I am sorry but I don't see what the big problem you all are talking about here. First the house hardly looks run down and the dog kennel looks clean and so do the dogs.I hope they are not in there 24/7 as they are high energy dogs and they need a job, not jail. Looks to me that you have plenty of space from your house to the fence line. It isn't as if your house is 6 feet from the fence. Truthfully you sound picky and the type of neighbor who needs to be more tolerant of others living around you or buy a bigger piece of property.Everybody doesn't live or want to live like their neighbors and when you buy a piece of property that is close enough to the neighbors keep this in mind.WIth all the space you have to work with you could make it so you wouldn't know if there were dogs or neighbors there or not.Why is it up to them to change to make you happy? DIdn't you move next to them?WHy are they bad neighbors? I may upset some of you but did anyone ever consider that they don't think the dog kennel is a eyesore? I myself didn't think anything about the neighbors looked so bad that I felt the need to wage war on them. If you really hate what you see then why don't you put a berm in and fill it full of the "proper plants" Add a huge water feature to help drown out any sounds that they may make living near you. Just remember to leave a place where you can still see how they are or are not maintaining their place. Sounds to me that your wife likes to have a full veiw of the neighbors place. No berm no fence hummmm. Everyone here seemed to jump at the chance to rip these neighbors apart. One talks about the smell coming from the kennels? What? I never read anything about a stench or constant barking from these animals. I may need glasses more than I thought because the neighbors house didn't come close to being run down looking to me. All I can say is feel blessed none of you are my neighbors. If my neighbor has the nerve to complain about what I do or don't do in my yard, I can promise the "problem only gets worse" Last I remembered this was a free country and it isn't a crime to live differently than others. For those who are senitive to others ways of living really should avoid moving anywhere too close to others. I bet I could find something obnoxious about your yard,gardens,car,fertilizing/spraying,wife or your attitude but I would never think about talking dirt to others about it. I would be too busy tending to my yard, house and life to find the time. Maybe you didn't mean to sound the way you did in your post and all you really wanted was some advice to make your yard more private instead of blocking out the low life neighbors place that you find so hard to look at. All I know is I found not only your post but almost everyone elses post out of line and obnoxious. Ironbelly- you suggest to fight them legally? For what? A judge would look at that picture and write you off as the noisy controlling neighbor who needs to get a life. Man you said move NOW!!! Such drama Sorry but this the way I felt the first time I read this post and when I reread it I just had to respond. Okay everyone chose your weapons, I am ducking as I type.Atleast I am honest

Thanks, earthly. It's times like this that you learn how little you are protected by local codes. You can park anything on the street that has a current registration, no matter how crumby it looks. Boats on trailers can be parked in the street as long as the trailer is hooked up to a car or truck. I have the bad luck to live across from a slob (who is also mean and stupid) and now I have this mess next door. The neighbors are very much on top of things but the township can only do so much. We have a lot on our street where the guy knocked the house down three years ago and has left a mess ever since. We've been all over him about cleaning up but as long as he has a current building permit there is nothing we can do, excpet make the lot safe. As soon as one permit expires, he gets another. There are 40 house on my street and at least 36 of them are beautifully kept. Just my luck to be near two eyesores. Anyway, I am looking into bamboo in containers that will grow fast. I am concerned about planting in the ground since I don't want them to spread like mad. Looks like we're finally getting the rain we need. I just didn't want it all at once. Thanks for your supportive and helpful comments! Pam

Thanks Melvalena, I have a true love for the smell of a blooming Gardenia. I grew one in my back yard in Georgia, at the time I did not garden, I just stuck it in the ground. It was so simple! It took full sun, and the soil was already perfect! --- Wish it was going to be that easy here. I did cut the plant back to about 2 1/2 feet - just the bare limbs left. I hope that does not kill it. The rootball is almost 3 feet around. I think I will plant it beside my small pond, maybe the humidity will help, besides, it is just outside my bedroom window:) My only concern is that it only gets a bit of AM sun, and the rest of the day filtered light. I will probably dig out maybe three feet deep, and three feet wide (get rid of the clay) and put in some nice compost rich soil. Hopefully it will make it! RT

I tend to agree with the gist of what lucy is saying, just let sleeping dogs lie with this one and chalk it up to obnoxious drunk behavior. Do you have to take it again? Absolutely not. Hopefully with the light of new day you are seeing this in a calmer perspective and not seething further. Your landlord is not a babysitter. This involved adults who are all responsible and accountable for their own individual behavior. Going to LL/mgmt and demanding your rights would result in a few questions, no doubt. Reading what you wrote, the guy beckoned your DH and your DH complied. Knowing the guy was P.O.'d and drunk, why would your DH even approach him a second time? You say the guy was yelling violently and waving his arms in a manner that intimated he was ready to physically assault your husband. Yet you and your DH remained there long enough to not only continue tolerating the son's tirade, but then the mother (whom you exchanged words with), then the son's wife, the finally a 4th party, their friend who broke it up. And basing the time of your post with your words that "this just happened", other neighbors had time to haul their hind-ends out of bed or off the sofa to observe some of the commotion. Therefore it doesn't really sound like a situation where you were victimized and/or panic stricken. So why did you engage so long while person after person approached? Why didn't you simply take your pup and immediately go back inside? If you say it's because your dog needed to go, that doesn't match up with what you say you were feeling at the time. Because no one truly fearful of being harmed sets their fear aside long to allow pup a chance to whiz on a tree. ;) These are things you need to ask yourself before you go marching in and demanding your rights to LL/mgmt or taking these people to court. Because whomever you complain to is going to wonder the same things. I'm not being critical of you, just trying to get you to see all sides of the box, especially from the perspective of someone who was not there but whom you ask to mediate. (BTW, there is no reasoning with a drunk. Ever. It's futile to even try.) No doubt your lease does say you are entitled to the right of quiet enjoyment, but so is everyone else. Other neighbors could complain about the drunk neighbor and your actions as far as that goes. At this point all the LL can do is have a talk with the neighbors since it's one party's word against another. Meantime, if you want to inform management or your LL in a calm, mature, professional manner what happened, and that you are feeling uneasy and anxious for your safety, nothing wrong with that. But keep in mind this is not black and white, and there appears to be actions on both sides that ignited things further. You are not the only one whose right to quiet enjoyment was disrupted, and the situation was lengthier than it had to be because you two didn't remove yourself from it immediately. For your own credibility, don't get all fired up and go in making accusations and demands without first asking yourself those questions above.