Sigh... the neighbor is at it again...

Hey everyone! If you’ve been following me, Hannah, on Twitter (X) over the last year and a half or so, you’ve probably seen some posts about our neighbor. We’ve received a bunch of questions on Twitter asking for updates on the situation, so we figured we’d take this time to fill everyone in on the latest.

It’s kind of a long story, so this newsletter doesn’t cover everything in depth, but you'll get the idea. Here is a cute photo of a Boo blep as dog tax for today!

We purchased a house almost two years ago in a nice neighborhood. Right away, we noticed the neighbor’s dogs, a Rottweiler and a Catahoula Leopard Dog (or so they say…it looks like a fat black lab to us), were constantly walking all around our house and all around the neighborhood at their leisure.

We knew this meant it would not be safe for us to let Boo (an only dog at the time) outside on a lead to go potty by himself. If the loose dogs tried to get him, he wouldn’t be able to get away. Because of that reason, Boo stayed at Beth’s for a few extra weeks until we were able to get a fence installed.

This was during the time when lumber was super expensive. Talking with friends who had recently had a fence installed, we knew it was going to be very expensive. I started looking around on Facebook Marketplace to see if anyone had a used fence for sale. I thought the odds of that were pretty low, though.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long to find someone selling a six foot tan privacy fence on Facebook. It seemed too good to be true. The seller had a mutual friend with my cousin, so I asked my cousin if they were trustworthy or not and she said they were.

We went to look at the fence, which was not too far from our house. The fence was neatly stacked on pallets and estimated to be about 150 feet worth. The seller works in construction and had removed it from a property they were working on and he was selling it just to have it gone. We ended up negotiating for it and bought it for just $1,000, AND he delivered it all to our house! He said it was originally probably at $10,000 fence brand new.

So now we had a fence…we just had to install it. We had never installed fences before. We did research on the property lines and had all utilities marked before digging. The property line was a big argument with the neighbor as well, even when we had proof of the lines from the county.

We started installing the fence, digging each hole by hand with a post hole digger. By “we dug each hole by hand”, I mean my dad and Riley lol. I helped with everything else though. We completed a few posts and panels a day for a few days, and then rented an auger to knock out the rest of the fence over a weekend.

For never installing a fence before and finding a fence for so cheap that was in such great shape, I’m super proud of my find and the job we did! After a quick power washing, it looks brand new!

But the most important part - BOO WAS SAFE!

So that solved part of our neighbor/dog problem.

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I was annoyed that almost every day, the Rottweiler was still walking all around our property at all hours of the day and night. It was pooping everywhere. It ate our outdoor decorations. We tried talking to the neighbor about it, letting him know we have dogs here too and that they are anxious around other people and dogs. Clearly, that did nothing though.

We had tried calling animal control about the loose dog but were blown off every time. We were told they wouldn’t do anything until the dog hurt another animal or human. The Rottweiler was literally in our yard 14 out of 16 days in a row at one point. That doesn’t happen by accident.

One day, I was walking Boo around the neighborhood when the Rottweiler ran down the road toward us. He circled us, snarling and hunched down. I put myself between Boo and the Rottweiler, yelling at the Rottweiler to get back. The neighbor was outside just watching it all happen. I yelled at him to come get his dog. The neighbor eventually shooed the dog away, but didn’t apologize or anything. We have not walked that route since.

We did call the cops for this incident, because I was legit scared for my life in that situation. Animal control came the next day, but didn’t even talk to the neighbor because “it was too early and he didn’t want to disturb them”.

I do carry some pepper spray and other things to protect us on walks should it happen again. But luckily, it hasn’t yet.

Another time, we were trying to take Pence on a walk. We walked out our garage door and into our driveway and were met by the Rottweiler standing in our front yard. Every time Riley would turn his back and start walking the other direction with Pence, the Rottweiler would take off running after them. We even got it on video.

We called for animal control again. The officer blew us off again, saying he went over to pet the dog and the dog seemed nice.

On two occasions, I was cornered in my own garage by the Rottweiler as he was growling at me and in a defensive position. I had literally just gotten home and got out of my car. Our security system videos showed the Rottweiler running across our yard and straight to the garage when he saw me.

I called for animal control again. They once again told us the dog seemed nice. Even after I showed them the video of it happening. The next day, I called and asked for a supervisor. When I told the supervisor everything that had been going on, he was in disbelief that his officers hadn’t done anything to help us out. The dog was clearly a nuisance and a danger.

Animal control ended up seizing the Rottweiler. However, the neighbor’s stepdad works for the city, so he was able to use his place to get the dog out and the charges dropped. The neighbor was strictly told numerous times to keep the dog on a leash for months and refused to.

A day or two later, the dog was roaming the neighborhood again, causing trouble. The animal control supervisor had him seized again. This time, they were not allowed to get the dog back unless they installed a fence because they clearly were not going to use a leash. The stepdad paid for a fence to be installed and again had their charges dropped. They got the dog back again.

For several weeks, we didn’t see the dog at all. We thought the issue may have actually been solved. Until one day, I was working in the home office and I heard what sounded like a dog snarling/attacking a person or another dog next door. I quickly looked at the security cameras and saw the neighbors freaking out in the back yard. Police showed up like an hour later but left after a couple minutes. Apparently they were told everything was fine. So we still have no idea what happened that day.

Shortly after that, the Rottweiler was roaming around loose a couple days in a row again.

Then one morning, we woke up to find our neighbor completely tweaking out on drugs standing at our front door with a broom. He stood there for several minutes, flailing all around, before moving over to our garage door. It was TERRIFYING.

I called the cops again. I also texted the animal control supervisor, because he has been the only one really trying to help us out with the neighbor and dog situation. He responded immediately. We filled out a police report and were instructed to trespass the neighbor from the property. We had to have another officer come out to the property to do the trespass though.

The neighbor has officially been trespassed, so if he is ever on our property again for any reason, he can be arrested. He admitted to using drugs again in the last month or two. He had no idea that he and the Rottweiler were on our property at all. Apparently he was super apologetic and said a bunch of nice things about us, which doesn’t sound like him at all, so I’m skeptical if he actually meant it.

After everything we’ve been through with the neighbor and the dog, we are super thankful for the animal control supervisor and everything he has done to help. Officers have tried talking to him recently about getting help for his drug problems. His own family wants him arrested/hospitalized for his problems. The police had no grounds to arrest him previously, but the trespass would have him arrested if he comes on our property. Meanwhile, the police are looking into other possible ways to get him help.

All in all, it has been a very long, exhausting fight. Riley, myself, Boo, and Pence are all safe and we will protect ourselves and the dogs at all costs. We hope that the neighbor will get the help he needs and turn his life around or leave the property.

I appreciate all the advice we’ve received on Twitter throughout all of these situations and are following the recommended processes to deal with things.

Thank you to everyone who has checked in with us periodically to see how things were going with the Rottweiler and neighbor situation. Hopefully nothing else too exciting happens and we don’t have much to share about it in the future. Fingers crossed!