Won't you be my neighbor?

I don't know if I have mentioned the neighborhood association saga yet. We have a beautiful, gorgeous neighborhood of wonderfully, friendly people. The kids play in the park behind our house or ride bikes in the road out front. In the evenings (especially this time of year!) everyone is out on their front porches, chatting and catching up. Everyone loves to play catch with our dog Barabbas, trying to see how far they can throw the ball before he catches it. Everyone enjoys each other's company. That is, everyone except the couple that lives on the corner right across the street from us.

They are weird.
They are in their early 30s, so they aren't crotchety old people. They have lived there as long as we have. No kids, no pets. When they come home from work, they pull their car into their garage and close the garage door before they get out of the car. The only time I see them outside of their house is when they check their mail, and they do NOT say hello. Especially the wife. She won't even make eye contact. They are very weird. The husband has talked to us a couple of times - once when we were working on our front yard landscaping, and another time when we were at the mailbox he said hi. That was about it. And I think it's cause I said "hi" first.

So last November I get a letter from the neighborhood association that our dog is "running loose and defecating in the common area." Our dog goes nowhere without us, and if he poops, we get a baggie and clean it up right away.

I called and asked for proof that it was my dog and they said all they had was an anonymous phone call from a neighbor a few days earlier.

The following month, we got another letter. This time it was a violation notice. The "anonymous neighbor" has complained again. I fought it with the association and said without proof and photo evidence, I will not acknowledge it. They dropped the issue.

Well, on the 10th of the month, the kids and I (as we always do) went to check mail with Barabbas. On our way back, Barabbas laid down on the neighbor's grass, waiting for us to cross the street. At that exact moment, our neighbor came out of her house, on the phone with the association, complaining about the dog. Did she even bother to acknowledge ME, who was standing right there???? NOPE.

The following Tuesday I got a letter... another violation notice and now I must appear before the Board because of continuing complaints.

Um, hello! This is the SAME NEIGHBOR EVERY TIME!!! It's not "continuing complaints..." it's ONE PERSON blaming his dying grass on MY DOG.

*** I should add that the dying grass in his yard was a result of him fertilizing it with winter fertilizer in the spring and therefore burning his grass, resulting in him needing to replace it all ***

I was FUMING. So I took the rest of the week to collect myself, got a pretty flowering plant, and brought it over to him, offering a peace offering and asking if there's anything I can do to repair our neighbor-to-neighbor relationship. He admitted that there was poop on his front yard and he reported it, and that it may not have come from my dog (nice). I told him that if he ever finds poop in his yard that I will personally remove it, if it's from my dog or not. He also told me that his landscaper told him that dog urine caused all his grass to die. Funny, that dog urine is high in nitrogen - just like the fertilizer he used. So was it dog urine? I doubt it. Unless a herd of dogs had been pissing all over his grass - and NO ONE ELSE'S. But he did thank me for coming over, and I reiterated that I would be more than willing to clean up any mess from my dog I saw... and that I would do my best to keep Barabbas off his yard when we went to get the mail. He seemed fine with that.

We'll see how many months it takes for him to change his mind.

And I *still* have to appear before the Board next month. Great.