So, let me start off by saying that my SO and I get along with most of our neighbors. We live in a suburban neighborhood where all the yards are fenced, but were all friendly enough to wave at each other in the morning, and talk through our fences.

Except for one house. The house on one side of us contains a retired mom and her two adult (older than us adult) children who still haven’t moved out because they’re “just getting acclimated” after moving back here from Georgia state over two years ago. The trash and recycling from their bins routinely ends up in our yard, so I’m constantly picking up garbage. It’s obnoxious.

Many of us have dogs that stay in our yards. The crappy neighbors (who we affectionally call the Shit Squad) have two dogs. One is lazy and quiet; the other is a hellhound. When our dog was a puppy, the hellhound would rush the fence and bark at her - scared her half the time. But she picked up on this crappy behavior. We’ve mostly trained the barking out of her, but she’s in timeout now for barking through the fence at the hellhound.

We’re looking at getting our dog a bark collar to stop that last bit of bad behavior (both dogs were barking, keep in mind), but I feel so bad that she’s getting punished for this jerk of a dog on the other side of the fence.

My SO and I have tried to talk to these neighbors more than once. The mom and her adult son are perfectly rational humans. The adult daughter, on the other hand, is absolutely horrendous trash who sits outside and chain smokes all day and never leaves the house, as far as we can tell. I work from home twice a week and just want to be able to let my dog out to pee without my stress level going through the roof.

And before anyone says to contact the town or whatever, I called the police to understand town ordinances, etc. our police chief is really cool, and she walked me through a bunch of stuff right after we closed on the house.

Just venting. I hate that the Shit Squad seriously makes us consider moving because that woman is such an awful person.

The Close-Knit Ones