help!! we live on 6 ac. of farm land, everything was going well until the neighbor from hell took over our lives. an old friend bought a house behind us knowing she could not have her horses there , she asked if we would keep them for her, because of the laws and such in our area it is not an easy thing to agree to, we told her no and since then she has filed over 15 complaints to animal control saying our dogs bark,taken us to court for having a light on our barn[she said we put it there to bother her],for having in her eyes a manure pile[compost to us]and for killing her peacock.we killed it after 2 yrs. of asking her to keep it on her place,it killed 2 turkeys,chickens and did a great job on the window of our car, they think another bird is there go at it. we have had 2 -3 count agencies show up to investigate charges ranging from unfit fencing to fowl smells. we have won every case but we are out of money and cant get her to leave us alone. we even ran over 200ft of 6ft fence to keep her from seeing us! we thought we found the perfect place but now we are not so sure. no we can't move to much time and money invested.

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), April 21, 2000

Answers

What she is doing is called harrassment. I know you're out of money, but scrounge a little more and find an attorney - there are statutes against "frivolous" lawsuits. Or, turn the tables instead of the other cheek and take a look at her property, lifestyle, zoning etc.. and call the authorities. Sometimes a wake-up call is in order. Good luck!

-- Polly (tigger@moutrie.com), April 21, 2000.

Aren't you glad you didn't agree to keep her horses!! The first time something happened to one of them, she would've blamed you, and you would've REALLY been in trouble! With friends like that, who needs enemies. By the way, if you are really strapped financially, there is free legal help available most places -- contact the state legal association to find out.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 21, 2000.

I fully sympathize!! If you get a chance look at a reply I gave under "how much land?". First, 6 acres isn't enough land for any degree of privacy, and although I fully realize this may not seem an option right now, seriously consider finding a 40+ acre spot to move to. At least there your house can be a couple hundred yards from the nearest neighbor. My nearest neighbor is over half a mile off, and that's too darned close even though they're good folks! Not knowing where you're located, I can't give much legal advice, but in my region there isn't any law enforcement whatsoever so we handle everything ourselves. I'm extremely laid-back, even carefully remove lady bugs from bushes before pruning, but I don't tolerate rudeness. When the situation requires it I give a show of force and tell the people to leave. That works in my situation, but probably wouldn't do in your's. Camcorders are a good investment. Take videos of anything occurring to show evidence. Sometimes visiting your county's DA's office and calmly discussing your problems with an assistant DA will go a long ways towards making friends with someone on the 'inside'. Showing the DA and law enforcement you're trying to settle things peacefully usually goes a long ways in your favor (unless of course you have the problem like our's where the trouble makers are law enforcement officers). I hope you get things worked out! I moved my family twice trying to evade bad neighbors, but trouble kept following us. Until we take matters into our own hands, bad neighbors are a thorn that never goes away.

Larry

-- Larry (sesquiq@mail.com), April 21, 2000.

Renee, see a lawyer & get a cease & desist order. As aomeone else mentioned, scratch together some $$. Hope this helps, you & your family are in our prayers.

-- Phyllis Redding (almostafarm@yahoo.com), April 21, 2000.

Chalk it up to lessons learned. We should know. Ours is a similar story, only we ourselves are to blame for letting things get out of hand. We only have a little under 2 acres of land--boy does 40 or more sound good!--but finances dictated what we have, and we absolutely refuesed to raise our kids in town. Anyway, our problem is with a neighbor who thinks he lives in town. (We live seven miles from town.) The first summer we lived here, he waited til Memorial Day weekend when we were out of town and ripped out all our trees and blackcap bushes on one side of our property. Those trees served as a privacy screen as well from another neighbor. (This guy owns a strip of land between the properties, as well as land behind our property.)

Upon talking to the man we bought the property from, he assured us that those trees and bushes were in fact on our side of the line. However, my husband, wanting to get along with our neighbor, assumed that it was accidental and didn't call the police. Mistake number one. When we confronted the neighbor about this, he said, yeah, but doesn't it look better? The thing was, he is a landscaper, and people could not see his "lovely" home because of our trees. We should have called a lawyer on the spot. We thought since we confronted him, that would be the end. Ha Ha. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile--it's true. He kept mowing further and further unto our side, so we finally got it surveyed. (Another mistake, never buy a place unless it's been surveyed.) My husband cemented in posts and we have bought fencing.--OH I forgot to mention, this neighbor wanted to buy some land on that end of the property from us.- -After stealing it didn't work! Well we refused, we didn't have that much property to begin with. Now we have planted pine trees all around the perimeter and he is upset, saying it is considered a spite fence and if the trees get over 6 ft. tall, we'll have to cut them down. Well, he's full of baloney and we know it but he's irritating the heck out of us. We are in an area zoned agricultural. He will love it when we sock in our 15 apple trees and get our chickens and rabbits! We have been thinking of getting a pig and naming it "Spite." haha. We let that end of our property grow up into pasture and are considering letting a friend pasture his horse there. This guy had the nerve to tell my husband he was being "assinine" over the line issue. I guess we've learned you don't take any bull from anyone. Our house has been here for 100+ years. He just built his. If he wanted people to be able to see his house, he shouldn't have built on a site that was behind someone else's house, or better yet, maybe he should move to town! Guess this has been long winded, but it felt good to get it off my chest!

-- Laurie (SUPERGS63@AOL.COM), April 21, 2000.

Renee, You put in the fence, now if you don't want to move, plant lots of apple trees, berry bushes, flowering crabs. Anything to shield your property from hers. At least she's not shooting at you which is what our "neighbor" did when we moved onto property that had been in my family for over 50 years. The sheriff said they couldn't do anything about him. He had a right to stand on his own property and scream at us. The neighbor told the sheriff he was teaching his 7 yr. old son to shoot- yeah, by shooting at us! But they wouldn't do anything because he hadn't hurt us! Thank God he moved, but we put up with that nonsense for 3 years. So just hang in there- maybe she'll move.

-- Peg (WI) (wildwoodfarms@hushmail.com), April 21, 2000.

You said that this neighbor was an "old friend"...hmmmmm, I wonder if it would be possible, even at this late date with all that has happened, to ask for a truce with her...to offer, with a third party present..perhaps a minister....a sit down, heart to heart? Who knows what she's thinking?????I have found that when someone changes so drastically, that it is often overlooked that they may be ill, or just at their wits end over something else,etc. Many times I have been able to approach folks and gently tell them that ,"Ok, we are all upset here, but I'd sure like to hear your side of things too.Maybe we can work out our problems and become civil to one another again."..Hey, sometimes this does not work at all, but things are already bad..what's the harm in extending the olive branch and see where it could lead???? Put yourself on the other side..suppose she came to your door and said the same thing to you....nobody needs to "pay" for bad behavior, just work to change it.I don't mean to sound preachy, but it's really never too late to extend kindness in the face of anger...unless the person is really nuts like the shooting neighbor ! Hope it works out for you...

-- lesley Chasko (martchas@gateway.net), April 21, 2000.

We had neighbors that harrassed us, and were friends with the sheriff so every time they called, the neighbors were right and we were wrong. They peeked in our windows at night, the man wrote obscene letters, the boy threatened to kill my boys. The law did NOTHING. The post office did NOTHING about the letters. After years of the mess, and when their little thug boy joined up with several thugs in the area and began marching back and forth in front of our house, rifles in hand, we moved. The law refused to do anything about the boys with guns because they "hadn't done anything yet". The harrassment list would fill this forum's space. We moved out and left it, and as much as I dislike living here, it is better than the alternative. These neighbors were so great, they even refused to call 911 when another neighbor had been hurt in a fight and was bleeding to death on their DOORSTEP. The blood stains are still visible on their concrete steps and on the bricks beside their front door. What goes around, comes around, and sometime they will get their turn. I left it with the you know whats.

Buy as much land as you can possibly afford. You can improve a house, or build a larger one later, but it is difficult to add land, especially if the land around fills up with houses. Get your space first, then worry about outbuildings.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), April 22, 2000.

I think Lesley has a good idea, and If It dosnt work what was lost ? Hurt feelings can cause a lot of problems.

-- kathy h (saddlebronc@msn.com), April 22, 2000.

When we moved to this area, there was one man who harrassed us ----I could fill this forum with all he did to us--but ya get the picture. Every time I saw him I started praying for him--(maybe to keep from shooting him--cause he was so awful). I discussed with an oldier man in this area-- how terrible & nasty, & awful this man was & how I had to close my business because of him. I told the oldier man I would move if I could afford to. He said, to keep praying for him--& if that didn't do any good to out live him. The guy died two years ago now, & it is beginning to turn around.---So, pray for your enemies--& out live them!!!! And good luck to you!

-- Sonda Bruce (sgbruce@birch.net), April 22, 2000.

Neighbor problems can become TERRIBLE! I have land in the woods which is accessed over another parcel and neighbors who covet my land. they got the bright idea that they could force me to "abandon" my land by the process of blocking my access. At first the neighbor came after me with a shotgun, telling me he would shoot my dogs if I used that access to go to my land. Appeals to the Sheriff and the County Attorney and the Prosecuting Attorney all fell on deaf ears, thanks to our Constitution, in which the law requires that an accused by presumed innocent until proved otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. The way the proof requirement is, I had to be a guinea pig to see if he would shoot me or my dogs! Finally I took color photos of this jerk and typed up a law case against him and filed it in the circuit court, while getting the prosecutor to file a brandishing case against him in the General District Court, which his lawyer plea bargained away so that the case was dismissed but if he did it any more, stalking charges would be brought against him. Naturally, he just found other ways and other people to torment me, such as by putting up a gate across my access road, following me on the public highways, putting nails in my tires so I had blow-outs --

When a neighbor has no regular employment and becomes obsessive about you, thinking up ways to harm and harass you round the clock, it is an extremely difficult situation and the law (meaning the Sheriff, etc). simply will not do anything to protect you. There just isn't any system of preventive law in this country, as any battered wife can tell you.

If you fight back, the situation can get VERY ugly, very fast. If you let things go on without doing anything, the bad neighbor may become emboldened and do even worse things, like a child, to provoke you to the point where you snap. If you go to a lawyer, you may get charged a lot of money but end up with no positive results and possibly a worse situation.

I have had almost eight years of misery with my personal situation and gradually, by standing up for my rights but never retaliating in kind, I've begun to erode the avalanche of negativity. I've known other persons in similar situations who simply said it was not worth the energy, and they sold their property and found another place. Each person I know who found another place, found a BETTER place and was gald they had made this drastic move. Based on their experiences, sometimes It's better to cut your losses and leave. Of course, then you have to think about the poor person who buys your place, and what will happen to them! I myself love my land and have decided to stay and stick it out.

I don't know if this helps you at all, renee, but there are other people with problems similar to yours. Perhaps that will give you some encouragement. It may be that there is something your neighbor wants such as friendship or acknowledgement, and you could find a way to give that to her. Surely, with her behavior, she must not have any friends! What my bad neighber wants is my land. He's been quite frank about that, and that's one thing he's not getting, no matter what he does!

Good luck.

-- Elizabeth Petofi (VA) (tengri@cstone.net), April 25, 2000.

Hello,

Goodness,, I did not know the bad neighbor thing was sooo wide spread. Really childish of me,I guess.., but I was hoping the rest of the country had all nice people! Everyone on CountrySide seem to be really nice!! :O) Still dealing with a bad neighbor that moved in a few months ago. Sigh.... Wrote them a very nice letter, asking them PLEASE stop with the noise,,they did for one day. Now they are back at it. Bigger sigh.... Wish there was somewhere one could good and Not have to hear Machines, chainsaws and all that kind of stuff all day everyday. All that noise can drive a person batty. They still have not fixed the drive they totally messed up,, by the way is on my land, and they have no easement to it. But I have figured, it is not worth my time or health, to be as mean to them as they have been to my family. I mean,, I could very legaly block their entry to their land. Tempting,,, but I would never do it. Right now, we are going to go ahead and shop around for the largest piece of land we can afford in our area. I hate to move again,,but husband was in the Navy for 21+years so we became used to it.But tell you one thing,,, all my lopsided buildings we put up are coming with us!!Lets see, the lopsided chicken house, the lopsided llama shed, etc etc... :O)

-- Bergere (autumnhaus@aol.com), April 26, 2000.