals in this story.
Incident #1
Shortly after moving into our new home, my six year old son, along with his eleven year old brother were in the back yard playing. It was around two in the afternoon, on a bright sunny fall day. They were having a great time laughing and carrying on. Fred, the 6 year old, was getting a bit loud and perhaps screaming in the excitement of play. I went out to check on the boys and much to my surprise I hear a voice bellowing from the yard that backs onto mine. “Shut the hell up”, which makes me stop in my tracks. Thinking to myself, and wondering if he is yelling at my children, I call them.
“Is that guy yelling at you two?” I ask.
Fred’s older brother Bob answers, “Ya, he yelled a couple of times. We were just playing.”
“Great, we have a friendly neighbor, how about you two come in and have a snack.”
When my husband came home I told him about the idiot neighbor we had. He pretty much told me to calm down and not worry about it. He did agree with me that it was a little ridiculous seeing the time of day that the boys were outside playing. It wasn’t like it was six in the morning or past nine at night.
Incident #2
One day the following summer, I was out weeding the garden. The woman that owned the house prior to us had a green thumb and the garden was gorgeous. Full of Peonies, roses, and other multitudes of beautiful bushes and flowers. I looked over and saw that my unfriendly neighbor’s wife was out in her yard, and thought I would say good morning to her. Instead of her saying good morning back to me, and much to my surprise, she answered me quite flippantly with, “Nice garden, shame you didn’t put it in yourself.”
I turned and kept weeding. Fine I thought, forget about trying to talk to these people. They are just downright rude.
Incident #3
My first dog was out in the back yard running around chasing squirrels. I was sitting on the patio enjoying the sunshine, and reading a book. I look up as I hear a child barking. At the back fence there’s my neighbor and his grandchild I presume, thinking how childish. My dog got in a couple of barks before I called her over. The child then says, “Your dog is barking at me.”
I replied loud enough so that the adult male with her could hear me, “What do you expect the dog to do, when you started barking at the dog?”
This leads to Incident #4.
Incident #4
Now we have two dogs. They like to bark, especially if they see this same neighbor outside. He makes it quite clear that he does not like my dogs. Every time they let out one bark, he yells, “Shut up!” When this happens I call the dogs in.
About a year or so later I’m coming out of the shower and hear a knock on the door. Quickly I get dried off and dressed in case whoever was knocking is still waiting at the door. No one is there, but in my mailbox is a notice from the local SPCA. It’s a noise complaint with a number to call. Immediately I call the animal shelter and speak with the person that left the notice in my mailbox. He told me that a neighbor had called them to complain that my dogs are left outside barking at all times of the day and night. He could not tell me who had filed this complaint but I knew right away who it was. I proceeded to explain to the man, everything that had happened, since moving into the house. His advice to me was to keep track on a calendar of every time the dogs barked, how many times they barked before calling them into the house, and the time of day it happened. He suggested I do this just in case the neighbor complained again and this way I would have documentation should we need to go to court over the matter. He also said to me that he worked for my dogs and not for my neighbor.
I do exactly what the man at the SPCA suggested. Since all of this has happened many dogs have moved into the neighborhood. We have not heard a peep out of said neighbor and hopefully never will again.
I would like to put up an eight foot fence across the back of our property, and hopefully will one of these days.
"It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor."
Eric Hoffer
"You can be a good neighbor only if you have good neighbors."
Thankfully I have other neighbors that I do like. When we see each other outside we wave or talk to each other, and get along quite well. Thanks for reading my hub. Please feel free to let me know if you too have neighbors like this in the comment box.
