the neighborhood

When we first moved into our townhouse, June 2005, the neighborhood was great. We share our house with one other house... our house is basically one huge house and then split down the middle into two homes which are very long and not so very wide! Everything is the same in them just flipped around.
It was the best option for our first house as we have 1900 square feet and it was built in the 80's. The houses we were looking at in our price range were built between 1900-1940 and TINY. (and our house is pretty much packed the way it is right now, so I'm not sure how we would have managed. I am quite sure, however, my husband would have loved to throw some things away!!)
We got a great deal on our house, although the yard is pretty little and with a chain link fence we can see five yards up and down the block and it doesn't offer much privacy. But this is our "starter" home and so we can't have it all...
The lady who lives across the yard from us, our house doesn't adjoin hers, was never around, we never saw her outside... EVER! So all of a sudden her daughter + three kids + friend... lover.. not sure what this other girl's role is.. move in. And all hell breaks loose. They decide to shovel all this rock from her front pation into boxes. The garbage men would not take it, so they proceed to leave the boxes of rocks (in front of our house as well) out on the sidewalk for over a month. Finally I talked DH and neighbor man into shoveling them into our garbage cans because I really would not prefer to have cardboard boxes sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house for the next year.. You know those types of people. Do it half-assed and then leave it? Well that method is fine as long as its something that doesn't effect me or the way my yard looks. So then they dig out ALL these bushes... surprisingly the garbage men picked those up, thank god! And now there is this big bare ugly spot in their yard... I should make a bet on how long it takes them to actually do something decent with it.
And, here's the kicker, they get a puppy. Which is fine and great and I think everyone should be entitled to having pets, under the condition that you actually take care of them. Well our chain link fence that divides our yard and hers is raised up off the ground, not very far, but for the purpose of weed eating under the fence (as she didn't take care of her yard when she lived alone... someone else did). Now the little bugger dog comes into OUR yard, steals our dogs toys, and takes them back to his yard. So... I have chased him out many times, it goes unnoticed. Apparently they cannot hear me yelling from inside their house, which I highly doubt. *a/k/a ignorance!*
So... I have decided to start leaving the gate of our yard open. And yes, this may be cruel but I have had it with this ignornant people and there nasty habits and their annoying dog. I realize its not the dog's fault, she just wants to play. But you cannot leave a puppy outside, alone, for two hours and not think she isn't getting into trouble. Our dog is well over 80 pounds and I quite know that she will be not crawling under the fence into someone else's yard. She is not ever outside unattended without being locked in our yard. She is not allowed to bark and only does so when eyeing a cat or a stranger, which I appreciate. Neighbor's dog barks and barks and barks. Our houses are merely 15 feet apart, therefore if I'm hearing the barking, I guarantee they are too.... Although they probably just turn the TV up louder to drown it out.
I'd like to go over and say something, but what do I say? I'm frustrated with this right now... I really want to leave my neighborhood because of this, and the need for more space... but I love our little home!
I guess I just need to go check out a little flower bed divider and put it up by our fence as the dog owners won't do anything about it...
Also... one day the dog destroyed a newspaper... so papers all over their yard... and they haven't done a thing to clean it up! It just honestly drives me crazy. I want to build a big tall fence around our yard so I don't have to see or deal with our neighbors ignorance!

Okay sorry, back to the regulary happy holiday season! Last night when I got home, the gate was closed... so we'll see what happens today. I will continue to leave it open every single day until it finally sinks in!