Do you like or even know your neighbors? Sometimes I feel like we know our neighbors too well and most of the time that’s not a good thing. Not at all!

We know most of our neighbors because my husband is Mr. Friendly. So friendly in fact that I often call him Mr. Flanders (from the Simpsons) and I’d swear I’ve heard him call out “Hi de ho – Neighbor” on occasion! So yeah … we know everyone for blocks around, half due to my husbands outgoing friendliness and half due to the fact that the two of us work at the hospital just down the street and we’ve both taken care of many of our neighbors over the years in the ER (me), day surgery or on the various medical floors of the hospital.

Our newest neighbors, the renters that moved in next door in January, are really getting on my nerves lately.

They bought a Lab/ American Bulldog mix puppy shortly after falling in love with our Lab, Midnight, and I fear for the poor little thing. They let it out in their backyard unattended and it’s eating weeds, wood and all kinds of things. That pup is going to have a bowel obstruction soon. Also, their gate doesn’t lock properly so this week their puppy has gotten out and ran to the front twice! Luckily yesterday when it happened the first time I was outside with my dog and the puppy ran right up to us … otherwise he might have ran out into the busy street.

On Saturday the guy was walking their puppy and he let it get too close to a dog that was fenced in it’s own backyard. The dog bit their puppy in the face! Did my neighbors take their dog to the vet? Nope! They asked me for advice since I’m a nurse. My main advice was to go to the vet fast as I though their puppy needed stitches, but I also gave them betadine to put on the wound to keep it clean. Anyway, by the next day the three holes in their puppies muzzle were infected and pussy, probably because they’d let the dog play outside in the dirty weedy garden. They finally took their pup to the vets on Monday and it’s now on antibiotics.

Then … last night they bought a used car. We share our driveway – alternating driveway use each month since the drive way is short and narrow and only one car can be parked in it at once. So they bought this old boat of a car (they now have three or four cars!) and wedged it in the driveway.

I say wedged because it’s wider than the driveway and we can’t even walk down the driveway beside the car because the car is only about half a foot from each of our houses! Grrrr! So what now … gee, when I need to water my lawn and front flower beds I’m going to have to ask them to move the car so I can get the hose between the house and their boat of a car? Sigh!

They also have two daughters. One is a ten and she’s been asking my advice about dieting and reading Colonix reviews. She’s only 12 and I don’t want to hurt her feelings but I’m starting to feel like a professional adviser what with all the questions she’s asking … not to mention her family asking us all kinds of dog car and training advice (and then not using it!).

Do you have neighbors that just make you shake your head in wonder at the things they do?