Ugh, I should have just stayed inside and not gone out to deal with the leaves... because if I had just stayed inside I wouldn't have gotten into a confrontation with my psychotic neighbor and had to spend 10 minutes talking to a county deputy...
Longer version: back in 2007 we bought land to build our house. The land is in the middle of a subdivision and I have 8 houses surrounding us whose backyards abut against my property.
Now, I'm a pretty easy going guy, I understand some of these people have lived here for 15-20 years, and are used to seeing my property as empty woods. Most of these people have been pretty respectful, except for one neighbor, who continues to do things like throw trash into the woods, things like plastic kitty litter tubs, planters, dirty kitty litter, etc.
I confronted her about this when we were building the house and she agreed to clean up what she had done. However a year later, she continued to keep doing it, which resulted in a confrontation, which resulted in her calling the police on me for trespassing (which the office told her I wasn't doing, after I showed him the survey stakes.)
So, at that time, I took the actions I had to take, I made sure the survey stakes were visible, marked the property line, put up POSTED signs, etc, and hoped it would be the end of it.
So, when I went out today, I found she had 16 plastic cat litter tubs hidden on my property, had planted several shrubs well onto my property, had stacks of firewood, and had dumped a bunch of rocks into the woods.
As I was surveying the scene, she came walking into her backyard and I said to her: "Excuse me, I think we need to talk about this." Her response was: "I'm not here, I'm not home." I said: "Excuse me? Can't you talk about this like an adult rather than acting like a 5 year old?" She made a rude gesture and went back into her house.
So... I got a bit mad, so decided to return the items to their rightful owner, and began tossing everything back onto her property. Then I went home, looked up the state laws about trespassing and illegal dumping, printed them out and went back over to her house, rang her doorbell and suggested she read the law before she consider moving the items back to my property (Honest, I was as polite as I could be.) Her response was to tell me I'd be hearing from her attorney.
I should have just let it go with that, but I figured, time to remark the property line again. So I went back to my house, grabbed my long tape measure and my survey map and went back outside to find the survey stakes. Sure enough, the one that I had placed at the one corner of the property was no longer there. (I found it hidden in the woods behind a tree.) As I was out there, one of the other neighbors and his wife came out and confronted me. The wife complaining that I was scaring this woman who lived all alone with her two kids. I'm like: Whats your point, I'm a single parent with two kids as well, doesn't mean I throw garbage on someone else's property and think its acceptable.
So, as I'm 'discussing' the situation with these two nosy people, the deputy rolls up (here we go again...)
Now, legally, there is absolutely nothing a deputy can do in a situation like this, because it amounts to a civil matter. Unless some law is broken, like property damage or assault or harassment or whatever, they can't do anything about it.
So basically the deputy tells me that I put myself at risk by throwing her trash back in her yard, because if I had damaged something of her's he would have arrested me. (Well duh, like I didn't know that, which is why I didn't throw a rock through her window...) He then suggests I contact a lawyer and go the civil route to get her to stop.
He then heads back over to talk to her and I hear him telling her that she needs to stop doing all these things because if I get proof of her trespassing I could have her arrested. Apparently she must have said something snarky to her, because the next thing I hear him saying, in a louder voice is: "If I have to come back out here again, I'll just arrest both of you, how about that?"
UGH, just what I need, bad enough I have to deal with a mentally unstable ex-wife, now I have to deal with some psycho neighbor who can't keep her trash on her own property.
Then, when I get back to the house after all of that, my ex is sitting in the driveway thinking that she is going to bring the kids to a hockey game tonight... I'm like WTF, you didn't even contact me to ask or get permission. So she gets all pissed and leaves without them, which is just as well I think. Now the kids are pissed off at me...
I should just have stayed in bed this morning...
And then the grocery.