Escalation

I'm thinking that I'm at the starting point of what may become a neighbor-feud.

We have this retired couple next door. Initially, it was just the man . . . and he was nearly retired when he moved in. He seemed harmless enough, for a yankee. He retired and promptly started experiencing heart troubles. Oh, and someone told him to get a dog so he'd be forced to walk.

So, in the year or so between his retirement and acquiring a wife, our neighbor had several bouts of being MIA and leaving the dog unattended. The cute little fat puppy turned into a mostly German Shepard but something else we can't quite figure out mutt. It is untrained, undisciplined, and destructive as all hell. It also barks every minute of every day. Other neighbors have complained to animal control, and he has been warned to take better care of his pooch, twice. I think the third time is when they take it away from him. He has whined to us about the complaints made . . . and we have just made "mmm, hmmm" type noises and neglected to tell him that we hate him and his dog because every time we even go near that side of OUR yard, the dog barks and jumps at the fence and we're afraid someday it will go through the fence. If it comes through the fence, into my yard, and so much as sniffs my dog . . . animal control will take it.

So, continuing, there have been times when he left the dog outside for days at a time and The Phenom and I have done "rock, paper, scissors" to decide who is going to peek in his front windows to see if he's dead on the floor.

Then, he acquired a wife. She seems nice enough although he says that she's not terribly thrilled with moving from Chi-town to the rural south. I understand. But, she did choose it.

I tried to be a good neighbor . . . bringing over baked goods and what not. The reason I stopped is because when I pop over at 6pm with a plate of cookies . . . damned if they both don't come to the door in their barely closed, rather flappy bathrobes with nothing on under.

Back in the fall, our neighbor rankled the Phenom by going off on some Pro-Cheney/Rumsfeld rant and telling us that Obama is a terrorist muslim socialist. I simply walked away. The Phenom returned to our home with steam literally coming from his ears; and he's not even the politically opinionated one.

Fast forward to this summer. On the side of the yard that meets his drive way, we have two large, at least 20 year old azaleas. Each spring, I trim them back. This year was no exception. But, our neighbor has a one lane drive way and two cars. He and she have decided the remedy is to park one car in the grass partially on our property partially on their driveway. Because the azalea hindered this operation, they butchered it so severely I expect it to die and have seriously thought about chopping the poor thing down completely. Additionally, they decided to "clear" some of the plants I put on that side of the yard . . . including a very special creeping azalea that was a housewarming gift.

Then, a couple weeks ago, they had several boxes that they wished the garbage people to collect. The problem is that the city is very clear that only trash in the actual bin will be collected. But, our neighbors didn't want this wet, bug infested pile of rotting boxes in their yard . . . so they piled them on the corner of our yard.

Last night, I moved them back into our neighbor's yard. I told the Phenom that if they got moved back to our yard, I would report them to the city and they would be cited. The boxes were gone this afternoon, but I noticed our neighbor digging in our yard . . . looks like he's trying to replace our azalea. Out of spite, I'm tempted to trim it back next spring so severely it too dies. I won't . . . but only because I respect the plant too much.