Love thy neighbor

This little commandment is tricky for me lately…surprisingly its NOT the loud basing music, the collection of a billion cars (that often park in front of our house and yard), their trash that blows (and is thrown) into our yard...NO my friend is the neighbor children that are making it hard for me to love them. I was excited when we moved in our house with 3 little neighbor boys next store but my excitement was short lived. The boys are 10, 7, and 3 and are CONSTANTLY ringing the doorbell to play with Ty… or should I say they want to play with Ty’s toys. As well they frequently peek into our windows, climb on our fence (to watch us in our backyard), and camp out in our front yard leaving their trash and toys. The other day I finally gave in and let them play in the backyard with Ty for about 30 minutes. As I cooked in the kitchen I left the backdoor open so I could supervise the play, that’s when I overheard the 7 year say, “get you’re a ** over here you mother F******!!” as causally as one would say, “hey buddy.” At that I jumped down their throats telling them this will be their last visit at our house if I ever heard them talking like that again. They’ve rang the doorbell several times since but often I pretend not to be home and don’t answer the door. Last night I camped out in my camping chair and watched Ty play in the front yard. Low and behold “the boys” joined in and took over Ty’s toys. While we were playing the little 3 year old kept bringing toys from his backyard and giving them to Ty. After a while I realized that the toys he was bringing out were Ty’s toys. I asked one of the older boys how Ty’s toys got into their backyard and he said, “it was magic!” Magic my foot! The little suckers are a bunch of thieves. I found the side gate to our house wide open (which we always leave closed). They took a soccer ball, a wheel barrel, and one of Ty’s big lightning cars ( I think they would have taken more but I still had a bunch of Ty's backyard toys in my car from camping). Then today as I looked out my bedroom window on the 2nd story (that looks right into their backyard) I saw Ty’s big basketball goal in their backyard. Jeff went over and took it right back out of their yard (and put it in our living room) When the boys got home from school I overheard them looking for the basketball goal, then one of them climbed up our fence to look in our backyard and when he saw me he scaled down super fast. Little turkey! Jeff and I are going to keep it inside for a while just to keep them guessing. I guess I can’t blame to boys entirely I can’t say much for their parents. There is not point talking to their parents about it because nothing would be done. These kids are constantly running the streets without a parent in site…they aren’t exactly involved.
So for now we put a lock on our fence so the little monsters can’t steal anymore of our stuff OR atleast until they figure out how to climb over the fence and throw Ty’s toys over. AHHHH!!

UPDATE: I wrote all of this Wednesday afternoon and later that day the oldest boy tells us that someone came into his backyard and stole his toys. LIAR! Jeff told him that the basketball goal was Ty's and not his and the kids proceeds to agrue with Jeff. To make matters worse the kids mom was standing in ear shot and shock her head "no" when Jeff said the basketball goal was Ty's. Then Wednesday night while Ty and I were at church (Jeff stayed home with a headache) He caught one of the boys on the top of our gate (on the opposite side to were our houses connect) he told Jeff that he was "just looking around" then later that night Jeff actually caught him in our backyard trying to throw more toys over. At the time it was a huge cardboard box that Ty plays in...and they were trying to throw it over into their yard. Jeff caught them in the act and asked one of them what he was doing...he said, "I'm getting this over here." (playing dumb and innocent) Jeff told him that those were Ty's toy and that they couldn't take it out of our yard. NOW had it been me that caught him it would have chewed his little head off and gone straight to his mother. I am furious about all of this. It not only makes me mad that these boys are stealing I am angry they are manipulative about it...they know better but just act like they are dumb. Tonight Jeff wrote Ty's name on all his outside toys..incase there is a disagreement with the parents again. The whole thing has got my feather all ruffled.
I didn't understand why this was happening all the sudden, we have lived here for 6 months. Then it hit me. We don't have our dog, Elle, anymore (Jeff gave her away) she would bark like crazy (which is one of the reasons we found her a new home) everytime the boys climbed the fence...they were scared of her, plus it would alert me to go check out the situation . I think barb wire would look tacky along our fence so it looks like we may have to invest in another dog (Lexi, the dog Ty got for his b-day ran away while we were in B-town camping, she never came back to the camp site and wasn't in any of the pounds). So we are currently dogless but after all of this I might be checking into getting another dog tomorrow!!!