You can win a lot of batlles, still loose the war because you are not on the batllefield (not living on sight).
So you keep wining all the legal batlles, but gaine nothing but frustration.
A very wise statement Ande!
On a similar vein I have a retired cop behind me that is quite the whiner. He's whined about the sound of one of my diaphragm compressors, and the sound of a trash pump I left running after sunset. He must have quite an ear as he lives at least 300 feet behind me!
I could have told him tough *itties, but I didn't.
Instead I listened to him and assured him I would take measures to stop the noise. The diaphragm compressor wasn't a big deal as I was going to change it out for a rotary vane compressor, which is much quieter. And there really wasn't a need to run the trash pump at night so I only ran it in the daytime from then on. Actually I use electric sump pumps now for draining the back three ponds so no more noise at all.
But here in lies the advantage: It's possible if someone tries to cross his property to get to mine (trespassing) he'll question them and put a stop to it. Also one never knows if you will need your neighbor as an ally so it's best to keep them happy. I.e the county or someone comes up with some bullcrap tax or something, or someone wants to put a nasty trailer in next to my property.
Of course I know Jeff's situation is different to some extent. IMHO his dumb neighbor is not the thief, and can be dealt with diplomatically as Jeff as done. I would make a WAG that the thieves are the meth dealers. But then again the nephew sounds a little suspicious too.
On another note someone brought up fingerprints. My brother had a break in where his laptop computer was stolen. When the cops came my brother pointed out it was obvious the blinds were parted, probably because one of the thieves was a look out. Anyway my brother asked if they could get fingerprints off the blind. The response with a groan was, "This isn't CSI," and they didn't bother. Either prints are not as easy to get as they are portrayed on CSI or these cops were very apathetic.
