Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Snarkolepsy has drama today.

I try to lead a very low drama life. But not today I guess.

Some of you may remember many months back I've talked about my neighbors dog. I started out really nice with them. I sent them a card saying you seem like a nice family and maybe you don't know your dog is waking everyone up.

That was a waste of time. Fast forward to many weekdays of being woken up at 6:30 am and things got progressively more shitty. Until one Sunday morning I was banging on their door swat style at 8 AM. Over the visits I asked why they didn't leave the dog in the house. The girl said - they have nice things. Asked me what did I want her to do about it - put it down? She was never apologetic. After a while I could tell she enjoyed that dog barking.

Well after me BANG BANG BANGING on their door they threw me off their property and they probably thought that was the end of that. Didn't change anything about the dog barking. Started at 6:30am and went throughout the whole day.

So I started calling animal control on them. I couldn't go on their property, but the cops can. I called animal control on them seven times and nothing was getting better. So, on the last time, they were like - do you want to sign a ticket? I was like - hell yeah. This means you get to take them to court.

It was at that point that they advised me to start building a case. I had been recording the dog on my phone. But animal control said that unless the judge saw the dog barking - the people would just say it wasn't their dog. So I had to get video proving it was their dog barking.

I'm like great - now I have to be a creeper just to live in peace in my own house. I'm not happy about it,  but what am I going to do? Slowly go crazy listing to this dog all the time. I have a fairly large yard but that neighbor is 10 feet from my house.

Well, last night at 9:30 I get this bang on my door and its the popo saying I had been recording their family and provoking the dog. Which is a complete lie. And also that I was being super creepy. Which I agree - but this was not my idea. I didn't like the idea - but I want this dog to stop.

Animal control told me I had to make sure to show I was not provoking the dog, and prove that it was their dog. Since I have a two story house I just took a few vids from the top story.

Finally after they calmed down about the creepy aspect I told them they could go through the call history and see I was just following animal controls instructions. All my stuff is documented. But they were trying to make it seem like I was creeping out on their family. Like I would want to see that giant man baby. I think he is 72 months pregnant. The family was never even in the yard when the dog was barking or there wouldn't even be a problem.

But it's just astounding how little rights you have in this regard. That woman can leave their dog out to bark 24x7. Then if I want to to stop I have to use police resources. And does anyone even know how uncomfortable it is to have to complain about your neighbor? SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE. Then I'm forced into being a creeper because the judge has to see the actual doc barking. It's like being victimized three times at this point. When I follow the instructions I get the police called on ME.

After all this I've realized that you don't have to talk to good people about their dogs. They get it. They try to coexist peacefully. But every once in a while you get this gutter trash, and frankly I'm hoping the slowdown pops them out. But can you believe this shit?

11 comments:

  1. I truly feel for you. I've been in a similar situation with an old neighbor. Their dog would bark ALL NIGHT every night and most of the day. It's incredible how insane you start to go over time from having to listen to it. I'm the least violent person ever and would never hurt an animal or person, but I legit had visions of going over there and drowning that fucking dog in a bucket after a while. I started with nice letters, nothing, then I politely went and talked to them, nothing. Then I snapped and approached them with a bad attitude and asked them how they could be so inconsiderate to the people around them? I kind of lost my temper and definitely used an excessive amount of profanity. So they called the cops on me for "harassment" because I was trying to make them take care of their damn dog. Not to mention the dog was left outside to the elements all summer (100 degree days) and winter (20-30 degree nights). It was animal abuse on top of the fact they were disturbing the peace. The police told me that I wasn't to have any contact with them or they were going to take me to court. At this point I just said fuck it and poisoned their dog with antifreeze.

    Just kidding. lol

    I got a really loud box fan to run at night to drown it out and then one day the dog just wasn't there anymore. Either another neighbor actually did kill it or it got sick or they gave it away. I don't know what happened to that dog, but one day it was just gone. They moved about a year later and it was so nice not having to be glared at every I pulled in the driveway by the new family that moved in. The new family also has a dog, and I never heard it bark unless their kids were playing with it in the evening. Now I actually enjoy the sound of a barking dog playing with laughing kids. Shit, I had forgotten how crazy I felt when I was dealing with those people. It was pure hell.

    Keep us informed on how this plays out. I'm interested to see if you can ever actually get anywhere by taking them to court. From what I had researched it is really hard to do anything about a barking dog.

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  2. Thank you. It feels comforting to know I'm not the only one who has had to put up with this.

    I could never hurt a dog (I couldn't live with the stuff inside my head) but you DO fantasize the shit out of some things. The things is - everyone that knows me knows I LOVE dogs! Plus, if anything happened to that dog I'd be in jail. And I'm too pretty to go to jail.

    They tried the harassment thing with me too. I almost wonder if it's easier to have them take me to court than the other way around. I mean I have voicemails from animal control telling me to do what I did. I also talked to them in person. But they basically said people are not reasonable. They don't have any evidence to prove their position. I have lots.

    I've even read stories of vets who live next to these doors losing their minds and doing bad things. VETS!They work all day everyday with dogs. It's not right, but I understand. And it's one of those Maria Carry sounding dogs with the high pitched bark. I even become rigid when I hear them on TV.

    Luckily I don't have to deal with the mad dogging. Our driveways are not on the same street. They are the corner house, and their backyard backs up to my side yard. I should barely know they even exist.

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  3. I have toyed with setting up my wifi with some snarky shit but I haven't figured out yet. At first I was just going to call them garbage people. But Mr S. thought they were so oblivious they wouldn't think it applied to them.

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  4. I have a FB friend dealing with this from the other side, and from his description the other guy is the moron. My friend lives in a very rural area, owns 40+ acres, and has several dogs. A new "neighbor" moved in at the beginning of the summer. I say "neighbor" because the guy lives a couple miles a way. And this neighbor has been complaining daily about my friend's dogs barking at night. Turns out said "neighbor" has decided to camp out on his own lawn for the summer and my friend's dogs barking at the coyotes is harshing his enjoyment of nature. Needless to say no one has much sympathy for the "neighbor".

    When we bought our house, the property to the kitty-corner south had a pair of GSDs restrained by only an efence. And they barked and charged at EVERY THING. But since they weren't right under my window I was able to mostly tune them out. However when my Tibetan Mastiff turned 2 he apparently decided he was done being barked at, slipped his collar and charged them. At which point they both turned tail and ran in their dog door ahead of him. Thankfully it was one of the ones that required a collar tag to go through so my dog couldn't follow. I sat on pins and needles for several days after that, fully expecting them to have called the cops or animal control about my "dangerous dog" attacking their dogs. But either they never called or they weren't taken seriously (I know for a fact that quite a few people had called in complaints on the GSDs, they charged at every walker or biker who went by, and when their efence collar batteries died they'd charge right off the property at people). But those GSDs never barked at us again after that, which amused me to no end.

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  5. I think it depends on how close you are to the source. There is like a cone of problem. If the dogs are a house or two down or across the street it's not a problem. But generally I think that dogs that bark at everything are not guard dogs and I don't really understand why people enjoy hearing them bark all the time. It's like hearing a child cry all the time.

    Every other house in this neighborhood has a dog - they don't let them bark all the time. It's not that they don't bark......that's what dogs do.

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  6. Do you have a persistent rodent problem along a certain property line that needs to be dealt with through the use of high-power ultrasonic transducers operating in the 30 kHz to 60 kHz range, something that operates at about 70 to 80 dB or more?

    Because you don't have a dog problem at all.

    It's all just been a huge misunderstanding!

    You just have an over-sized rodent problem that can be dealt with through the use of high-power ultrasonic deterrents.

    You need a specialist who understands how to configure and install just the types of ultrasonic rodent deterrents you need, and best of all, you can show everyone how you're taking the neighborhood's health and safety seriously by dealing with the rodents head-on.

    There's no need to confront these neighbors about their dog problem at all!

    You just didn't understand: there are dog-sized rodents in the neighborhood!

    Aren't they going to be so glad that you're going to take steps to deal with these rodent problems professionally? :-)

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  7. distance absolutely makes a difference. If those GSDs had been "city lot next door" I'd have been alot more pissed off by it. But with over 400yards between the houses (and a street between the property lines) it was something I could cope with.

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  8. Texas Refugee - I'm listening. I looked into all those directional speakers and stuff but their range is extremely sadly limited. It's only 10 feet to my fence line 30 feet to their house tops, but none of those devices had anything but extremely short range. And it can't piss off the rest of the neighbors.

    It's like a flame war - you need to keep those people on your side or you lose the flame war. Plus - this is California, you might not be allowed to kill the mice. I'm not even sure. But the important thing is not turning the pack against you. You know how pack people work I'm sure.

    Ruth - 400 yards would be dreamy. My back yard is 90 feet long, but these are technically my side neighbors. Their back yard faces my side yard. They are the corner house.

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  9. "It's only 10 feet to my fence line 30 feet to their house tops ..."

    Have some fun with this: sound pressure level calculator.

    Key in 70 dB for 15 feet and watch what it spits out for 30 feet. I think you'll find the numbers are in your favor, especially since a 3 dB difference is roughly equivalent to a doubling or a halving, depending on which way it goes.

    And with 65 dB output and a coverage area of 20 feet each, you'd need something like eight evenly spaced units across the 90 feet, and the result would be barely audible to pretty much anything past 30 feet.

    But the thing you're looking for is an ultrasonic rodent repellent that works in the frequency range I've described. There may be a few that can be modded so they'll operate continuously and so they'll run off house electrical power.

    Alternately, a pest control professional should be helpful with locating the hardware you need, and you can also claim that you're dealing with a pest control problem with professional help.

    It's actually that last bit that helps given the circumstances, and there may be a tax deduction angle you can wrangle to get some of the costs back.

    If you actually want the cheap tinkerer's version with an NE555, some caps and trim pots, a class AB audio power amplifier, a 100 kHz ultrasonic transducer, a water-resistant case, a breadboard, and all of the stuff to make it more water-resistant, I can describe what's involved, but if you don't know enough electronics to shop for it and to put all of that together, it won't be much help.

    But if you can, perhaps there's a market for this sort of thing for warehouses and other places with a persistent large rodent problem, and you might enjoy getting into the electronics gadget business yourself. :-)

    Just keep in mind that anything under 27 kHz is going to be audible to someone, especially someone younger.

    But you're not going after the dog at all!

    Everyone needs to know that's just a misunderstanding.

    You're setting up an area denial system for any pests near your property line, one that humans can't hear but certain animals (including rodents, and perhaps also dogs) can hear when it's over a specific threshold. The ultrasound won't kill anything, of course, but it'll keep a lot of things away, which is the general idea.

    Keep in mind that the point of an area denial system is actual area denial: if the rodents don't want to be anywhere near the area denial system, they'll eventually stay well away from it as a habit.

    Also, the continuous presence of an irritant always reduces the morale of the enemy, especially when they're close to denied areas ...

    Lean into this project! Put more effort into it! Don't give up so easily!

    Isn't dealing with your persistent pest problem just going to be a great thing for your whole community? :-)

    There's another angle you can use, of course ...

    Do you have an area along this property line and fence where you can set up a garden in a narrow wooden garden box that's lined with tarps? The kind where you hand-water little garden boxes inside your bigger garden box that's full of soil?

    Then you have permanent mounting surfaces for all of the pest control gear at typical large rodent heights.

    Wouldn't that area be pretty with irises mixed in with a bunch of other flowers?

    And of course if there are a few surveillance cameras mixed in as well so you can catch your neighbor doing nasty things that you can post to YouTube ...

    Well, it'd be good for your neighbors (and the police) to know what's really going on.

    SURVEILLANCE OWLS PROTECT THIS NEIGHBORHOOD FOR PUBLIC SAFETY! :-)

    Just think of it: you're beautifying the neighborhood and making it safer!

    Everyone in your community should be happy about that!

    :-)

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  10. Wow - I have to carve out a tax haven for this project? I don't know. My neighborhood is packed to the rim with limousine liberals. They aren't happy about anything. They think we should all be living in caves. And rats live in caves so I should just accept that they were here first.

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  11. I thought you know: Circle-D always does it for "the fix" that's in.

    Circle-A: People determine the value, the market mediates the values, and anyone can be a winner.

    Circle-R: Governments enforce the rules, the rules influence values, and anyone who plays by the rules can be a "winner".

    Circle-D: Governments make up the values and the rules, people in government pass on rebates to the values and exceptions to the rules, and the recipients are the designated "winners".

    Your Circle-D winners won't understand what you're doing unless you pass it off as a home improvement project you're funding with state and local tax credits.

    With those credits, your project looks Super Official and nobody can stand in its way ... because, after all, with those tax credits, you're a designated winner.

    You would not believe the shit that gets funded this way ...

    But since it's a problem that your neighbors created, why shouldn't they pay for it? :-)

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