Troubled People

I bought my home about 4 years ago. It was a nice, quiet, older neighborhood. All the neighbors have been extremely pleasant accept for 1 household. It's a man and his wife and their two children (a son in his 20's and a daughter that appears to be around 12 or 13).

When I first started meeting the neighbors many of them warned me about this man, saying things like, "he calls the cops on everyone for everything", "he's mean", "stay away from him"........etc etc etc. I always try not to judge others especially by what others say so I tried to be friendly. I would wave when they were outside, I would say hello as I passed by on my walks just trying to be neighborly.

At first they were friendly and would say hello back. Then I started noticing little things that bothered me. Some mornings I would wake up to get ready for work and I would see through the windows that he and his son were standing in the middle of the street outside my home looking towards my house. I didn't let this bother me too much. Then I would notice that when my dogs were outside on their dog run ( I didn't have a fence at that time) they would be outside teasing and hollaring and throwing sticks at my dogs, irritating them. This I would not and could not allow. I stepped outside and informed them that with large dogs you could not behave in that manner towards them. I let them know that behavior such as that was deemed threatening by the dogs and that it would aggitate them possibly causing behavior problems that they had never had nor did I intend for them to gain.

Other neighbors would tell me that he would be walking around my yard during the day when I was at work trying to look in the windows but the dogs (who live in my house) would bark and they would move away from the house. This quickly caught my attention and caused worry. I spoke to them and informed them that if I was not home I did not want them on my property and would appreciate it if they would not go on my property and bother my dogs.

Shortly after that animal control started showing up at my house on a weekly basis. I would come home from work to find notes from animal control on my front door saying a neighbor had called saying the dogs were loose in the street. I would call animal control and state the obvious: "when you left the note on my front door, where were the dogs?" The animal control officer would state inside the house barking out the window at him. That would drop the issue. Then every few days it was the same story.......a neighbor called saying they were out. One morning specificly I was woken up by a loud knocking at the door. I threw on my housecoate and jumped out of bed to get the front door (friends and family always come to my back door so I knew it was something urgent). It was animal control stating that they received a call that the dogs were loose again. I was so angry I lit into the animal control officer! I asked him if I looked like a person who had been out chasing their dogs around? I told him I did not appreciate being woke up on one of my only days off, early to tell me that my dogs were out running around when in fact they had been in the bed with me sleeping peacefully until animal control woke us up! He apologized and said he would get to the bottom of the issue to find out what was going on and why this neighbor kept making false reports. I closed my door behind him but looked out my windows and watched him walk across the street to the particular neighbors house whom everyone had warned me about. I was so angry!

Still trying to keep peace I said nothing to the neighbor but I did stop trying to be friendly. Enough was enough and this had started to be harrassing behavior. I started noticing trash in my yard when I would come home from work, saying nothing I would just take pictures and pick it up.

Then one day I came home after work to find my front door was open! I called the police and they looked around and stated it did appear that someone had come in through one of my windows but maybe had been chased out by the dogs. They said they had come by earlier in the day because a neighbor had called saying the dogs were out loose. The officers said that when they arrived both dogs were in the house in the living room in front of the open door. The officers said the dogs would not let them in the house but that they did let them pull the door closed. Excellent! My dogs did as they were trained to do! I noticed that when the officers left they walked over to this same neighbors house again........interesting.

I went to the police department and spoke with the police chief about what had been occuring. I showed him the pictures i had been taking of incidents that had been found upon my return to my home each day. He informed me that the same neighbor had been calling on a daily basis complaining that my dogs were out. I informed the officer that this was not the case as the dogs were in the home each day when I returned from home and that the animal control officer had never found them running loose. I also informed him of the break in and that even that day the officers who arrived at my home didn't find them outside but in fact found them in our home. The chief said he would put a regular patrol on my house and we would get to the bottom of whatever was going on. He asked me if I had ever had any words with the neighbor and I told him that I had been worned when I moved in that this neighbor harrasses everyone and the chief said that this was true. He said each time a new person moves into the neighborhood they start getting calls from this guy but that nothing ever has come of it and the guy usually stops. By this point I had been living in the neighborhood about a year and a half.

A few days later I was in my home with my dogs we were watching television and there was yet another knock at the door. Animal control again! That was it I had had enough. I told the officer that I was sick and tired of the city allowing him to use them to harrass me and that they better figure this out before something bad happened. I told them I wasn't going to put up with this constant harrassment and if it meant I had to get an attorney and sue the city for harrassment, I would. The animal control officer called another officer to the home and we discussed the situation with him. The new officer walked across the street and explained that what he was doing was considered filing false reports and harrassment and would not be tolerated any longer. The man made a few more claims about things that were untrue. The officer stated that the neighbor needed to stay off my property, away from me and my animals and get along. Both officers left.

Later that night, I was alerted to someone on my property by my dogs. I looked out the window to see this man in my front yard. I was so angry! I grabbed the phone dialed the police department, opened the door and said, " D___d Sc____n, get off my property I am calling the police, I have had enough of you and this is going to stop!" I gave the dispatcher my name and address and told her to get an officer here now!". The officer arrived, took my report, walked over to the neighbors house and wrote him a ticket for tresspassing. The next day I went outside in to see what he was doing and found pieces of broken glass scattered all over my yard. I took pictures, called the police again and showed them the glass. They informed me that they had sited him and he would have to pay a fine or take it to court to fight it.

A few weeks went by and the court hearing arrived. I went to the hearing to testify about the troubles that had been occurring. The officers involved were called to the stand and informed the court that this had been going on for almost two yeas now and that they had never found any of the neighbors calls to be accurate. They stated that the neighbor had recently been complaining that when officers arrived each time he called that he thought I was sleeping with the officers. I was appalled! The judge fined the man for the citation and stated that she didn't want to see him in her court again.

In the meantime a new neighbor moved in to the neighborhood. I noticed that the same pattern was occuring with them. Animal control was constantly at their house, officers were constantly at their house and I felt so bad for them. One day while I was working out in my yard the girl who lived in the home walked over to my yard. She stated what had been happening and asked me if I had had any trouble with my dogs. I told her what I had been through and told her who had been the harrasser. Soon another new neighbor moved into the area. A young man and woman with dogs as well. Soon officers started showing up at their house. The situation was completely rediculous. The young man was growing very upset and stated that he was going to find out who was calling on them because even though sometimes their dog did get loose in the neighborhood when they were playing with her she always retrieved the toy they were playing with and returned back to them. This was the case as I had witnessed it on several occasions. Ocassionaly she would come to my yard and "visit" with my dogs but other than that she was no problem.

I felt bad because on one hand this man had left me alone, but on the other hand he had started harrassing others. This man sits in his living room all day by the front window with the blinds pulled open watching everything everyone did. It was rediculous and caused alot of animosity in the neighborhood. We would have weekend gatherings and invite the other neighbors and some would come and some would not. We were never loud and it was never late and he started calling the police saying we were doing it on purpose because we didn't like him. He stated we were having the gatherings to bother him. The officers told him maybe if he tried to get along with his neighbors maybe he would be invited to the gatherings but that they saw nothing wrong with our gatherings.

About another year goes by and everything settles down. I thought great! Maybe he finally got the hint and was going to leave everyone alone! Then last night I did some gardening. I noticed that this neighbor and his wife had walked outside in their front yard. I didn't acknowledge their presence but when on about my gardening. I finished what I was doing and put everything away and sat down on my back steps. I noticed I had left my shovel leaning against the fence post on the inside of my yard. I said oh, forget it I will put it away in the morning. Around 7am this morning I heard my dog barking in the living room. I jumped out of bed and went to see what he was barking at. I flipped on the television and turned to the channel my security camera was on (put that in about six months ago) and rewound the tape to see what had been outside previously. To my amazement I see the harrassing neighbor's son reaching over my fence into my yard and taking my shovel!!! I couldn't believe it. This shovel was so old and there was nothing special about it. He had done this just to bother me, just to cause more problems........
What was wrong with this man that he would behave this way?

What do you do with people like this? How do you make them stop? Apparently fines, and tickets aren't enough to prevent them from behaving this way. Why do people like this have to continuously cause problems? Wouldn't it be much better and wouldn't they have a better experience in life if they did not go around behaving in this manner? How do you deal with people like this?