Lion and Magic Boy

So, in case you were wondering, I finally had a chance to find out what would come next after the “Hey”. Remember my lovely neighbors, them of the three (count them, three!) dogs and the blatant disregard for borders and yards and basically anyone but their own selfish selves? Remember them?

Well. After seething for several additional days while watching their dogs roam free through our yard, adding deposits at will, I finally had enough. It happened while I watched one of the neighbors stand in front of my front window, not fifteen feet from it, while watching her dog on the thirty-foot leash walk and poop indiscriminately through our yard. I put my shoes on and warned the children, “I’m going in! Cover me!” and stepped outside.

As I rounded the corner, the neighbor’s head whipped around as if it was on a string and her eyes got huge. I was grateful that there was a package on my front doorstep that I had been unaware of, as it gave me a reason to be out there besides telling her what I went out there to tell her, which was, “Hey! I’m your neighbor, and I have three children who would like to use their yard, except they can’t because your dogs are pooping everywhere, so I’d like you to clean it up. We talked to you about this six months ago and I thought the matter was taken care of.”

[I know, I know. I'm SO good with people, aren't I? Wait. It gets better.]

Eyes still the size of Eric’s pancakes, she said, “I’ll tell Joe.”

Joe? Who the fuck is Joe????? SHE’S out there with several of the dogs, doesn’t that mean anything?

Here’s a snapshot of who I think is living in that house:

Older-guy, 40-something, khaki pants and loafers-without-socks. You know the type. Real estate agent. This is Joe.

Woman-with-pancake-eyes, sort of, uh, solidly-built, wears long coats that make her look like a sausage. Hard to tell the age. I used to think she was Joe’s wife-woman, but Michael says as per a conversation he had once with Joe, she may be a daughter. Whatever. She’s not aging gracefully.

Several twenty-somethings or maybe teens (who can tell?), heroin-thin, ripped t-shirts and bad attitude, the usual. Maybe two girls and a guy? It’s hard to tell. Among them they have at least four cars and park right in front of our house, not like we ever have company or anything, but we might. Someday. Maybe. In another millenium maybe. But still, that’s “our” space, right?

So I go in the house, dusting off my hands and thinking I’ve taken care of the matter.

Not so.

This afternoon I was dumping cat litter in my own trash can (and NOT in my neighbor’s yard! Imagine!) and I noticed that the little yardlet out back between my driveway and theirs was covered in new dog poop. Lots of it, like four times the usual amount (not that I count it or anything). Bigger dog poop than previously, which meant that instead of being responsible ablout the whole thing from yesterday, they just let ALL the dogs out in the back instead of just the little useless yapper that usually is tied up there.

Without thinking, I walked over and rang their back doorbell. Instantly dogs barked inside and eventually the door opened to reveal one of the twenty-somethings, glaring at me and attempting to hold back three poorly-trained dogs who clearly wanted to gnaw my eyeballs out. I asked her politely to please clean up the dog poop back here, and she called me “ma’am” in a deprecating voice, told me it was their yard and they could do what they pleased, and she slammed the door shut in my face.

So I did what anyone would do.

I searched around for something, a piece of cardboard, and went over to the multiple piles of poop not a foot from my car door, right up by my driveway. They were wet and fell apart easily (hmm. SOMEBODY should have picked them up before they got that way!) and were difficult to move, but when I got them moved, they MIGHT have accidentally somehow been flung onto the neighbor’s sidewalk (which by the way already had poop on it in several places, but now it had, well, more). Might. Accidentally. Something like that.

Then we had to run out for cat litter, which I suddenly found we were completely out of and we had to get some immediately.

When we got home, the poop was gone from their walkway and the grass had been raked or something (not very well), and Joe’s business card was stuck in our door with the message, “please call.”

When I call him, I’ll let you know how it goes.

If only she hadn’t called me “ma’am”.

[tags]neighbors, dogs, poop [/tags]