Thanks for your thoughts, Sarah.

As far as the landlord, here you'd have to sue in civil court to get her to do the maintenance, and she's in her 90s. She probably would not even be considered to be competent for a trial, and it could drag out forever, which is why we didn't do this. My husband is a civil lawyer, so she knows how these things work.


The furniture making is illegal. To run a business like that, you'd need to have a municipal permit and they don't give a permit for a business like that in a residential area. The municipality has a specific industrial area zoned for these things. There are noise ordinances that he is likely violating too.

The thing is about calling the police is that they aren't going to be here all the time to protect me. The guy got in my face and threatened and yelled at me for politely asking him to move out of the parking space that we have used for years. He's done similar things to others.


Honestly, my fear is retaliation for reporting them to the police, municipal inspectors, etc. I have dogs and have a genuine concern that if he thinks we reported him that he could toss some poisoned meat over the fence. My neighbor friends on the other side feel the same way. He ran over one of their bikes the other day and just left it there, didn't apologize, offer to repair it, nothing. But, because of their dogs, they don't want to confront him. The police can't bring back our dead pets if it came to that.


I should try some breathing. Good idea. I need to get back into my yoga. Typical earplugs bother my ears because my ears are very small, but maybe I can see if there is a kid-size available or something for when it gets to be too much.