We’ve never got along with our neighbours. I have to admit, after the first few attempts of trying to be neighbourly, I gave it up as a bad job. My husband, Trev is unaware of the usual social niceties and would speak to the guy, never realising that he was being blanked. He thought the guy was deaf and hadn’t heard his greetings.
I took to ignoring them but sometimes laughing to myself when they passed because of the rubber-necking going on through the car windows. I have no idea what rumours they’ve heard before moving in but they must have made fascinating stories.
They may have been blanking us but her parents had plenty to say to us. The mother leaned over the fence at the low parts, giving advice and opinions on everything about my garden, especially my dogs.
My fruit trees had been pruned too hard, parts of the lawn looked ‘pee scorched’ and she would never put those plants just there. I smiled and nodded, thanked her for her advice and carried on. I had the opportunity to smile to myself again when I heard her screech of excitement when she saw my potted citrus plants. I move them outside when the weather is stable and hot. “Where did you buy those orange trees?” she said.
“I didn’t buy them, I grew them from seed,” I told her.
“Are you sure? They don’t usually fruit for a few years do they?”
I nodded. “That’s right. The orange tree is about five years old, the lemon tree is four. I grew them from seed,” I said.
She scrutinised the trees and me for a few moments then disappeared from the fence.
After that exchange, she returned to the fence frequently over the course of the afternoon, her speech slurring and her chatter more personal as the evening drew on.
Her daughter had once owned a Rottweiler but had to give it up as he became too big and boisterous for her to handle. She became scared of the dog and from then had made up her mind that all Rottweilers were the same.
Thinking back, alarm bells should have jangled louder than they did, but hindsight is 20-20 vision isn’t it?
We have always owned Rotties -Rottweilers – they are large, powerful dogs, faithful, loyal and intelligent, but daft as brushes, the family clown. Instinctive and natural guard dogs, inherently protective of their pack, their nature suited us.
When the mother gave me the hint that there could be a problem, I didn’t realise at first how big a problem it could be, but it soon became clear.
“Can you stop your dog from getting to the fence? He frightens the kids.”
I frowned at the statement because the kids had been swift to learn his name and would climb their slide so they could sit at the top and call to him. The kids weren’t frightened of our big Bear, and if she was as frightened as she claimed, she would surely have moved the slide away from the fence, and especially away from the lower part of the boundary.
To be on the safe side, we constructed a fence so he couldn’t see them when they were close to their house. He had an amusing habit of leaping straight up into the air so he could see over. He had perfected his bounce, landing on back legs, dropping front paws to the ground to enable him to leap straight up once more. He looked like a black kangaroo. He seemed disappointed that his fun had been stopped but soon adapted and put his efforts into watching the lower part of the garden. That too became a problem and so his garden grew smaller still. Our other dog presented no problem, she wasn’t interested in the neighbours. It didn’t take long to find out why.
Unusually for Rotties, Cassie didn’t like playing in water, she never had. Bear loved water, but Cassie could take or leave it, usually leaving it.
Hosing the yard down was fun but labour intensive with Bear. He chased the jet of water, slipping and skidding on the wet tiles. He had more success at chasing the brush, grabbing it as I scrubbed the tiles. It was hilarious to watch his concentration, Cassie would find a vantage point and watch. Bear would be happy but exhausted by the time the yard was clean.
The dogs had the run of the yard, including the utility room where they also slept. The door to the utility hung open all day so the dogs could gain shelter from rain, snow, blow, and sun if we were out. One sunny Sunday afternoon, we returned home to a subdued Cassie and a wet and exhausted Bear. Part of the paved yard was wet too, except for a patch in the shape of the shed next to the boundary fence. It appeared the neighbours had been amusing themselves by hosing down the dogs and the yard. We couldn’t prove a thing of course, so the next day, I ordered a set of CCTV cameras, a recording system and fittings.
Reviewing the images was an eye-opener.
The dogs went about their usual activities of inspecting their domain, napping, play-fighting and chasing butterflies throughout the day. I watched as I pegged out washing, took it back in, pottered about the garden, petted the dogs.
For a few weeks, every time I reviewed the recordings, I saw dogs playing, me pottering, dogs napping – the usual stuff I’d expect to see.
What I did not expect to see happened on Wednesday afternoon of the second month of CCTV coverage.
I had an appointment just after lunch and I didn’t return until after Trev got home from work. That evening when I reviewed the recording, the dogs’ behaviour was totally out of character. Rather than playing or napping all afternoon as they had previously, at just after 15:30 something caught their attention from the direction of next door – the problem side. Bear and Cassie watched for a little while and then they set up barking. Because the cameras were the stop-frame type, their actions were jerky and disjointed, but they were obviously agitated by something just out of sight.
Coincidence that I had been out or deliberate? My gut feeling was that it was deliberate, but my logical mind said coincidence.
I ordered a better quality camera and waited for delivery.
The picture quality of the cameras was not sufficient to identify exactly what small objects were being thrown over the fence, but Rotties are opportunists and whatever sailed over the fence disappeared down the throat of whichever dog saw it first. I shouted for Trev to come and look and he immediately went out and rigged up a rudimentary catching net to prevent it happening again. I didn’t even mind that he’d used one of the spare net curtains. As usual, he didn’t give any opinion, he just went about preventing rather than curing.
I kept a closer eye on the CCTV after that. The net yielded a few innocuous items for the first day or so and then nothing. Perhaps the neighbours found out what the child was doing and stopped it, or realised that their efforts were in vain.
I took my car to the garage for its annual inspection, and walked home. To all intents and purposes, it appeared that I was out of the house.
At a little after 15:30 the dogs set up barking and I rushed to the back door to see what on earth was happening.
From next door, the consistent thumping noise of a kid using the fence as a kick-board had them in a state of excitement. It seemed they viewed it as an affront to their territorial instinct.
The missing car, it seemed, gave the neighbours the notion that no one was home. I phoned the garage and asked if I could fetch it and he told me it hadn’t been finished, they would complete the work the following day. That suited me just fine and I made sure I kept out of sight, testing my theory.
The following afternoon, just after 15:45, it started again. I was tucked out of sight, repotting some of my plants, keeping a close eye on the dogs.
They stood silently on alert, watching the fence with rapt attention. I watched them watching for a few moments and went back to re-potting.
I was shocked out of my concentration by a cacophony of ferocious banging, swiftly accompanied by excited barking of Bear and Cassie. Confusion reigned, I stood up to see what on earth was causing the metallic clanking noise but I couldn’t see, so I clambered on top of the wood store to see better. A head popped up in surprise when I stood like King of the Castle on the wooden structure. The neighbour saw me and the clanking, banging noise ceased immediately. His expression changed from spiteful glee to sheepish guilt in an instant. I said nothing. I watched as he fled into the house, clutching the lid of a garden incinerator which I assume he had been using to bang the fence with.
When I realised he had been deliberately and maliciously antagonising my dogs, I became angry. I was angry that he found amusement in teasing my dogs, but I was angrier at myself for not realising, or at least not admitting the fact before. The kid throwing things over the fence was one thing, but this? The deliberate action of an adult teasing my dogs achieved what? Then it occurred to me. He was making them bark in order to have a valid complaint about their barking.
I took the dogs inside and locked the door – Rotties are intelligent and they have proven that they can open the door unless it’s locked.
Up until that point, I had always returned the kids’ balls when they came over. Even if plants and trees were damaged or if my clean washing got dirtied. Now I knew exactly what he was up to, I would put a swift and immediate stop to that.
I didn’t have long to wait for the next ball. My clean, still wet towels had been out less than five minutes. The kettle hadn’t yet come to the boil and I didn’t need the CCTV footage to see. A ball sailed over the fence, hit dead centre of one of the pure white bath sheets I loved to swaddle myself in after a long, luxurious soak in the bath. I went to take down the towel, fury seething through my mind with every step. The dogs parted as I made my way to the gate that kept them off that part of the property. The towel had an almost perfectly round muddy stain in the middle of it. The ball lay on the ground directly below it. The ball, one of the dense sponge types, perfect for kicking about in a garden close to the house. It would bounce but not break windows. The ball hadn’t bounced when it hit the ground, it had splattered because it was soaked through with filthy, muddy water, like it had fallen into a puddle. No wonder it had marked the towel. We hadn’t had rain for more than a week, so where had the mud come from?
I sighed.
“Throw the ball back!” an angry voice called over the fence.
I looked around, incredulous at the tone used. The woman’s face appeared over the top of the fence.
“Which ball? The one that hit my washing?” I asked, making an effort to keep my voice neutral.
She said nothing. I took the towel from the line and took it inside to wash again, taking the dogs with me to be locked inside.
When I came back out, the ball had gone.
I would have suspected Bear of hopping over the fence bisecting the garden, but fortunately, they had been locked in the utility room. As the ball was made of foam, it would have been destroyed in short order had Bear got hold of it.
Puzzled at the ball’s disappearance, I looked around. No ball.
No ball, but some of the plants in the flower bed next to the fence were broken down and trampled.
Tell-tale scrape marks on the edge of the fence panel gave me a clue as to what had happened.
The neighbours had checked to see I wasn’t there, then they would have slid the panel up so someone could duck under the panel and fetch the ball. The panel would be slid back once they returned with the ball. The CCTV footage confirmed my suspicions.
Bear and Cassie are by no means aggressive, but the relief that washed over me when I realised they had been with me in the utility room was swiftly followed by a cold fury bathing my mind.
How dare they?
I spoke to Trev and he agreed with me, the dogs’ safety must absolutely come first.
He called in a few favours, explained our position and requirements and by the weekend, we could commence our new project. With heavy-duty metal poles to bash into the ground and the temporary fencing found on building sites to slide over the poles, we constructed a fence on our side of the boundary fence. The next time the fence panel slid up, all they would get was a shock.
Again, we didn’t have long to wait. A heavier ball sailed over the fence. I saw it from the back bedroom window where I was working. The neighbour’s garden was full of people, I recognised the woman’s parents. I sighed, went downstairs, brought in the dogs and returned the ball.
I went back upstairs to continue working and the ball sailed over again. The adult that had thrown it stood on something to look over the fence. He looked up to the window and saw me watching. He laughed and turned to speak to his audience. They laughed too and looked up to my window.
He pointed to the ball and said something. The ball nestled in a flower bed under my apple tree, the one I had grown from seed. Two of the branches hung down, broken.
I went downstairs, let out the dogs, fastened the garden gate securely behind me and picked up the ball. It was a proper football – soccer ball – leather, stitched, clean and shiny. A new ball.
Bear punctured it moments after I gave it to him, while I trimmed the broken branches of the tree, attempting to rescue them and use them as cuttings to root.
“Throw the ball back!” a man’s voice demanded. He was not looking over the fence.
A few moments later, I threw the ball back – every single shred of it, piece by piece, in silence. The laughter died.
“If you take a look up at the house, you can see the CCTV camera we had installed,” I raised my voice and said, to no one in particular. “There are more dotted about too, some even have sound recording capability.” I went back up to finish tidying the bedroom. No more balls have come over since.
That’s a small insight to how the neighbours behaved with regards to our dogs. Their behaviour toward each other is on a similar stamp.
Out in the garden, the adults’ voices are at a constant ‘normal’ volume. Unless something unexpected occurs, their voices are at a conversation level.
The kids, on the other hand, have no other level of volume other than ‘scream’.
A kid screaming in pain? “Come inside,” she’ll say. Kids screaming in anger? “Inside,” she’ll say. Kids screaming in general? “Inside.” You get the picture?
Once inside their four walls, the volume setting automatically adjusts. The voices of everyone inside the house raise to such a pitch that every word can be heard with almost perfect clarity. It seems they purchased the house with full soundproofing installed – but I have news for them, they’ve been had.
The most haunting and tragic conversation I’ve overheard has been this:
“You know you’re not supposed to hit me,” she said.
Since the recent crisis, things have changed. The CCTV still runs and records, but it is recorded onto a massive hard drive. Rather than being wiped after 2 weeks, everything is kept. It makes fascinating and harrowing viewing.
Trev electrified the fence early on in the crisis and we worked to extend the metal fence to completely surround the property.
For the time being, the electricity supply is uninterrupted but we can’t count on that lasting forever, same goes for the water.
Because I was interested in being as self-sufficient as possible, I’ve been hoarding seeds, bottled and pickled goods and the three freezers are packed to capacity. I’ve made my own dog food for a number of years and Bear and Cassie are well-trained.
Trev and I go out foraging together with the dogs and we work as an experienced team. We keep away from the obvious targets of looters and that practice seems to have kept us relatively safe. The Landrover is invaluable, impassable roads are less of a problem for the almost-military vehicle and it is locked away out of sight, in the garage when not in use; can’t be too careful these days, we’d be lost without it.
I’ve always been fascinated by ‘sharp and shiny’ and Trev indulged me whenever he could. In recent timess, the two English military Officers’ swords, circa 19th Century have seen more action than ever they would have when they hung from their original owners’ belts and the faithful replica Samurai sword he bought as a Valentine’s Day present works fine, satisfyingly efficient.
We should survive the zombie apocalypse; it seems the zombies are not as deadly as we always believed from the movies. They die easily, even without help. They rot on their feet within weeks and just like in the movies, if the brain is destroyed or separated from the rest of the body, the zombie is rendered useless.
So, given that we have little to fear from the zombies, and our little compound is secure, I would have believed that we could wait it out until the military get around to our little corner of the UK, but no.
The neighbours are still a problem. However they managed to survive, I’ll never know. It’s been months without news or supplies; the radio has just come back online to inform what’s left of society how to go about managing until we’re picked up and taken to a safe area.
She called to me over the fence a few weeks ago.
“Do you have food?” she asked.
“Yes thanks,” I told her.
“Can you spare some for my kids?” she sounded desperate.
I’m afraid I laughed. I went back inside without answering her. I heard her scream, “Bitch!” as I closed the door.
They keep trying the fence, testing it to see if electricity runs through it. I assume they run outside to try again whenever the power goes, but we’re on solar, wind power and our own automatic generator which kicks in in the event of total failure of the other sources. The fence gives an automatic report straight to the computer whenever it is touched. In the early days, we had a lot of alerts due to wandering zombies getting through other gardens and properties, but the frequency died off as they did. The alerts have started gaining in frequency as the electricity has begun to fail.
We kept our yard clear of the rotting flesh mainly because they couldn’t get in, but we were especially vigilant once the radio station started warning of contamination from the diseased flesh. The Landrover is hosed down before bringing it home, we don’t want to risk infection.
It would appear we have been watched as we go out, the alerts on the fence increase whenever we go on a raid. It’s a concern, but we’ll handle it.
The last time we returned, both neighbours made a dash for the gate as it swung shut behind the vehicle.
The radio has stated there is an amnesty on looting and special circumstances would be looked at on individual basis in other events of self-defence.
When that news came through, I looked at Trev and he looked at me. He sometimes seems to know what I’m thinking.
We planned another raid.
Leaving the dogs safe inside the house, we left the perimeter of our property. I saw the curtains twitch upstairs in next door’s bedroom window.
Although we both loathed to waste the fuel, we drove around the perimeter of town, using the foray as an excuse to make observations. After half an hour, we made our way back. Trev drove up to the gate slowly, as usual. The gate swung open fast, he drove through and even as we cleared the gate’s arc, it began swinging back, equally fast. I opened the door and hopped to the ground, hitting the paved driveway at a run.
I had been dead-on in my suspicions, years of experience of the neighbours gave me an insight to their behaviour. She ran at me with a length of pipe, swinging it at me. Her emaciated arms bare from the shoulders, presumably to give her as much advantage as possible. Her partner ran from the side; he must have managed to get over the top of the fence somehow. I admired their two-pronged attack for a split-second. They were weakened by starvation and obviously desperate. We had eked out our supplies and supplemented by raids and additional vitamins, were both lighter in weight than we had been, but not unhealthy for it.
I ducked under the inexpert and clumsy swing of the pipe and swung my Samurai sword upward to slice deep into her stomach. The blade scraped across her breastbone and I pulled the blade back so as not to kill her outright.
He checked his forward momentum as he saw his partner go down in gouts of gore, but then changed his mind and came on at me at a dead run.
I have no idea how he had managed to get hold of a medieval pike, but that’s what he wielded until I spun around and removed one of his arms.
The gate to the property swung open again and Trev body-slammed the guy from the side, knocking him out of the gates.
We took hold of the woman’s arms and legs and ‘leg and a wing’ed her out of the gate, to land at her partner’s feet.
The gate swung closed again as the surviving zombies emerged from empty and abandoned houses on the opposite side of the street.
I didn’t wait to see what happened, we got the Landrover into the garage, locked the door and made the perimeter secure. The CCTV would record either the demise or the escape of the neighbours from hell. I’d keep the footage for evidence of the attack on us, in case of complaint.