What is the name of your state? Texas
I am having some trouble with my neighbors and had not thought about retaliation until today when I discovered some things that are absolutely sickening to me as a parent.
Our neighbors are somewhat older, probably early 50’s. I have two young children, my son who is eight & my daughter who just turned five. We also have a very mild mannered, one and a half year old, English Bulldog. Our neighbors are always very rude to us and ignore my children when they wave or say hi to them. Because we do not have a fence up between our properties yet, we have instructed our children never to cross over onto their property and to make sure their toys are always in our yard. About a month or so ago we had a notice on our door that the police had come by to talk to us about complaints of our dog being out. We did not call them back because our dog is never out of our yard unsupervised without a leash and assumed it was meant for our other neighbors. Three weeks ago, a deputy served me with a summons to appear in court for a “Dog at Large” complaint, filed by my neighbor. I went to the arraignment where I was told that the dog was spotted in the 2200 block of a street too far from my house for my dog to even wander, when I argued it the lady said “oh well I may have made a mistake, maybe it was the 200 block.” I argued that this was still too far and the lady said that it didn’t seem right to her and that she would check with animal control since they had been with my neighbor when the report was made. I pled not guilty at the arraignment because I know that it was not my dog that was spotted. I own a $2500.00 AKC/EKC champion bloodline English bulldog that has already been stolen from us once and there is no way that we would let him wander the streets alone. I received a pre-trial date to talk to the prosecutor, which was today. I asked for a copy of the complaint, mainly because the girl had already given me two different stories on what the complaint said, but also so I would know what exactly I had to defend myself against. The girl said she could not give me a copy because it was still active. The next morning I called the animal control guy and asked him about the complaint. He told that the girl had made a mistake and that my neighbor had said he saw the dog in his yard, pooping, the neighbor stepped in the poop, fell and hurt his back. Common sense tells me that he did not see my dog in his yard because otherwise he would not have purposely went & stepped in the poop. The neighbors across the street from him have three outside dogs who roam the neighborhood and the neighbor has a yard full of cats so there is no way to know what animal exactly made the mess for him to step in.
A week and a half ago, the neighbors strung up a trotline string to mark their property for the building a fence. However, the line was 2 feet over onto our property line. We got out our survey, found the steel rods marking the property line & went to present them with it so that they did not take in part of our yard when the fence went up. We asked our other neighbors to just simply sit on our front porch, they were visible not hidden, to witness in case anything got out of hand. The wife seemed fine with our findings and was in the midst of moving the marker when the husband came out on the porch and began hollering at me about our survey not being legal and so forth. We have not talked to nor seen the neighbors since the confrontation. They did have a survey come out who marked exactly where we had already tried to tell them the property line was.
Today when I went in for the arraignment I found out some very shocking things. The neighbor had brought in pictures to back up his claim; however, they didn’t back up his story at all. One was a picture of his shoe with poop on it, one was a picture of my daughter jumping on the trampoline with our dog and one was of the dog chasing our son and they were all in our yard. I questioned the validity of the picture of my son immediately because he was wearing a jacket and blue jeans which tells me the picture was taken during the winter and not in July when the complaint was made. I questioned the “poo” picture because neither of us can prove or disprove that it was actually poop from my dog and not the countless other animals roaming his yard. I questioned the pictures of my kid splaying with the dog because he was in our yard, not the neighbors. The law in our town is that the dog has to be on a leash if he is off of the property. The dog did not have a leash on in these pictures but he was on our property and not even close to the neighbor’s property. I became sickened when I realized that this man had been taking pictures of my children playing in the back yard for awhile now. He did not have any pictures of my husband or me with the dog, just my children. My husband brings the dog out in the morning and evenings to do his business. We have a single hammock swing that hangs from a tree that is right on the neighbor’s property line & the dog & I swing in it almost every evening when the kids are outside playing. So why is this man only taking pictures of my children with the dog even though I and my husband have been closer to the property line with the dog than my children? It worries me to know that this creep has photographed my children in my own back yard without me knowing and because of the outfit my son is wearing, I know that he has been doing it for quiet sometime. I am sick to my stomach about it. Is there some kind of law in Texas about photographing children without parent’s permission? Can this be considered stalking since he has been taking the pictures for awhile? Can I file a restraining order against? Legally, what can I do to make this man leave us alone and NEVER think about bothering us again? I also have to go to the court hearing on August 21st to have the trial for the "dog at large" complaint
I am having some trouble with my neighbors and had not thought about retaliation until today when I discovered some things that are absolutely sickening to me as a parent.
Our neighbors are somewhat older, probably early 50’s. I have two young children, my son who is eight & my daughter who just turned five. We also have a very mild mannered, one and a half year old, English Bulldog. Our neighbors are always very rude to us and ignore my children when they wave or say hi to them. Because we do not have a fence up between our properties yet, we have instructed our children never to cross over onto their property and to make sure their toys are always in our yard. About a month or so ago we had a notice on our door that the police had come by to talk to us about complaints of our dog being out. We did not call them back because our dog is never out of our yard unsupervised without a leash and assumed it was meant for our other neighbors. Three weeks ago, a deputy served me with a summons to appear in court for a “Dog at Large” complaint, filed by my neighbor. I went to the arraignment where I was told that the dog was spotted in the 2200 block of a street too far from my house for my dog to even wander, when I argued it the lady said “oh well I may have made a mistake, maybe it was the 200 block.” I argued that this was still too far and the lady said that it didn’t seem right to her and that she would check with animal control since they had been with my neighbor when the report was made. I pled not guilty at the arraignment because I know that it was not my dog that was spotted. I own a $2500.00 AKC/EKC champion bloodline English bulldog that has already been stolen from us once and there is no way that we would let him wander the streets alone. I received a pre-trial date to talk to the prosecutor, which was today. I asked for a copy of the complaint, mainly because the girl had already given me two different stories on what the complaint said, but also so I would know what exactly I had to defend myself against. The girl said she could not give me a copy because it was still active. The next morning I called the animal control guy and asked him about the complaint. He told that the girl had made a mistake and that my neighbor had said he saw the dog in his yard, pooping, the neighbor stepped in the poop, fell and hurt his back. Common sense tells me that he did not see my dog in his yard because otherwise he would not have purposely went & stepped in the poop. The neighbors across the street from him have three outside dogs who roam the neighborhood and the neighbor has a yard full of cats so there is no way to know what animal exactly made the mess for him to step in.
A week and a half ago, the neighbors strung up a trotline string to mark their property for the building a fence. However, the line was 2 feet over onto our property line. We got out our survey, found the steel rods marking the property line & went to present them with it so that they did not take in part of our yard when the fence went up. We asked our other neighbors to just simply sit on our front porch, they were visible not hidden, to witness in case anything got out of hand. The wife seemed fine with our findings and was in the midst of moving the marker when the husband came out on the porch and began hollering at me about our survey not being legal and so forth. We have not talked to nor seen the neighbors since the confrontation. They did have a survey come out who marked exactly where we had already tried to tell them the property line was.
Today when I went in for the arraignment I found out some very shocking things. The neighbor had brought in pictures to back up his claim; however, they didn’t back up his story at all. One was a picture of his shoe with poop on it, one was a picture of my daughter jumping on the trampoline with our dog and one was of the dog chasing our son and they were all in our yard. I questioned the validity of the picture of my son immediately because he was wearing a jacket and blue jeans which tells me the picture was taken during the winter and not in July when the complaint was made. I questioned the “poo” picture because neither of us can prove or disprove that it was actually poop from my dog and not the countless other animals roaming his yard. I questioned the pictures of my kid splaying with the dog because he was in our yard, not the neighbors. The law in our town is that the dog has to be on a leash if he is off of the property. The dog did not have a leash on in these pictures but he was on our property and not even close to the neighbor’s property. I became sickened when I realized that this man had been taking pictures of my children playing in the back yard for awhile now. He did not have any pictures of my husband or me with the dog, just my children. My husband brings the dog out in the morning and evenings to do his business. We have a single hammock swing that hangs from a tree that is right on the neighbor’s property line & the dog & I swing in it almost every evening when the kids are outside playing. So why is this man only taking pictures of my children with the dog even though I and my husband have been closer to the property line with the dog than my children? It worries me to know that this creep has photographed my children in my own back yard without me knowing and because of the outfit my son is wearing, I know that he has been doing it for quiet sometime. I am sick to my stomach about it. Is there some kind of law in Texas about photographing children without parent’s permission? Can this be considered stalking since he has been taking the pictures for awhile? Can I file a restraining order against? Legally, what can I do to make this man leave us alone and NEVER think about bothering us again? I also have to go to the court hearing on August 21st to have the trial for the "dog at large" complaint