Living Next Door to the Dingleberries, Part Three...

I am sure you are asking yourself, "There can't be more to this story, can there?"  Well yes, there is.  Trying to love your neighbor as yourself is a hard mandate especially when my neighbor is doing things to me that I wouldn't dream of doing to them.  So first was the dogs, second the noise...and now, more noise. 

As I mentioned, my son was having a hard time, a very hard time getting a decent night's sleep due to the disturbances of the Dingleberries.  The next thing we noticed was - They appeared to stay up most of the night.  The children, I kid you not, would be outside playing at 10:00 p.m.  Noise carries easily on the nightwind.  Whoever might be outside would shout and yell at the top of their voice.  There are many times we can hear very clearly what they are fighting about to one another.  Hoo boy...

I had to leave due to a family emergency.  While I am gone, my son tells me they have now set a tent up and have a TV playing upwards to 1:00 a.m.  My poor son...I wish so desperately I could move him away from here and away from such people.  I keep telling him prayer works.  Keep praying.  There must be some reason.  I get back home and sure enough.  There's a tent.  Every day, a woman totes a cooler and set it right outside.  You can hear the TV playing.  Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, whatever game or show she is watching.  I just shake my head and tell my son, "If you have to come sleep on the couch in the living room, that would be better than just lying here getting no sleep." 

My husband tells me, "I met the neighbor again."  They supposedly have some arrangement about the dogs and he is to call if the dogs are over here.  No name or number though...so he is at work and, of course, the usual happens.  The dogs are here.  One, a big German Shepherd, is standing right outside my sliding glass door.  I open the door and yell, "Go home."  The dog just turns and looks at me.  No fear, after looking at me for a few minutes, it turns and goes home. 

My friend, who is very good at dealing with 'difficult' people, tells me this is a typical response of a dog abused or one that is used to being yelled at all the time.  Well, they supposedly rescuing 'pit bulls'.  I think with the behavior they have been showing, they are the last people who should be rescuing pit bulls.  Anyhow, the way she described the reactions matched perfectly with the reaction that the dog gave.  "What?  What'd I do wrong now?  Your yelling at me too?  Geez, can't a dog just go do whatever without getting yelled at?"  So I'm not yelling at the dogs anymore.  Poor dogs.  They have to live with them.  I only have to live by them.

Now, they have an RV, a pretty nice one too, backed up to our property line...It appears they are either having company or some family member is staying there in a nice, older RV, while the TV plays, the dogs roam, and they sleep all day and play all night.  It really doesn't appear that either of them work. 

After the dog being right outside my door, I called the cops.  I wanted to know if I had any recourse with no leash laws, no noise ordinances...They did tell me that if the dogs came at us in any threatening way, we could defend ourselves.  Once again, an animal having to be put down because of a stupid human.  Nothing they could do about the noise.  Geeze, whatever happened to manners, common decency, respect, being neighborly, oh yeah, it's all relative.  Morality doesn't count anymore. 

In the meantime, I keep reading my Bible.  I keep praying for my neighbor who surely seems to be my enemy.  Love, love I am learning to redefine in my vocabulary what 'to love' actually means.  I think our definition of love is very different from God's definition of love.  Every day I ask the Lord to help me love 'The Dingleberries'.  Hmmm, maybe I need to re-evaluate that one.  You know how they say, "never pray for patience.."Maybe I need to quit asking God how to love the Dingleberries.  :0 

Anyhow, as I have said before, I blog when I am frustrated.  Well, I am frustrated.  I try to mind my own business, keep my nose out of my neighbor's business, and generally let live and likewise, they do the same.  Well, I think I have met the one exception.  And, at what point, is it acceptable to tell them, "no more."  You've crossed a boundary.  Even Jesus confronted the pharisees.  Can I say too it really upset me to have to call the cops on my neighbor.  I mean, my mother had just died.  My emotions were still pretty raw, and then this.  I was balling my eyes out and I'm not one to ball my eyes out even over the fact that I have just dealt with losing my mother. 

I have to say the policeman was wonderful.  He was very understanding especially of the fact that usually I am the one dealing with this mess because my husband is out working a job.  I have to say, the neighbors have been quieter since I called the police.  The dogs have only been over here about twice a week as opposed to every day.  The tent was moved so the noise is not so readily floating on the wind to come floating into our house.  Hmmmm, maybe I should have loved my neighbor sooner.  Sometimes, love is hard and corrective, not soft and fluffy. 

Living Next Door to the Dingleberries, Part Two...

One morning, my teenage son comes out and looks pretty rough for the wear...I asked him what the matter was and why so tired looking.  He replies, "The neighbors kept me up."  ???  Okay, so they only do not control their animals.  They act like animals themselves with no regard to the neighbors.  If you are a parent, you know teenagers can be moody anyway.  Add no sleep to it and it can quickly become like dealing with a grizzly bear.  Or at least, it seems that way to me. 

My son considers himself blessed if he gets any amount of sleep at all.  Seriously folks, I kid you not.  We are too poor to just go out and sign for some huge, astronomical mortgage on a house that would take us away from here.  We dream of the day we can move out of the neighborhood.  Oh yeah, there are no noise ordinances in effect where we live, so basically, yeah you got it...they can do whatever.  Should I also mention they rent and we actually are making payments to own the property where we are living.  The joys of home-ownership.

What makes them Dingleberries?  We noted soon after they moved in this weird noise.  It sounded like someone working on a car.  You know, when they crank up the car and 'rev' the engine.  We noticed it went on all day long, all night long.  We then noticed this car ripping around right on the property line.  I was actually amazed they didn't hit a tree.  The property is quite dense for trees.  Especially if it was raining, we noticed this car racing all around.  My first thought was the guy was a mechanic and working on cars, and geez, I wouldn't want him working on my car.  Then, I thought maybe a disabled child that found joy and they let him express his anger/frustration by racing a junkard around the yard.  I don't know and after the dog episodes, well, I've always been the kind of neighbor - you tend to your business and I will tend to  mine.  I just knew this noise was loud and surely, they would be... be decent and respect that other people have to get up early and work jobs, and so on and so forth.  Nah, why did I expect that?  They didn't have respect enough to respect trepassing laws.  Why would they care if you needed your sleep in order to be well-rested for your job?  That is what makes them Dingleberries. 

This is where I don't really get what the Bible says to do....how do you love this type of person?  Really, how does "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" come into play here? 

Living Next Door to the Dingleberries....Part One

I have to give credit to the name, Dingleberries, to my husband. 

Do you live next door to the Dingleberries?  We do.  I am also learning that to love someone can be very hard work.  The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourself.  Our neighbors are very trying.  It all started with the dogs and, pretty much, the relationship has gone to the dogs. 

We were around and about and one of the children calls out,  "Mom, Dogs!!!"  I proceed to pull the curtain back and peer out.  Sure enough, there was a dog.  I open the door and yell "GO HOME!"  The dog turns and looks at me.  Typically, in the past, when I have yelled at a dog, they tuck their tail and run.  This dog just stood there looking at me.  It is a veerrrry eery feeling to have an animal just turn and stare you down.  It usually is not a good thing and for a dog to do this states they are not scared of you.  They know it and you know it.  But back to the story, finally the dog saunters off on his own accord.  Make note to self, talk to hubby.

Next evening, my son goes out to the mailbox to get the mail.  Son comes back in and says, "Mom, there was a dog out there.  He came running up to me barking."  I asked what he did in response.  He said, "I just stood there.  Looked for a stick to pick up, found one, and then they called the dog home."  Okay, so they were out there and knew their dog was doing this...?  Should I mention this dog looks like it has a little pit bull in it?  Trust me, I am not one to degrade pitbulls.  I think they have a purposeful use if trained and treated right.  But when one has access to these dogs and they do not train and treat them right.  It's not the dog, IT'S THE OWNER.  Enough said. 

So again, back to the story, Hubby had asked son to walk the property and pick up trash where it blows in from other neighbors or people throw it out.  Son is out walking and again, dog comes running from their yard on to our property.  Can I also mention that it is usually two dogs or more?  So now, we can't even walk on that side of our property without it causing mayhem.  Next incident, we are eating dinner and we see this guy walking right behind our house.  Hubby jumps up to go out and see what is up.  I mean....he is right up less than 12 feet from the sliding glass doors on our house.  My son runs out behind his father.  We see two others running around the side, through the flower beds, on my strawberry plants, my little herb garden area, etc., etc.  Now hubby is getting kind of ticked.  He usually just kind of acts like no big deal.  But this behavior,  along with some other things, is starting to get irritating. 

The next major event, I am in the shower.  I get out of the shower, go into the bedroom to get dressed, and realize there is someone standing right outside my bedroom window.  I yell out, "Honey, there's someone standing right outside our window!!!"  He goes running outside to once again confront the neighbor who is chasing his dog.  Again, their stomping all over the flower beds.  The guy's daughter is standing outside our bedroom window.  The guy tries to skirt around the corner of the shop, and his daughter and son are running in different directions.  Should I mention that twice now, my husband goes out - calls to the dog and the dog comes right to him. 

The guy proceeds to speak very loudly to my husband, "Why are trying to sneak up on me?"  My husband asks him, "What are you doing on my property?"  The guy starts ranting about how long his wife has lived in this community and that gives him the right to walk anywhere he wants to including our property.  Ummmm, no, that does not give you the right to walk all over someone's private property...but we never did convince him of that point. 

Needless to say, at various points and times, there are dogs roaming on our property.  We cannot walk outside at any time without some dog barking at us, and we do not walk on that side of our property at all.  They have their dogs chained - sometimes, but the chain reaches about 20 feet inside of our property line.  I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little sick of the entitlement behavior attitude and I really do not know how the Lord meant for us to love people who are acting this way. 

Give Me, Give Me, Give Me!!!

Well, life is seemingly getting back to normal. My children have returned to being the respectable, mostly responsible teenagers my husband and I have been working to raise to adulthood. It is a very nice feeling. I can't help but feel for the mother who now finds herself struggling with her older boys and their attitudes. I wonder, is it really their 'tudes' or the company they have been keeping. I told my children, got right up in their faces and said, “The only thing we are responsible to supply you with is food, clothes and a place to sleep. None of this other stuff that you get to enjoy is a right. It's a privilege!” Wow, what a concept! For the most part, you don't get things given to you in real life. If you want them, you work for them. Where have we endorsed this behavior with our children that they deserve everything out there to be just given to them. And more than just our children, it seems most people stand now days with their hands out and the attitude of 'give me, give me, give me'. I realize now some of my upbringing was very valuable in defeating this mindset I call 'entitlement'. My parents were quite older when they had me. I was the baby of five boys, the only girl. Guess how many times I got to play Barbies with five boys...Nope, it was more like indians and cowboys, cops and robbers, baseball, tag football, when they would even allow me, a girl, to play with them. But ask my husband, he's a blessed man. His wife knows how guys think and she loves most Sci-fi shows.

Okay, so back to my topic, entitlement behavior. Somehow, someway, the idea slinks through and people just think you are supposed to go get them whatever it is they want. Ummmm, No! You go work for it, you buy it and take pride and joy in the fact that you did a job well and, the use of whatever this thing was, that you wanted, is the joy you get from it. No wonder people are unhappy. They walk around looking for the next thing to be given to them and never mind that it costs someone a pretty penny. They didn't have to work for it. They don't appreciate it, so they really don't take care of it. Does it matter? No, 'cause they'll find some other sucker to buy it for them. I think my children caught the point of that message and really seemed to enjoy when we went out the other night and they found out that for their night of fun, it cost us over $100.00. There was a newfound look of respect in their eyes when they realize their parents really do love and care about them, want them to have fun, but not at the expense that it will run the family into the poor house. I asked them, “Was there anything we did here in this place that was worth $40.00?” and then my husband added on the comment that dinner and the tip for dinner succeeded in making the evening cost over $100.00. They were shocked but it was so worth the moment. Also in light of the fact that earlier that day we had discussed the Great Depression, Black Tuesday, and the 1920s. People might soon find that history is repeating itself once again, but my children know that we will be all right. God is faithful and true to take care of His people. We have committed unto Him our lives and He has yet to fail us or to not supply any of our needs, not our wants mind you, but our needs. But as my husband says, “God expects us to be wise stewards with what He has given us.”

I can't tell you how many times I have struggled with being the 'Mean Mommy Syndrome' because I am not doing this for my child. How others have made me feel like I am somehow failing my children because we didn't fork over the money for dance lessons, sports programs, the latest and greatest new technology. I even held resentment against my husband for such. However, I realize now I was wrong. I would have been depriving my children of lessons learned. Real life lessons that you don't learn in the school room, whether the school room is at home or in a public building or private. When the electricity goes off, will my children will be able to do math? the hard way, without a calculator. Will they be able to read and come to a logical decision for themselves why or why not this, whatever, is a good thing or a bad thing? Are we perfect? No, we are far from perfection. But they can reason. They can think. They have had problems and came up with answers to their problems for themselves. Is that a bad thing? They are dreamers, discoverers, explorers, and maybe, scientists in the making. I don't necessarily see this as bad. I am also not against those who have chosen to provide such things as dancing or sports for their children because I hope that deep inside of themselves they have asked that question, “is this what I need to do as a parent for my child?” If they have, in my book, it is not a problem. When they are not seeking guidance for their own families and follow others, it will fail every single time. Are we just keeping our children busy? Or, is this something that will help my child? I do hope one day to be able to give my daughter dance lessons. But I also tell her that my parents never paid my way, and the things I wanted to learn, I paid for when I got out on my own. My parents did good just keeping a roof over our heads, food in our tummies and clothes on our backs. It also helped to make me grateful for the privileges. I hope I can do the same for my children.