Neighbors Behaving Badly

One thing I've learned after living in the exburbs for the past 13 years is that people move there so they can do whatever they want without having to be considerate of their neighbors.  There are the barking dogs at all hours of the night, teenagers who get a thrill out of bashing in mailboxes with a baseball bat, and like clockwork every fall, the leaf wars erupt.  We even have neighbors on both sides of us that treat our property like it's their own personal country club, hitting golf balls into our yard.  Isn't that what driving ranges are for?

One of the most destructive things exburbanites do to cause the ire of their neighbors, usually in retaliation for some perceived slight (or see teenagers above), is to drive across their neighbor's lawn and spin their tires to ruin the grass and create long tire trenches in the ground.  It can take an hour or more of work to repair the damage, and when you have multiple acres of land to take care of, the last thing you want to do is repair tire spins.

We discovered two long tire spins on our tree lawn earlier this spring.  We didn't know whether it was caused by a neighbor, some teenagers or one of the many school buses that drive up and down our street, as the tire tracks were on the edge of the road.  We repaired the strips and placed chicken wire and straw on top to hold the dirt and grass seed in place.  A few days later, however, we discovered that someone once again had driven over the area leaving big ruts in the ground.  We again repaired the area and this time put a lollipop reflector in front of the repair to warn people not to drive over the area--as if all the straw was not already warning enough!.  Within four days, someone drove over the area and once again ruined the work that we had done.  Undaunted, we repaired the area and placed another lollipop reflector in the middle of the repaired area.  Two days later, someone again drove over the area, this time swerving in and out between the reflectors to cause maximum damage without running over the reflectors.  We now had no doubt that the acts were intentional.

Operation Caught in the Act

We have a suspect in mind, but we won't know for sure until we catch him (or her) in the act.  That's where Operation Caught in the Act comes in.  We hid a camouflaged game camera in some trees behind our fence and positioned it to monitor the grass that we repaired.  The camera operates on a motion detector so if anyone drives over the area, the camera will take nine high-definition photos.  If, despite the camouflage, the suspect sees the camera and tampers with it, he (or she) will be recorded on another camera that monitors the first camera.  Brilliant!  

So Operation Caught in the Act is now in effect, and I can't wait to see how it turns out.  At the very least, the grass that we planted will grow and my lawnmower won't get caught in tire ruts any more.