Post #262178 by Chip and Andy on Sun, Oct 22, 2006 6:57 AM

Sorry to hear they are ganing up on you. It is much easier if you are taking them on one-at-a-time, but in a group they have the louder voice when dealing with any of the City functionaries.....

Working for my local Government I can offer the following.....

Go and spend a lot of time at your local government office that is in charge of building permits, spend some time in the zoning and landuse office, spend some time in the office that is in charge of Code Enforcement (or what it is called in your government), and then spend a bit of time talking to the police department. The more you know about what can and can't be done and how to do it, the easier it will it be to call off the horible neighbors. When they call and say your dogs are being a nusiance, you will be able to talk to the officers responding in the correct language proving that you are the better citizen and the neighbors are being a bunch of old-bitties. Like G.I.Joe said, Knowldge is Power.

And, since you are not in an Association and don't have the formal rules associated, you have a lot more power over your own property than all of your neighbors seem to think. The hardest part of the whole thing is that they are ganging up on you which makes it very hard for you to stay on the offensive. When you have confirmed that you have all of your permits and paperwork in order, you can then turn the tables and remind them that they too have something in their yards that Code would like to look at. Doesn't that plant in the back corner look an awfull lot like a Pot plant? And wasn't the neighbor kid hanging around with 'those' kids a lot lately?

Good luck, keep the faith. We are here for you, let us know what we can do to help.....