Spank thy neighbor...

Things should get interesting in the neighborhood here shortly. About two years ago, give or take, the house to the right of ours was sold to a family that, to be honest, have not turned out to be the best of neighbors. We thought we might have some sort of connection with them upon first meeting them, the husband is an engineering grad from Penn State, but as time has past, frankly, it’s just not going well.

First off, while I suppose they are ‘nice’ people, the fact is they are ‘strange’ – and while I don’t like to mean that in a negative way, I guess I really do. They are uneasy conversationalists and don’t seem to have any social skills which make them seem confrontational or uncooperative when approached. The wife stays home most of the time, working part time, and has/is home schooling the kids. (Side note: A few education friends and I have debated the idea of home schooling and have concluded that there are two sorts of folk that home school their kids. One might be for genuine concern for the current state of public or private schools or for religious reasons, and the second is because the parents themselves have issues integrating themselves into society and possess control issues and an arrogance in the sense that they think they can do a better job educating their kids than anyone else. Given the interaction I’ve had with this family, I can’t help but feel that arrogance is driving the bus to school on this one.) They also seem to have a certain ‘earthy’ quality about them, which is fine – reduce, reuse, recycle where you can, but truthfully their approach to things and people is a bit awkward for the ‘Truman Show,’ here are the rules, neighborhood we live in.

The family got a pair of dogs last summer, and anyone who knows me knows I love puppies…I covet the neighborhood dogs since we can’t have one of our own. Most of the animals are mild mannered, friendly, quiet and supervised even when outside. However, there are issues with these dogs and this family. Since they got the dogs someone would always walk them out to do their business on those retractable leashes, yet dispite having 'control' of the animals they seemed to feel it was appropriate to allow the leads out far enough that the dogs could come into my yard, in my driveway, etc to perform the task at hand and do nothing to clean it up. On more than one occasion I’ve had visitors step in the waste while outside helping my husband do something with the house…not exactly the ‘thank you’ I’d care to extend. Free spirit or not, one must still mind those pet manners, and I’m just not feeling it.

Over the past few months while exchanging brief words with the family, I learned they were going to be installing an invisible fence for the dogs. This whole deal has created some grumbling amongst the neighbors because upon having the property surveyed, it would seem they did not necessarily use the right property map on file with the county and had their yard marked out beyond what anyone would agree is their land. The owners of the two houses behind us have had the most trouble in dealing with these people and a few verbal bombs have been thrown about because both these families have had their properties surveyed since buying their homes and the survey these new people insist on using most definitely cuts into the other people’s yards and into the ‘neutral zone’ designated by our property association between the homes.

Well, this is where it gets interesting. The invisible fence didn’t happen. The five/six foot wooden fence did…and they had no hesitation in having it installed right where their survey said it could go. In doing so, they have most definitely fenced in the ‘neutral zone’ and possibly have damaged some landscaping done by one of the families. I’ve spoken with the husband from one of the houses and he is rip-roaring mad and the dirt is going to fly on this. I even have some questions about the fence as it runs along our property…it’s dead on the property line and I need to check with our home owners association to see if that is allowable or if there must be some sort of buffer.

In other words, this summer is going to be the summer of NEIGHBOR WARS, SUBURB DEVELOPMENT STYLE.

All this leads up to what is my real concern. I’ve been watching the dogs from our deck and in just a matter of days the same dogs that were literally led around by their necks yet still uncontained for a year or more are now left outside unattended for HOURS…with little if no ‘integration’ into the new environment. So far, I wouldn’t classify them as bad dogs, but they are big enough with tons of puppy energy and are wrestlers, barkers, and possibly diggers and it’s just a matter of time until they exercise their new found freedom and become jumpers (I’ve already caught the one practicing.) Once these animals figure out that the slope of the yard is literally a launch ramp to get over the fence, I figure it’s just a matter of time until one of them makes it over and chases down whatever it previously was only able to bark at. I’m going to have serious issues with this should it happen given I will have a two year old running amuck come summertime, and while I know I’m going to be responsible for keeping an eye on her in my yard…there might only be so much about this situation under my control and not having much confidence in the abilities of the owners next door doesn't help.