They say good fences make good neighbors

We've all had those neighbors...when Jen and I lived in Simi we had 4. The people below us had maybe 3 families living in a 2 bedroom apartment and INSISTED on making the most ridiculously stinky food 3 meals a day that the smell came up through our floor and pipes, gross! Our next door neighbor had a revolving door of very "noisey" woman. The neighbor behind them always fought with her boyfriend on the balcony and it wasn't quiet arguments, it was screaming and crying. (turns out that neighbor was my coworkers sister...small world), the peoples bed behind my room was right up against the wall, need I say more.


When Erick and I lived in Utah, our neighbor across the street parked his old broken down truck across the street from our driveway, our other neighbor let his dogs out to poop on our yard.


Well Nebraska is no different. We have a chain link fence around our yard that we knew was going to be a problem because Allee barks at everything she sees, but we thought we would be able to deal since I work from home, I thought I'd be able to keep it under control. Well I thought I was. Until we got an anonymous note in our mailbox that said our dog was a nuisance and barked constantly. Immediately I go on the defensive and think THERE IS NO WAY, I'M HOME ALL DAY, I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. Then I get upset because I never wanted to be "those people" you know...the annoying neighbor...and then I get mad again, so Erick and I talk about it, we had talked about putting up a new fence for a while, but just never had the motivation, time or money. So now I guess there is our motivation, we'll have to dig up the money and hire someone to do it because we still don't have the time.

So we've been to each of our other neighbors to apologize for our annoying dog, they've all said she's not annoying...barks...but not annoying. So in my bad attitude of yesterday I decided to walk around the corner to talk to the lady (I'll call her, "Red") I knew wrote the note. I was simply going to explain that we were going to put up a fence to trying inhibit some of our dogs barking and we were going to do everything we could to make her stop the excess....instead I was met with the nastiest woman....the conversation lasted about 15 minutes...most of which I don't remember and I don't know how I held back so long from decking Red right then and there....She told met that if our fence ruined their fence she was calling the police and if by putting up the fence it doesn't stop the dog from barking she was calling animal control. I kept my cool some how until I said, well I apologize if my dogs barking has annoyed you; she looked me right in the face as if she was going to burn me with her beady little eyes and said "it's about damn time you apologized, that's all I wanted" turned around and marched inside. My mouth dropped....I was more upset that she got the last word! THAT'S IT...IT'S WAR!

I never wanted to be in a war with my neighbors, but it's on sister! So I called up Erick that night and I said, that's it....we're putting up a 6 foot fence just on her side, I'm whacking off the branches of her bushes that are hanging in our yard and littering our side with leaves, bees, wasps and dead flowers and we're getting a surveyor....heaven help her if her ugly fence is even 1/4 of an inch our yard.

I just can't imagine that someone has nothing better to do in her life but to sit and stew over a dog barking. She said her neighbors dog doesn't bark like our dog. WELL HELLO!!! Your neighbors dog is an Akita....THEY DON'T BARK.....ALMOST NEVER BARK! and if they do bark, you better watch out because it's bad.

I want to be a good neighbor we try to be good neighbors, we keep to ourselves, we don't have raging parties, I try to make sure my yard doesn't look ghetto, if Erick can't mow the lawn I get out and do it, we've made huge improvements to the house since moving in. All of our neighbors work during the day and are gone and she's the only one sitting at home with nothing else to do...well it's on RED, it's ON!