Theiving neighbors?
We have two pet chickens that we keep in a coop in our backyard in our apartment building. Though we keep on fixing the coop, one chicken, dubbed Houdini (after the master escape artist), always manages to escape the coop and wanders around our yard, and once or twice, in the next door neighbor's yard. But she always stays in the immediate vicinity, where she can get food and water easily. Houdini also will wander into our house if we leave the back door open.
This past friday, we went out for an hour but didnt lock our door. When we came home, we saw the front door ajar... We didnt remember leaving it open. We then found the back door wide open, and we KNEW we didnt leave it open. And Houdini was missing. Not in our yard anywhere, not in the neighbor's yards... We looked everywhere and couldnt find her. We were positive someone walked into our house, into the yard, and stole the chicken.
As I was going to leave the building to see if perhaps Houdini wandered out the building on her own and was on the street, I see our new neighbors and their kids in the stairway right near our house. I figured, if they live upstairs from us, they might have seen something. I asked them if they saw what happened to our chicken, "Not that I suspect you or anything" and the father answers with a laugh "Maybe it wandered off into someone's soup pot."
Is it just me, or is that a strange answer to "Did you see our chicken?"
Anyhow, we walk down the stairs and I am standing with my family outside my building, and this neighbor is walking with his son, passes our next door neighbor's yard, who's picket fence has a picket leaning sideways. Instead of straightening it, he snaps it in half, and chucks it into the neighbors house. In full view of his son, my husband and I, and my parents... He obviously thought he did nothing wrong if he'd destroy someones property in full view of others.
My suspicions immediately returned to him regarding the chicken. If he has that little regard for other people's property, who said he or his kids didnt have such little regard that the chicken was our property and took our little Houdini?
While we're busy fuming over what disgusting neighbors we have, we hear the neighbors returning from their walk. A few minutes later, we hear some clucking from our yard and see that little Houdini is back.
Now our suspicions are even stronger, because it seems that they took the chicken, and because we suspected them, they probably dropped her from their apartment two flights up and she flew down into our yard... It is impossible for houdini to have disappeared so completely and then to have returned that easily... I really strongly suspect neighborly intervention.
Of course, there is nothing we can do about our suspicions because they are just that- suspicions, with no facts to prove it.
That's problem one.
Second is I met the wife and she seems really sweet and nice and normal. But the father strikes me as abusive. He's constantly SCREAMING at his kids... leaving his kids afraid and crying. (We don't have lights in our hallway and friday night the father left the little 7 year old son petrified at the entrance of the building, to go up the scary dark stairs by himself, and the little boy is crying and crying "I'm scared of the dark. Why do I have a father who abandons me?!" And his mother heard him crying from 4 floors up and had to come down to get her son.
Anything I can possibly do about this lovely situation, aside for making sure to always lock my door (which we are being very careful to do now)?
This past friday, we went out for an hour but didnt lock our door. When we came home, we saw the front door ajar... We didnt remember leaving it open. We then found the back door wide open, and we KNEW we didnt leave it open. And Houdini was missing. Not in our yard anywhere, not in the neighbor's yards... We looked everywhere and couldnt find her. We were positive someone walked into our house, into the yard, and stole the chicken.
As I was going to leave the building to see if perhaps Houdini wandered out the building on her own and was on the street, I see our new neighbors and their kids in the stairway right near our house. I figured, if they live upstairs from us, they might have seen something. I asked them if they saw what happened to our chicken, "Not that I suspect you or anything" and the father answers with a laugh "Maybe it wandered off into someone's soup pot."
Is it just me, or is that a strange answer to "Did you see our chicken?"
Anyhow, we walk down the stairs and I am standing with my family outside my building, and this neighbor is walking with his son, passes our next door neighbor's yard, who's picket fence has a picket leaning sideways. Instead of straightening it, he snaps it in half, and chucks it into the neighbors house. In full view of his son, my husband and I, and my parents... He obviously thought he did nothing wrong if he'd destroy someones property in full view of others.
My suspicions immediately returned to him regarding the chicken. If he has that little regard for other people's property, who said he or his kids didnt have such little regard that the chicken was our property and took our little Houdini?
While we're busy fuming over what disgusting neighbors we have, we hear the neighbors returning from their walk. A few minutes later, we hear some clucking from our yard and see that little Houdini is back.
Now our suspicions are even stronger, because it seems that they took the chicken, and because we suspected them, they probably dropped her from their apartment two flights up and she flew down into our yard... It is impossible for houdini to have disappeared so completely and then to have returned that easily... I really strongly suspect neighborly intervention.
Of course, there is nothing we can do about our suspicions because they are just that- suspicions, with no facts to prove it.
That's problem one.
Second is I met the wife and she seems really sweet and nice and normal. But the father strikes me as abusive. He's constantly SCREAMING at his kids... leaving his kids afraid and crying. (We don't have lights in our hallway and friday night the father left the little 7 year old son petrified at the entrance of the building, to go up the scary dark stairs by himself, and the little boy is crying and crying "I'm scared of the dark. Why do I have a father who abandons me?!" And his mother heard him crying from 4 floors up and had to come down to get her son.
Anything I can possibly do about this lovely situation, aside for making sure to always lock my door (which we are being very careful to do now)?