MagiStream

Basic consideration for neighbors applies even in a rural setting...or perhaps especially in a rural setting since those who live out there generally do so for the peace and quiet. That includes obeying county strictures on things like trash pick-up and burning yard garbage.

Our next door neighbors have an aggressive pit bull. It would come over onto our property and attack us while we were working in our own yard. Even though we called animal control, he could never catch the animal out either. If you know your dog is aggressive, tie it up and keep it there! The attacks finally stopped when I hobbled over there on my crutches and bluntly told her I was going to have to shoot the animal the next time it rushed a family member. That doesn't exactly make for harmonious relations with the neighbors, but I'd been left with no choice...and the dog remains tied up now.

The same neighbors refuse to bag their trash properly and so the trash service wouldn't pick it up. Last summer, during the height of the high temperatures, they had PILES of dirty diapers by the roadside. I think the county finally cited them for unsanitary conditions and possible pollution of the water table (it's not very far below ground here since we live in a swamp) before they properly bagged the stuff and kept to the 50 lb per week trash limit.

Sometimes the neighbors' inconsideration is dangerous. Back at the end of May, when we were building the handicapped accessible ramp to the house, my husband and Pshawraven had torn down the stairs which lead into the house to make room for it. The house door is nearly four feet above ground, FYI. About a mile down the way, one of our neighbors --- in spite of a heavily publicized and posted burn ban --- built up a huge pile of yard trash, set it on fire, and then walked away from it. It spread quickly until it was literally only about fifty feet from our doorstep. It barely missed burning down two more neighbors' homes and if my neighbors hadn't been out there digging on their hands and knees with the fire crews (it took fire crews from four different municipalities plus forest service to put it out and the fire was so hot it turned some of the sand to glass) it would have burned our home...with us in it. Since we're on a cul-de-sac and backed up to state forest, there's no real way out. My family could have fled but I could not because I'm wheelchair bound. I couldn't even get out of the house because the stairs were gone.

Now, we deal with it in the most effective way we have back here: we shun him. You don't want that when you're isolated to begin with. It'll be at least a year before any of his other neighbors speak to him again. One of them thrashed him when he did the same damned thing again the next week.

I hear you there.
I've lived in the same place for 12 years now and EVERY single neighbor I have ever had living here has always been inconsiderate of people who are living around them.
The apartment building I live in has three places for people to live, two downstairs and one upstairs the entire length of the house. >_< The people who normally occupy the apartment right next to mine are normally tolerable but the upstairs neighbors...never the same case unfortunately. Half the time they have twice as many people as the place fits and they are constantly stomping back and forth through the apartment like a herd of elephants like nobody is underneath them, on top of constantly playing loud video games having the television up really loud and just being rude in general.
On top of the fact that at 6 in the morning they are always outside on the porch, which is RIGHT next to my window mind you, I'm still sleeping, yelling and screaming at each other...
I feel your pain, people are so disrespect to others around them and it is wicked sad...

I still live with my family in a decent sized trailer park, and luckily we don't have that many problems relating to noise around here. When we do, it usually lasts a few days/nights, then goes away. The noise can range from the neighbors blasting their bass across the street between 11 P.M and 1:30 A.M, the guy down the hill revving his motorcycle late at night, and even the neighbors across the street revving their loud, old truck. Not for the sake of going anywhere, mind you, just revving it for the sake of revving it.

Lately it's the people that live right behind my house that's caused the most grief. The kids don't seem to understand the concept of their yard and our yard, so they end up in our yard quite a bit. Now, we understand that the yards are rather small here so we don't mind as long as they don't break anything that belongs to us. It's when they start throwing/kicking a ball around and it keeps hitting the house that we start to have a problem with it. They've gotten close to hitting windows before, and the skirting around the house is already weak from wind damage. As for going and asking them to be more careful, the population of my neighborhood is mainly Hispanic and most of the parents barely speak English, if any at all. Trying to tell the kids to quit just ends with them smarting off or acting like they'll stop, then going right back to whatever they are doing as soon as you go back inside.

Common courtesy; we don't haz it. ~_~