Over the past few years, I've received a number of complaints from an anonymous neighbor. We live in Ohio. When I first moved it, it was things like my dog barking (we got rid of the dog and got a bark collar for the other, even though one time the complaint came in and the dog was inside). I got a complaint once about my grass needing mowed, but I was unclear about where my property line was and wasn't mowing a small strip that I didn't realize was mine. One complaint was for an "abandoned car" which was actually my late husband's car which I had for about 3 months, parked and licensed legally on the side of the house. I sold the car. I'm friends with all of my neighbors except one woman two doors down. This woman is known as the neighborhood "whistle blower" so whenever there's a complaint, it's just assumed by the rest of the neighbors that are friends that it's her. She even told a neighbor once that she was going to call family services on my friend because she yelled at her kid. Luckily the neighbors were able to stop that nonsense. But it's well known that this woman is most likely the source of the complaints.
However, the complaints recently have become much worse. A couple years ago, my next door neighbor's daughter came down with an auto-immune disorder and she's having a really rough time with her health. As her health became worse, she began to complain to my new boyfriend about every little thing. He had a job where he went to work at 4am and she complained about him starting his Jeep in the morning. She would send him text messages about how much pain she was in and how the noise of his Jeep in the morning would wake her up and she just wanted to kill herself. One time, he accidentally left his music on from the night before and when he started the Jeep, the music blared for a moment. It was an honest mistake which he apologized for, but she was quick with the text threats of wanting to kill herself because of his noise.
That threat freaked us out so badly that he eventually decided that the job wasn't worth the frustration it caused our neighbor and he quit. We have also gone to great lengths to try and keep the noise down as we sold a motorcycle and a truck that she was complaining were too loud. She complained that she hated looking out her windows and seeing cars in our driveway so we started parking them further up on the side of the house in the yard. Then we would get complaint letters about parking in the yard. Again, we apologized and told her that we realize our yard and driveway right there was torn up from parking in the yard and the driveway needed replaced. We told them that we planned to replace the one lane asphalt driveway with a two lane concrete driveway. It would benefit us all by increasing property value, improving the view of the property, and allowing us to park further up the drive and clear up the space for her view, as well as allow us to come and go without moving cars and making noise every time someone needed to leave. But the sick girl complained about that because she didn't want to see the cars and didn't want to hear the noise from the construction of a new driveway. They then paid a surveyor to come out and stake out their property line because they were certain that we can't put a driveway within 10 feet of the line. However, I spoke to the Township and they told me I could go right up to the property line. In a twist of irony, the property line showed that we owned much more property than we thought and even with a 10 foot space, we still have plenty of room for a two lane driveway.
On the 4th of July last year, the whistle blower neighbor came down and walked into our yard, uninvited, to yell at us for the noise and said we needed to be more respectful of the sick neighbor. Then the complaints started getting even worse.
We had a fire one night - as we and all our neighbors have done for years - and the fire department showed up and said we were reported as a nuisance. The fire department even told us that we were in no violation and our fire pit was safe and we were smart for having a hose by it, but they had to respond because it was a complaint. They seemed annoyed that they even had to come to our house. Our neighbors were shocked that we got a complaint as the understood rule is to keep it small and keep some food by it so it's a cooking fire.
The most recent complaint was that we are operating a business from our home. Again, I called the Township and asked what exactly we're doing wrong. My boyfriend owns a lawn care business and owns two trucks and two trailers, which we also use for personal use. I asked - are we allowed to park our work trucks in our own driveway, as the plumber down the street does, and as the heating and air guy across the street does? They said yes. We don't operate any part of the business from our home. He simply gets up and leaves and goes to his jobs. But now we are told that we have to obtain a $50 zoning certificate, which really isn't any big deal. The $50 doesn't bother me, but the principle of the situation does. We are obviously being targeted and it annoys me that I don't have a right to know by who. The Township Trustee who I spoke with said the complaint was about "loading equipment early in the morning". And that's when I wondered if it was the sick neighbor and not the whistle blower, or perhaps it's the whistle blower trying to stick up for the sick neighbor. At any rate, I'm sure that this will not end and I don't know what to do.
I understand why a complaint can be anonymous, but in this case, the complaint about loading in the morning is false. We purposely try not to make any noise in the morning because of her threats to kill herself. We did have to load a mower once and recently we've loaded our bike on a trailer but that was for personal use and completely within our rights.
It seems like no matter what we do to try and make this girl happy, the complaints just keep rolling in. It's causing me a great deal of stress and starting to take it's toll on our family. I honestly don't try to break any rules and most of the complaints are unfounded because we've never been ticketed or penalized. I've even downloaded a 154 page document from our Township that lists all the zoning laws and tried to abide by them. But I constantly live in fear that I'm going to be caught doing something I didn't even know was wrong. How is this fair? What can I do?
Proving that we're not doing anything wrong every time a complaint comes in is getting tiring and it's wasting my time and the Township's time. But protecting the informant is just allowing them to continue making false accusations and wasting tax payer money.
I volunteer for the Township and have multiple neighbors that can vouch for the fact that we are good neighbors. Is there any help or support for a good person? I don't want to resort to unethical means to resolve this issue but if there is no legal means of support here, I don't know what else I can do to protect my family from this harassment. Thanks in advance for any advice.
However, the complaints recently have become much worse. A couple years ago, my next door neighbor's daughter came down with an auto-immune disorder and she's having a really rough time with her health. As her health became worse, she began to complain to my new boyfriend about every little thing. He had a job where he went to work at 4am and she complained about him starting his Jeep in the morning. She would send him text messages about how much pain she was in and how the noise of his Jeep in the morning would wake her up and she just wanted to kill herself. One time, he accidentally left his music on from the night before and when he started the Jeep, the music blared for a moment. It was an honest mistake which he apologized for, but she was quick with the text threats of wanting to kill herself because of his noise.
That threat freaked us out so badly that he eventually decided that the job wasn't worth the frustration it caused our neighbor and he quit. We have also gone to great lengths to try and keep the noise down as we sold a motorcycle and a truck that she was complaining were too loud. She complained that she hated looking out her windows and seeing cars in our driveway so we started parking them further up on the side of the house in the yard. Then we would get complaint letters about parking in the yard. Again, we apologized and told her that we realize our yard and driveway right there was torn up from parking in the yard and the driveway needed replaced. We told them that we planned to replace the one lane asphalt driveway with a two lane concrete driveway. It would benefit us all by increasing property value, improving the view of the property, and allowing us to park further up the drive and clear up the space for her view, as well as allow us to come and go without moving cars and making noise every time someone needed to leave. But the sick girl complained about that because she didn't want to see the cars and didn't want to hear the noise from the construction of a new driveway. They then paid a surveyor to come out and stake out their property line because they were certain that we can't put a driveway within 10 feet of the line. However, I spoke to the Township and they told me I could go right up to the property line. In a twist of irony, the property line showed that we owned much more property than we thought and even with a 10 foot space, we still have plenty of room for a two lane driveway.
On the 4th of July last year, the whistle blower neighbor came down and walked into our yard, uninvited, to yell at us for the noise and said we needed to be more respectful of the sick neighbor. Then the complaints started getting even worse.
We had a fire one night - as we and all our neighbors have done for years - and the fire department showed up and said we were reported as a nuisance. The fire department even told us that we were in no violation and our fire pit was safe and we were smart for having a hose by it, but they had to respond because it was a complaint. They seemed annoyed that they even had to come to our house. Our neighbors were shocked that we got a complaint as the understood rule is to keep it small and keep some food by it so it's a cooking fire.
The most recent complaint was that we are operating a business from our home. Again, I called the Township and asked what exactly we're doing wrong. My boyfriend owns a lawn care business and owns two trucks and two trailers, which we also use for personal use. I asked - are we allowed to park our work trucks in our own driveway, as the plumber down the street does, and as the heating and air guy across the street does? They said yes. We don't operate any part of the business from our home. He simply gets up and leaves and goes to his jobs. But now we are told that we have to obtain a $50 zoning certificate, which really isn't any big deal. The $50 doesn't bother me, but the principle of the situation does. We are obviously being targeted and it annoys me that I don't have a right to know by who. The Township Trustee who I spoke with said the complaint was about "loading equipment early in the morning". And that's when I wondered if it was the sick neighbor and not the whistle blower, or perhaps it's the whistle blower trying to stick up for the sick neighbor. At any rate, I'm sure that this will not end and I don't know what to do.
I understand why a complaint can be anonymous, but in this case, the complaint about loading in the morning is false. We purposely try not to make any noise in the morning because of her threats to kill herself. We did have to load a mower once and recently we've loaded our bike on a trailer but that was for personal use and completely within our rights.
It seems like no matter what we do to try and make this girl happy, the complaints just keep rolling in. It's causing me a great deal of stress and starting to take it's toll on our family. I honestly don't try to break any rules and most of the complaints are unfounded because we've never been ticketed or penalized. I've even downloaded a 154 page document from our Township that lists all the zoning laws and tried to abide by them. But I constantly live in fear that I'm going to be caught doing something I didn't even know was wrong. How is this fair? What can I do?
Proving that we're not doing anything wrong every time a complaint comes in is getting tiring and it's wasting my time and the Township's time. But protecting the informant is just allowing them to continue making false accusations and wasting tax payer money.
I volunteer for the Township and have multiple neighbors that can vouch for the fact that we are good neighbors. Is there any help or support for a good person? I don't want to resort to unethical means to resolve this issue but if there is no legal means of support here, I don't know what else I can do to protect my family from this harassment. Thanks in advance for any advice.