Nayb

When we were filling out our adoption application for a dog, one question was how busy our house is, with choices from "like Grand Central Station" to "like a graveyard".
   We have a dozen children and several adults in and out of the house throughout the week, and we have dinner guests weekly. We also (until the parvovirus) hosted twice monthly a small-group–ministry gathering. I picked the option just one less busy than "Grand Central Station".

When our group meets, there are 10 people driving 10 cars to our house (exurban America!), and there are only so many places to park them. One convenient place, kitty corner from us, so across the street from our next-door neighbor, looks like a parking strip and often gets cars parked on it.
   We learned that our neighbor Gauche does not like this: She told us 'tell your guests NOT to park there.' It's not her property, but in wet weather the cars leave tracks in the dirt and she finds it unsightly. We made this request of our guests, some of whom have sometimes forgotten. Not all of the parkers are our guests, but neighbor G has come to assume that they are.
   Around this same time another neighbor, Droit, came into a ton of wood chips and of her own accord put wood chips on the parking strip, and I thought it improved the looks, and covered the mud, thus ameliorating the tire-track problem. (As far as I know neighbor D was unaware of any discussions between us and G.) But that too made neighbor G mad.

When we first met her she was very welcoming and friendly, but sometime in between our first meeting and now she has become unfriendly. A couple of weeks ago Bjorn said that when he was walking by and greeted her she gave him the evil eye and wouldn't speak to him.
   A bad day? Sourness over the [no] parking area?

Today, a few noisy and rude-sounding surveyors parked in G's driveway and were skirting around our property. Bjorn went out to talk to them, and neighbor G called. the. police.
   She said, "I'm going to call the police." Bjorn said, "please do; may I listen in on the call?" The police arrived swiftly. Neighbor G told the policeman to tell Bjorn to stop talking to the surveyors and go back into the house. The policeman said he couldn't do that.

I was on the phone with my sister, which is just as well, because I would have FREAKED OUT.

I do not trust the police, and now I do not trust this neighbor. If she had called the police on me I would have seen it as an extreme attack. As it is, I feel vicariously attacked. The fact that we did nothing wrong is no consolation to me; I have no faith that the police care about the legality of our actions.
   Bjorn pointed out that calling the police is something one does when one feels threatened, but I was not into perspective taking and [neighborly] compassion. I felt fearful. We have an irrationally angry neighbor, who is taking horrible (to me), aggressive action.
   What. on. Earth.

It turns out that neighbor G wants to build a new fence between our house and hers. A high, wood fence (as on the other side of her house), to replace the short, chain link fence. This could make me feel better, actually; I don't want to feel threatened in my own yard. Let's just all hope this is a better fence and pray god Frost is right.

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*edited for clarity, spelling, and because I accidentally a word (or two)