To invest in who and what we love is hardly an expense at all, but the cost of fear is both non productive and destructive.

I have recently found my neighbors fear very expensive.

As all politics are local so are irrational behaviors.

My neighbor lives in a continual loop of fear and repeats the behaviors that reinforce fear and self supports her paranoid premise.
We can hear her police scanner from the sidewalk and see motion dectors on the side of her house with lights pointed in our yard.
While I have compassion that she is a former victim of domestic violence and is now divorced, I also see how she enjoys in some way the attention of being a perpetual victim even when there is no offense.

insert Ebbie's outrage here-->

She uses her ex husband as a guard dog to attack perceived perpetrators out to get her. He is more than willing to try to regain her affection and is unwilling to move on after 5 years of divorce. He will be the hero if he affirms her perceived threat and claims credit for the protection she requests , despite that fact this is the same bi polar guy who beat her.

Who does she think is out to get her? Me, her neighbor 30 feet away with floor to ceiling picture windows that look out and down onto her house.

Our first interaction was 3 years ago when she hired men to cut down all the main branches of my Sycamore tree up to forty feet high which were 19 inches in diameter, stretched gracefully 40 feet over my lawn and weighed over 2500 pounds. By law she was only allowed to cut the ends of branches that crossed the property line but she ordered the men to cut them back to the trunk.. She even had them come back 2 days later after I ordered them to cease and desist.

Now my house sits starkly without the lower limbs and now gives an unobstructed view of 3 houses into our backyard that were formerly shielded by the Sycamore.

I complained, but to get along I did not sue or seek county government relief.
Now the yard was more open and kids in the neighborhood began to play ball there.
Her dry rotted rail border fence broke one post as a result of the kids.

She ordered me to fix or replace her fence and stop the kids from playing in my yard.
While she was on the phone I asked 3 times if I could put up a higher section of fence so that our refrigerator, sofa, computer desk and dining room table was shielded from the view of her back porch kitchen and dining room. Thankfully she said she didn't care.
I eventually complied by fixing her rotted post and put up a sign that said keep off the grass –


Of course the kids protested with eggs on our windows and spray paint but nothing dire.

Then my neighbor sent her ex husband over to tell m to take down the keep off the grass sign.

He returned again when I started to raise the fence 16 inches higher. "What's with the fence dude?" "It looks like the projects back there" etc.
so I asked him to leave and leave us alone.

They (each of then said they didn't) called the county and had an agent come to my house and issue a violation of the 6 ft 6 inch fence height zoning code. He tells me a maximum $500 fine or a variance appeal that costs $400 to file plus survey and photos.

I stated the variance procedure and have spent 4 hours so far in the zoning office and preparing the paperwork. When I took pictures of the affected area for the appeal my neighbor called the police claiming that I was taking pictures of her and not her back yard .
She does not appear in the picture of the back yard not did I see her until she came out of her house yelling at me for taking a picture. Thankfully I was not arrested but her ex husband did make one more visit. …This time at 2:30 Tuesday morning when he urinated on our front door and welcome mat.
Thanks to my dog I saw him leave and later found his cigarettes and empty pack by the sidewalk.

While walking with my son she came up to me and the neighbor who just returned from Spain and said I was taking pictures of her and that I liked to walk around naked and that the children need to be protected etc.

I wish good fences made good neighbors. I wish she hadn't cost us so much money for the privilege to be her neighbor. I wish my welcome mat did not smell like pee.
They have a little girl and we have 2 little boys who are starting to be effected by the growing mania.
Yes she is mean, yes she is fearful but short of me calling the police or suing her for property value depreciation – what can I do?