The Tragedy of the Exception
How one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.
This week, for the first time in my life, I appeared in a court of law as a defendant. The crime? Allegedly allowing my dog to bark for hours at a time in my backyard. The accuser? My next-door neighbor. The verdict? Guilty. The process? I’d say laughable, if I didn’t want to cry.
When we moved into this quiet, old-school, mostly-blue-collar suburban neighborhood seventeen years ago, many of our neighbors were generous in their welcome. But several of them told us to give our next-door neighbor a very wide berth. He would shout at our kids, they said. He would intimidate anyone who tried to talk to him. He was angry, and scary. We took it all with a grain of salt—we had no reason to think badly of him.
It wasn’t long, though,before we had our first run-ins with him. When my preschool-aged children were playing in the backyard one afternoon, he shouted at them to shut up and threatened to call the police, terrifying them. His big black labrador retriever, which he didn’t keep on a leash, would charge people walking by his yard. (That dog is long since gone, replaced by a tiny white lapdog.) If our visitors parked on the street in front of his house, he’d ring my doorbell and berate them (and us) because their wheels were too close to his grass. This past winter, when I was snow-blowing my driveway, he came over to stand in front of me, furious and yelling because some of the snow was landing in his yard. Not his driveway, or his sidewalk, mind you—his already-under-a-foot-of-snow yard. (Yes, it’s true, some of my snow was getting on his snow. Of that, I was guilty.)
I dealt with it by trying to keep my distance. When I’d have guests over, I’d include a note in my invitation warning them not to park on the public street in front of his house. I avoided letting the wheels of my lawnmower ever touch the edge of his yard. I blew the snow onto my own driveway rather than engage in another confrontation.There were things I didn’t do, however, that I’m sure aggravated him. In particular, I haven’t ever given my front lawn the level of attention that he lavishes on his—I have weeds and dandelions, and sometimes wait a little too long to mow.
In March, however, while I was overseas, the situation escalated. My house-sitter called me to tell me a letter had arrived from the town court, directing me to appear for an arraignment. The charge? A violation of the town code, Section 79.8 H: “It shall be unlawful for an owner to permit a dog to howl, bark, yelp, cry, whine or conduct itself in such a manner so as to habitually or continuously disturb the peace and quiet of other persons at any time of day or night.”
The arraignment was scheduled for early April—while I was teaching in Croatia—but the town prosecutor agreed to postpone it until after my return at the end of May. (Which was a relief, since the notice said that a criminal warrant would be issued if I failed to appear.)
On June 5, I showed up in court, where they gave me a copy of the complaint—signed by Claude & Dorothy Wilmer, my next-door neighbors, and accompanied by a hand-written log that was filled with times they claimed that Morgan had been outside barking for prolonged periods of time. Many of the entries were clearly untrue, including one outrageous claim that Morgan had been outside for six straight hours in 18-degree weather, barking and whining continuously on February 16th. This was the first I’d heard of their concerns—apparently they felt that filing a criminal complaint would somehow be preferable to talking to me. (In many jurisdictions, codes require complainants to at least try to resolve their issues with each other directly before turning to the courts…but not here.)
The fine for a first offense is only $25, so I told the presiding judge that while the accusations were not true, I would be willing to pay the fine rather than subject everyone to the expense and hassle of a trial—at which point he strongly advised me not to plead guilty to something that wasn’t true, and instead to get a lawyer and come back for a trial. So I did. (Props to my sister, who found me a dog-loving lawyer who was willing to take my case for free. Hiring a lawyer to defend me against bogus criminal dog-barking charges was really not in my budget this summer.)
On August 5th I had my hearing. (Not a trial; there was no jury, just a judge.) I brought with me a signed statement from the neighbors on every other side of my house—three across the street, one next-door—saying that they had not heard Morgan bark, howl or whine in any excessive or habitual manner. The judge, however, refused to accept that statement as evidence. (It’s worth noting that it was a different judge from the one who advised me to come back with a lawyer.) So basically, it came down to my word against theirs…and the judge found me guilty. Apparently in the Town of Henrietta, an uncorroborated list of accusations is sufficient “proof” to warrant a conviction. Awesome. If I’d known that, I’d have paid the $25 dollars two months ago and been done with the whole thing.
Here’s the thing—the real issue isn’t that I had to pay a $25 fine. The real issue is that this has left me angry, and hurt, and ready to pack up my things and move away. The only thing keeping me here in the house is the fact that I know the boys would like to have it to come home to while they’re in college. Still, I’m no longer sure that’s enough justification to compensate for the stress of living next to someone who’s clearly decided to declare war on me for absolutely no reason that I understand.
My younger son said to me today that it could well just be a case of both sides feeling wronged, feeling as though the other had “started it.” And I do recognize that my neighbors were clearly frustrated with what they perceived as excessive barking (even if the log they produced was greatly exaggerated).What I don’t understand is why they couldn’t simply have said to me, “Because we go to bed very early, Morgan’s barking in the evening is a big problem for us; could you please be more careful about supervising her when she’s outside?” That’s a completely reasonable request, and I’d have worked hard to honor it. Instead, in every instance, they’ve used anger and blame (and now the courts) rather than polite requests. I don’t want to live in a war zone. But since there’s nothing at all that I’m doing intentionally to annoy them, I’m really not sure what I could do to de-escalate the hostilities.
When I shared the verdict on Facebook, my friend Tim Burke wrote this:
I really fucking hate this kind of crap. I’m sorry it’s been visited on you. This is why people have given up on community and publics. It’s not the tragedy of the commons, it’s the opposite: the tragedy of the exception. One person whose sensibilities are way out of line with everyone else’s and who doesn’t really care if they hurt, annoy or inconvenience others. All it takes is one person who can’t and won’t deal with the ordinary work of getting along to poison the possibility of community and make everyone turn inward, stop living as they wish, create rules and regulations.
I have to remind myself that most of my neighbors are wonderful, and that with this one exception, our house has been a great home to us for many years. But the sad truth is that this exception has cast a shadow over my life here, made me uncomfortable about going out into my own yard, and left me anxious and resentful about my environment. The Osmonds might have claimed that one bad apple wouldn’t spoil the whole bunch, but in the real world it definitely can.
