I have pages and pages worth to update on next door. Hopefully, after I report the latest news, I can go back to the days of there not being much of anything to write about concerning them, but we’ll see. That sounds like just a dream to me.

I was just too stressed out and pissed off to write yesterday and I even forgot about the chat I was supposed to have with my folks, thanks to these fucking assholes.

Right after I last wrote, I got dressed and was heading for their door after hours of listening to this dog, which was worse than any other dog seeing that it was in their carport 3’ away. I could hear it over the fans (not the bedroom one). As I was going over there, though, a teenage boy was walking up the driveway. I guess there are more people living there than I thought. So I asked him if he lived there, he said yes, and I told him to go tell them to shut this dog up or I’d shoot it.

I went inside and heard him say, “Hey Michael,” then I heard them talking for a few minutes, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. When I saw the kid, this was when I noticed that the dog was tied to the car in the carport! That is so weird and as Tom said, an unusual place to put a dog. That’s gross; having to scoop its shit off of concrete and having it piss all over it. I don’t know if the dog was there all night, or if they moved it there after they first heard me yell at them at 2 AM to spite me further by moving it closer to our windows.

So, they talked for a few minutes, I heard scraping sounds, that was the end of the dog for a good 12 hours or so, then she came to the door and totally screamed at me and cussed me out, telling me to shut up, and not let me get in a word edgewise. Her coming to my door, ranting and raving and telling me to shut up, pissed me off more than it did when she called me a fucking ho. I guess a ho is a black’s way of saying “whore.”

Anyway, I contemplated popping her one (as anyone else would’ve done to me, no doubt, had it been me to go to their door), but here are the reasons why I didn’t. First of all, I could kill this sack of skin and bones, and if I did that, someone else in that household could’ve shot me or sent all their friends after me, and it’d sink any case I may have should I ever launch a complaint against them or take them to court. And most importantly, she didn’t threaten me or make a move on me, or else I would have killed her with no regrets.

These are the things I remember her saying, although this lady had quite the lisp I didn’t know she had and was going a mile a minute. “If you think you can punk somebody around you got the wrong idea. I don’t want to know that you exist. I don’t want no complaints about no music. Who are you to tell my niece and nephew they can’t play outside? I don’t want no little notes, I’m sick of your shit, if anything happens to my dog I’ll take you in on a peace bond and have you served (in other words, she wasn’t about to do anything about shutting up her dog. I do her a favor of accepting a delivery for her, but she can’t even do the simple favor of moving her dog away from our house if she can’t take the fucking thing inside), shut up, shut up, shut up, fuck you ho!” She also said something about me and this neighborhood, too, but like I know this neighborhood oh so well and as if they know me so well, too.

I didn’t tell her this, but if there’s ever anything I ever did wrong to these people, that was to threaten to shoot the dog. That was wrong and uncalled for and although she wouldn’t let me get more than a few words in, I told her, “It’s just that first it was the music and now this 3 feet away from the bedroom window. I don’t want to know you exist either, and I’m also sick of your shit, and I never told your niece or nephew they couldn’t play outside.” I think she may have been referring to those 4 white boys who I told to back off, not just cuz they annoyed me, but cuz I also thought I was doing the right thing as a neighbor by asking these little trespassers to back off. I didn’t know what else they’d do and if you ask me, I’d hope that a neighbor would have the decency to shoo away any strange beings lurking on my property, too. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t and never did tell their kids they couldn’t play outside cuz annoying or not, that wouldn’t be my right at all.

All I ever asked of these people was to keep the music and dog at a reasonable volume and I’m sorry, but I don’t think that that was too much to ask for or an unfair request at all. I also don’t see why it had to be such a big deal to them. What’s so hard about not blasting your neighbor out when you’re coming and going? And what’s so hard about taking your dog in to live with you or at least moving it further than 3 feet from someone’s window? From the day they came in here, these self-absorbed people had this I-don’t-care and I’m-gonna-do-what-I-want-only attitude and I’m fed up here. I’ve reached my limits with them! There’s just no compromising with these people. They have to do it all their way. They may as well act like I asked them to shoot their parents, instead of asking them to turn their music and dog down. And also, after hearing this bitch’s mouth, I’d say that yeah, she’s the one I heard from the get-go. I had just forgotten what she looked like. And I’m sure her gratitude about me taking in her flowers was purely phony. So it has been her living there all along for sure, Mike’s back for sure, and there are 1-2 teenagers living there, besides the little kid.

To my utter amazement, they haven’t started up again with their music, but they might in time. Tom said that if we handle it right, noise can be dealt with. He said he could call in a complaint about the dog and that they could get fined and all that.

I told Tom yesterday that I wanted to go to court and try to get a conjunction on them that they keep the music and dog down, although the music’s been fine for many months now. However, he may be right when he told me I’d lose, although we disagree on the reasons why. I think I may lose cuz they have kids, they work and I don’t, and the judge may be afraid to side with me cuz they’re black and he may fear being labeled a racist. Tom said that cuz I asked them more than once to lower the music and sent them a few notes about it in the beginning that I’d lose. And cuz I threatened to shoot the dog, not that they could prove that.

Tom said he couldn’t tell me what to do, but cuz he’s had more experience and knows more about how people interact in houses, that he wouldn’t stop me from trying to get a conjunction and that he would stand by me, but that it’d be best to trust it to him to deal with. I do trust him, but I am worried that he won’t take action for me when I feel it’s time. Meaning, he said to go about my usual routine and log the barking, but that he’d call when he felt it was best, if that was necessary. Well, what worries me is what if I felt it was high time something was done and he didn’t? Well, hopefully we can both agree on what to do as far as dealing with it goes, but like he said, I have a right to do what I feel is best, too.

Now that she’s come over here and blown off her steam and vented her frustrations at me, I’m hoping that the dog will adjust to its surroundings and settle down and that they won’t start up with the music. If they do, though, I will take action with or without Tom’s help and I really hope it’ll be with his help and that we can agree on what would be best to do about it.

Even though Tom says I’m paranoid, which is true, and that they’re not deliberately out to get me cuz they have their own lives to live, I feel cornered here and I do feel that they’re taking advantage of me and that they’re controlling my life while they can do whatever the fuck they want. I’m sick of doing things to ward off other people’s noise. I don’t want to live this way anymore. She gets to sleep and breathe easy and she doesn’t need to put up sound blocks or do other things to block out noise. Meanwhile, I gotta do all that and I’m the one that has to wake up with stress 5 times like I did after our little screaming match and have diarrhea 4 times.

I have mixed emotions about how I handled it when she came to my door. If I hadn’t threatened their dog and if they’d had any respect for their neighbors in the first place, we wouldn’t have ever spoken to each other, except for when I gave her the flowers, but a part of me wishes that I screamed louder than her and didn’t let her get a word in edgewise. I told Tom that I hope she didn’t walk away with the wrong idea and think that she could fuck with me, but he said that she’s not out to win or to compete with me. He said he thinks that the music will escalate in time, not deliberately and not to spite me, but just cuz they won’t care, not that I think they ever did give a shit. But he said that the music’s got to have been softer lately for a reason and that if someone forgets and goes over there blasting in and says to them, “Sorry. I forgot,” that they’d tell them not to worry about it.

Has anyone ever told these assholes, “Maybe blasting your music and tying barking dogs just outside their windows isn’t worth what you have to get in return for it? Since you don’t like to hear her bitch, maybe you should consider being quiet, normal, considerate neighbors for a change. If that’ll get her off your ass and shut her up, don’t you think shutting up yourselves might be worth it?”

Well, what happens from here on out is up to them. Meanwhile, I’m gonna take Tom’s advice like I should have a year ago (I should’ve asked only once for them to turn the music down, then launched a complaint about it) and I’m not gonna say one word to them and trust that Tom will help me and stand by me like he told me he would, and trust that noise really can be dealt with, should they act up with their dog or music or with anything. I worry that Tom might stall or put off calling anyone if they did something that really was uncalled for and that really did stress me out continuously, but deep down, I’m sure I can trust Tom to know what’s best to do and that he will help me and not let them do something continuously like that if they do. One little bark here and there is fine, and I’ve decided not to track the daytime barking unless it gets excessive. I’ve lived with the two dogs barking all day, so what’s one more? We’ll just have to wait and see how bad it is in the winter. It may be fine, or it may be bad and very stressful if it barks a lot in the winter, since the dog’s closer and since sounds travel better in the cooler weather. We’ll just have to see and not map a sure plan, as Tom said.

Regardless of the fact that these people are sickos, I wish I learned my lesson a long time ago, cuz then I’d have only asked them once to lower the music, then I would’ve complained to the proper people and not have had to go through all this stress. Tom said that they didn’t put this stress on me or make me do things differently than I normally would on purpose. He has a point, but I only partially agree. Whether or not none, some, or a lot of their shit’s been intentional, it’s still due to them that’s caused me to be stressed out, etc. To a degree, I can understand this bitch’s rage and her going off on me. If I had a nephew tell me that the neighbor threatened to shoot my pet, I’d be over there letting them have it, too.

I asked Tom why people don’t care about how their dogs bark a lot and their neighbors around them and he said people would rather annoy their neighbors than be murdered with all the sick fucks in this world since the dog barks to warn them when people go by.

Shortly after 10:00, I heard it barking for 20 minutes and it sounds like maybe they moved it out of the carport, but last night hopefully proves Tom’s point about it just needing time to adjust to its new surroundings and hopefully, it’ll return to being quiet during the nighttime. Last night it only barked 50 times and not 100.

Last night and the night before last, I was very glad we didn’t have any guests or a child sleeping in that room. I almost dread having a kid in this house if I could, cuz as Tom said, they may be there till we move. However, I’m not letting them or anybody else stop me from going after my dream. The only two people that could stop me would be God or Tom. I just want others to live their lives without bothering me, I want to live my life and I want to be able to live here in peace till we move. I don’t want any more trouble, but if I have to put my foot down and fight back, so to speak, I will. Meaning that I’ll tell Tom what’s going on instead of trying to deal with it myself and trust that he can and will take care of it. There are some things he goes to me for, like if he needs a picture drawn, and then there are some things I need to go to him for. I can’t make Tom do anything he doesn’t want to do and he can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do, but I just hope that all works out and we can solve any problems we may ever have with anyone together. I will learn from my mistakes. That’s all I can do as my threatening their dog and her calling me names is water under the bridge. If it made her feel better by going off on me and has made her feel that that’s enough and that there’s no need to do anything more to harass me - more power to her. However, if she ever came to my door again screaming at me to shut up, I will break the law and I will lay her ass and I don’t care how small, skinny or weak she is. She did mention this peace bond thing, so hopefully they won’t do anything to sink their case, not that I’d give them a reason to take me to court and like I said, I hope that it doesn’t come down to my taking them to court, cuz I don’t want the hassle any more than they do. I’ll give them what they want, which is no communication whatsoever, and hopefully they’ll give me the peace I want.