what would you do?

Ok guys get this.
about 3 years ago (2007 sometime), We rented a paint sprayer and painted our privacy fence in our back yard. In doing so some overspray made it onto our neighbors chainlink fence behind our privacy fence. He commented in the days after about the overspray. I told him I would see if I could get a power washer from my parents to see if that would blast off any over spray...I made no promises but said I'd see what I could do about the power washer. Anyways after the conversation I never heard about the over spray again.

Last saturday we mowed our lawn in the morning, got finished up and I pulled out my sprinkler. I was setting it up when this goof-ball asked if I could wait until he does his lawn to water. Being that we had some bad history in the past few months (unrelated story) I told him "No, I'm not in the business of watering your lawn so you'll be fine." and proceeded to setup and water my lawn, making extra sure to NOT get his lawn wet so he could mow. He was not so happy about my comment but oh well, and he was able to mow his lawn unhassled by my watering.

Today my wife is getting in her car and he says "I'm suing you guys for the paint you got on my fence when you painted your privacy fence. You'll have 3 options.. pay $500, replace the fence, or go to court." My wife ignored him and went on her way to work, where she called me and told him about his comments. A couple quick google searches lead me to find that Indiana statute of limitations for suing on personal property damage is 2 years. I have pictures from 2007 showing our painted fence (it was unpainted prior to that), and we should be able to find our charge for the rental paint sprayer, and current pictures of my fence will show its been some time since its been painted......so I'm thinking we are in the clear, at least at this point.

However we are a bit unsure of what to do about this clown. I'm not really worried at all about his threat of suing, because he has no ground to stand on....but what would you guys do. My wife says we should just ignore him, get our facts together and if he wants to go to court we'll gladly go and he'll have nothing to stand on and be force to pay the court fees. I think we should print out the Indiana law from the indiana.gov website and buy him a can of silver spray paint and just put it by his door. Then again I hate this guy and want to zing him but at the same time we have to live next to this slob.

What would you do?

 

the bad history is this.

This guy parked his garbage cans so that they were about 6 feet from our kitchen window. He didn't care because his windows didn't open. We asked if he could move them to his back yard because we didn't really want to see them out our window. He did...no problem.

That winter we had our drive way plowed. the driver pushed the snow up near the sidewalk and our property line. This guy got upset saying that he got plowed in, he parks in the street. He was not plowed in by my snow plow guy, but I said I'll make sure he takes special care next time. He wanted me to call him and have him come back out that night *6pm*. I didn't but we helped him move some snow that was not ours so he could get his car out. mind you our pile of snow was at least 5 feet from his car.

This spring low and behold the garbage cans are back by our window. Being nice as I mowed and used the weed eater between our houses I would kindly just move the cans back 5 feet so they were not right in front of our window. I wasn't slinging them around or anything just kindly pushing them aside so I could take care of the lawn around them. He comes out after we are done, and moves them back in front of our window....really...really? We go over there and kindly ask him if he could keep them where he did last year. He then gets upset about the snow incident again, *which mind you happened only 1 time, and we helped him shovel.* After some talks he agrees to move them but then complains about our dog, threating to call the cops on us about him. Our dog is really the lesser of the nusance dogs on the block. We then tell him to go ahead because we'll be happy to call child services about what we have suspsected to be child abuse for the past 3 years, but have just decided to not cause trouble on it. This child then goes and moves the cans back in front of our widows. What a turd.

Things were ok for a bit after that. Then he goes on this rant today. Its really draining and he has some sort of power issue and thinks he can push us around like he does his family but thats not the case, as seen in the watering issue this past weekend. We really have long suspected him of abusing his children but again didn't have any HARD CORE evidence besides constant yelling on his part, and that he makes his kids trim his yard with scissors.
I understand what some of you are saying about trying to mend things but hes really gone to far in the past and this is just icing on the cake.

I hate to look like I'm submitting to him and his crazy demands. I do also understand that we should have resolved the overspray on his fence, but like a lot of you, I am a busy person so I do admit to forgetting about it. However had he provided a friendly reminder and I would have fixed it. Again if he would have just asked even up till yesterday I would have got the power washer or bought some paint to help him fix it, I'll admit to fixing what I caused. But if he wants to sue, I don't care for that at all.

 

We put up an extension to our privacy fence over the summer to block most of his house from our view. Don't worry I'll have plenty more chances to call the police... the verbal abuse happens almost every day. We've called once on him..he knew it was us. So that probably wouldn't help any matter moving forward if we did again. I want to call child services but my wife perfers not to because things will only get worse since he'll know it was us. So we call it a draw and try to just ignore their entire being. Knowing the history of this clown hopefully you can understand some of our indecisiveness on that matter.

This guy is a certified a$*hat. And you can hopefully see that we've tried to play nice. I admit to doing only 1 thing wrong, not fixing his fence right away. Then again if he could be civil about it, I would have fixed it at any point, I just forgot. Its just a odd situation and as illustrated he is an unlevel person so even if I fix his fence the next time I won't not water my own lawn, or whatever it is next time for him what will he try next? See my problem. I can just give in this time but I'll end up losing every time. *sigh* we just need to move

 

I understand your 3rd party view of the events being laid out. And I do appreciate your input, I am very unsure as to what to do.
I am however one that will always fess up to responsiblity. Regardless of what it means. That is a point that is not easily made in writings since it is a personal trait that is built over time and not presented in a quick summary.
I am trying to be as accurate as I can with the event descriptions here. Am I 100% accurate? probably not but if I had to describe weight and said 3lbs it might end up being 3.1lbs or 2.95lbs instead. I'm not trying to skew things in any manner because I want to solicit honest opinions on what we should do. If I make this guy sound bad, then take it for what it is. We have absoultely no problem with any of our other neighbors, which is important to note. I'm not trying to assert my innocence or guilt just being honest.

If I knew for a fact 100% that the kids were being abused I'd call the proper authorities, without a doubt no matter who it was. However we have no proof on abuse and airportkid and priuscutter have just illistrated my wife and I's indifference to the situation.. What actually constitutes as abuse? Priuscutter says verbal abuse is abuse, however airportkid thinks we are just over hearing yelling and making it more than it may really be. What is exactly going on? I don't know, but if I were forced to play my chips one way or the other, I'd say abuse..but then again I have no proof and it'd be just a guess.

on the dog comment, don't make it more than it is. When you live in the suburbs theres always a chance that someones dog will do something to piss someone off at some point. If you disagree then you must either have a dog that has never ran out the door on accident, barked outside even 1 time, barked at anyone who comes to your door or house, or anything. Acutally the dog might be dead if they were never guilty of any wrong doing that a neighbor could say is a "nussance". Nussance doesn't mean consistent problem, it could just be 1 time issue. Does my dog do stuff that consistently causes problems for those around me? No. Infact he is a fairly well trained dog. Does he occassionaly do something that someone could take as nussance? probably, thats personally interpretation. However nothing close to other dogs in the neighborhood.


It looks like I'll just suck up and offer to repaint the fence for him. I'm just going to say I didn't know it was an outstanding issue and that I'll be happy to recoat his entire fence (not just the areas impacted) along ours this weekend. If it takes it ok fine. If not I'll document it and gladly go to court and display my offer, the age of his fence and the fact that no one can prove the state of the fence before. and that he did comment on removing the fence in the past. So why should i pay for an entire new fence for him? hopeffully it won't come to that.

 

I wouldn't want him to help, we really do dispise him. I'm doing it just because I can't find the legal high ground to not do it. As I read further into the statute of limitations a fence is considered real estate and its 6 years to file a suit.

Eh, when its fixed we are done and he goes into the ignore bin.