Stink Eye

I'm surrounded by dogs. My block has ten houses on it and seven of them have dogs. Some have multiple dogs. They all bark. Usually one at a time so all day long I have dog barking. Sometimes they bark all at once when one sets the others off like a domino effect. Some of the dogs bark exactly at the same time every day so I always know what time it is without looking at the clock. You'd think this might be a daily convenience, but it's not. It's obnoxious, rude, self-centered and entitled. It amazes me people are so incredibly sociopathic that they are oblivious or apathetic toward the people around them.

My second year in this house my closest neighbors moved in with three dogs ten feet away from me. They barked from six in the morning until one in the morning. All day long and into the night. Their ignorant owners left them home to lay around the yard with nothing to do. To entertain themselves they'd bark at the neighbors, the mail lady, the internet guy, the electric meter reader, the water guys, the religious people, other dogs, cats, birds, falling leaves, and wind. All day long. When they weren't barking, they were whining or howling. That year I lost $10,000 in income suffering the terrorism of barking dogs.

First, I approached the nasty dog woman and told her about the barking for hours at a time. I assumed she just didn't know and if she did she would want to be the good neighbor. She laughed and bragged about how energetic they were. The second time she bragged about how devoted they were and how they missed her when she was gone. The third time I wrote her a letter. The fourth time I wrote her a letter. The fifth time she came over to my house told me I was stalking her, her dogs have a right to bark, and I no longer get a quiet neighborhood so get used to it.

I called the police. They would come to my house and ask me what I would like them to do as if they had no idea how to do their job. Useless. The police chief told me to keep a DOG LOG so every time I'd hear barking I was supposed to stop what I was doing and log it. This went on for a year with absolutely no resolution. What a waste of my time. This is called revictimizing the victim. I learned a lot about law that year. Laws are in place to protect the perpetrators, not the victims. Several people in law enforcement repeated this to me. The barking continued. I wrote letters to the newspaper, the city council,  the city attorney and even the governor. The other neighbors empathized with me, but most said they didn't want to get involved. One told me it was a mistake to call the police as he would have "taken care of the dogs" for me. I asked him how long was I supposed to wait? Two years? Three years? What a arrogant, idiotic liar. I wish someone would "take care of his dogs". The neighbor on the other side of me said too cheerfully, "The barking doesn't bother me!" None of them were ten feet away from barking dogs.

Eventually all this went to court. The sociopathic dog owning neighbors were told to remove the dogs from the city limits and not return for a year. They still own the house. Although it's been seven years, I figure they could move back in any time with their nasty hell hounds. Yet another reason from a list of a hundred why I need to move. All my work did eventually pay off as I had the ordinances changed so barking dogs can now be impounded rather than be allowed to bark constantly while the city government decides what to do. I have no confidence in the police and I can't imagine they'd do anything other than ask with stupidity written all over their faces what they should do.

For the past seven years anytime anyone has a neighbor with a nuisance dog, they come to me to complain. I suffer their whining until I finally say, "Have you told the dog owner?" Oh, no, they can't do that. They'd rather gossip to everyone in the area rather than be honest with the person causing the problem. I'm pretty sure they expect me to be the responsible one. I tell them, "How fun for you. Tough luck." And then I laugh and walk away.

Recently one of my neighbors came running to me to complain about the new dog right next to them barking for hours late at night outside their bedroom window. I repeated what she said to me years before, "The barking doesn't bother me." I smiled cheerfully and added, "Now you know how I felt." She stomped away in frustration. Revenge is sweet. What people don't understand is if you don't work together in a neighborhood to combat nuisance behavior, no one will support you when you are the victim. Lesson learned, assholes.

People come, people go, and now the neighborhood is filled with dogs owned by trailer trash and sociopaths. This is the ghetto. The people living in the house next to me just got a new dog, an ugly little Chihuahua that they let out to bark at midnight, four in the morning and maybe once or twice during the day. The dog is small enough the barking doesn't stop me from what I am doing nor affect my income. It's just irritating. The other dogs are far enough away to be irritating, but they don't yet affect my quality of life.  It's all about proximity, a concept the law doesn't get when it comes to barking dogs.

A couple weeks ago one of my neighbors started giving me the stink eye every time I drove by her house, glaring at me like she's a thirteen year old bully attempting to express herself but she's too immature to communicate with words. She's lived next to me for three years with her barking dogs. Recently the loudest barking dog died and Stink Eye quickly replaced it with another one more energetic and louder. It barks throughout the day starting at 5:30 in the morning when I walk. As I pass by the house, it starts frantically barking at me in the window then it's allowed to run outside and torment the whole neighborhood as the noise reverberates through the darkness. Irritating as hell especially at close range, but again, the dog is far enough away so it doesn't disrupt my day when I'm in my house. I can't imagine how people live with a loud, barking dog right in their own home, but studies show the lower the person's IQ, the less barking noise is bothersome.

I don't care that she's giving me the stink eye although I'm baffled. She's rude, self-centered, entitled, obnoxious, and mentally ill as most dog owners are, but we've always pretended to be respectful of each other. Well, that's relative. I've secretly nicknamed her "The Nazi" because she's German and because Nazis used to torment people with their dogs as well. Still, why the stink eye, Stink Eye? (New nickname.) I have no idea. I've been pondering this for the last week.

Then I realized...her dog doesn't bark at 5:30 in the morning any more! In fact I haven't heard it during the day either. I've seen it out in the yard, but no barking. Did someone finally call the police? And she thinks it's me? Other neighborhood gossips might have whispered over the fence and blamed me as the police-caller. I have a history of that sort of behavior, you know.

I love it. I don't care if she thinks it's me as long as the dogs shut up. In fact, if someone called the police, a second call from a different house holds weight so I might as well call myself since she already might be thinking it's me. I wonder who it was?

One neighbor works graveyard and I know she hates barking dogs. She doesn't get along with Stink Eye because one of Stink Eye's dogs has attacked her dog more than once. She also used to work at the police dispatch so she has some clout. When I am walking and listening this dog barking she is just coming home and crawling into bed. Did she call? Maybe. The barker is much closer to her than me so it must make her crazy. Which is ridiculous since her dog barks all night when she's gone.

Or maybe Stink Eye is just on vacation and she removed her devil dogs from the property. Even that is good news although temporary and I get to look forward to noise returning soon. I'd be happier if someone called the police on her.

I do my best to avoid these people and the games they play, but they can't seem to stay away from me and persist in infecting my life with their stink and noise. I refuse to play their gossip games and I resent their intrusion in my life.

Can I move now?