It has been a long, difficult time for me, both this summer, these
past two weeks, and with roots in years ago.

My neighborhood has been falling apart.  And I have been trying to
keep it together, especially to help the animals.

We have the neighbor in our building who kept a cat chained up for
eight years, and allowed her to die slowly and painfully, as her
children watched, of feleuk.  She also kept her dog chained up inside
24/7, and then outside, 24/7, where she finally broke our state's
pathetic animal abuse laws and I was able to call the Humane Society.
I had done it once, years before, on another neighbor in our building
who had gone off for 24 hours, leaving her two dogs chained up out
back, no food, no water, no shelter.  Their chains got entangled, and
one dog, desperately trying to get loose, jumped through an open storm
door with no window or screen, and was hanging there, strangling, when
I heard him.  I called the Humane Society.  Sadly, both dogs were
determined to be dangers and were put down.

We have the neighbor who keeps his elderly beagle chained up outside
and passes out on his couch while the dog howls at 3 am.  The dog has
food and water outside now because, of course, I called the Humane
Society.  But he also has a habit of getting loose from his stake and
running out into the street.  Once, DH and I ran around at 3 am or so,
trying to catch him.  When we told the owner and asked him to call the
dog, he shrugged and said "He's old.  If he goes splat, oh, well!"

We have the neighbor across the street who has two unneutered/unspayed
cats, one of whom recently gave birth to three kittens and wasn't
nursing.  My next-door-neighbor found out about that, and came to me
to ask for ideas.  I gave him what info I had and searched out more,
but I'm sure they did not take the mother cat to the vet as they
should have, and I have heard nothing further of the kittens.

A few weeks ago, I heard the chihuahua belonging to yet another
neighbor howling for at least 10-15 minutes.  I went down to check out
what was going on and make sure the dog was okay.  For my concern, I
was rewarded by insults, obscenities and finally, a threat.

The first neighbor I mentioned has always felt I hurt the little boy
who "owned" the two dogs that were put down, and has never forgiven me
for calling the Humane Society on that situation.  As you can imagine,
after I called them on *her*, she stopped speaking to me.  And told
her children I was "evil", and has told the neighbors who knows what?

I had never even met the woman who threatened me.  But my neighbor
has.  And I'm sure the woman who threatened me had her head filled
with wrong ideas about me by the first neighbor.

On top of all that, the first neighbor had a teenage girl living with
her for a time, ostensibly to babysit.  This girl brought a contingent
of petty criminal teenagers with her into the neighborhood.  Kids were
smoking dope and drinking beer on other peoples' porches, things were
showing up missing from peoples' yards and porches, and general havoc
was being wreaked.  I talked to the police, I talked to my landlord,
and things got done.  And my first neighbor got even madder.

The other day, First Neighbor's daughter's friend was smacking the
tree out front of my apartment with a stick.  I yelled out, not
knowing what kids were out there, "Don't hit that tree!"  I could
still see the stick waving around, so I went out on my porch to see
who they were and warn them again.  First Neighbor came out, and let
loose a stream of insults and obscenities aimed at me.  And this was
the day after I went down to the Prosecutor's office about the woman
who threatened me, and set up a mediation for First Neighbor and me.

This has got to stop.  I feel like a pariah in my own neighborhood,
where I have lived for over 17 years.  It is depressing, and
frightening.

I apologize for the long rant.  All I am trying to do is help the
animals in the neighborhood, and keep the neighborhood from becoming
dangerous.  And for this, I get screamed at, harrassed, lied about,
and threatened.  It makes me want to cry.

First Neighbor and I have a mediation session scheduled for next week.
I don't know whether it will help or not.  Any purrayers that it does
are welcome.

I just want it to stop.  I just want people to be kind to each other
and to be kind to their animals.  I guess I want too much.

A very depressed,

Ginger-lyn