Hi everyone, hoping to get some advice from the collective intelligence of the MMM forum community...
We purchased a nice house in a HOA area a few months ago. We were initially uncomfortable with the idea of paying HOA fees (since we are typically very frugal, no debts beyond mortgage, etc) but in the end we decided to go for it because we wanted the peace and quiet. We had some problems with a barking dog in our previous neighborhood and we really didn't want to deal with that again, especially now that we have a baby.
The problem is that the house two doors down has at least 3 (although possibly 4 or 5, it certainly sounds like it) dogs that bark like crazy whenever they are let into their back yard. They are usually indoors and so their barking doesn't usually bother us while they are inside their house. We know for a fact that they do bark while they are inside their house because we can see them barking at their front window when we go for our regular walks throughout the neighborhood. There is absolutely no doubt that the owners are aware of the barking. (And by the way, there are plenty of other dogs around in the neighborhood but none that bark so frequently/excessively.)
The dogs are kept inside at night but they are still a major problem. The barking wakes us up in the morning even with our windows closed. This morning was particularly bad - they started at 7.30am (on the dot) and went almost constantly (literally without even one minute of break) until 8.51am after which time they barked sporadically (e.g. every few minutes, for a minute or two each time, at the squirrels, wind, animals or people at the next house, boredom, etc) until 10.50am as I am posting this. They're still going strong so who knows when/if it will stop - maybe the owners have gone out, I'm not sure. Today has been completely ridiculous.
Even on Sunday morning, they barked like crazy from 7.15am until 7.30am - 'only' for 15 minutes, but by which point we were all awake and thoroughly annoyed and unable to go back to sleep. Obviously with a baby we're often up late at night and I don't think it's possible (and definitely not reasonable) for us to need to adjust our sleeping and living arangements around those people and their animals. The dogs also bark whenever they are let out throughout the day, which is a problem when the baby (or an exhausted mama) needs to nap.
We haven't kept a detailed log because quite honestly we're just trying to block it out as much as possible and not think about it. If we tried to write down every time they started and stopped barking, it would be quite an all-consuming and annoying job.
We live in Texas and it's infuriating that we can't keep the windows open in our own home. We need to keep windows closed and air conditioning blasting (think about the cost!) when open windows would suffice, just because some obnoxious people think that they have the right to do whatever they want.
The HOA's response was that "barking dogs are one of the difficult things to deal with and enforce". They suggested we call the Sheriff's office. I did that and they said that (incredibly) there is no noise ordinance here and that the dogs can legally bark literally all day long and the police could stand on the street and hear them and not do anything about it. They said they can only go out and talk to them if the dogs are barking during the night (which we haven't heard) or very early morning - they said there's no fixed rule for early morning, but that they'd consider "before 7.30 or 8am" unreasonable, which does occur, although I haven't called them to come out because it would be after that time before they would be here to listen to it and the dogs would most likely be back inside by then anyway.
The police said that it's a "civil matter" and suggested a lawsuit. They said people get sued for barking dogs all the time. Initially, we actually thought about trying to sue the HOA, since we feel that we were misled into thinking that this would be a quiet area. We definitely would not have moved here had we known that the HOA wouldn't or couldn't do anything about barking dogs. It had never occurred to us to sue the dog owners. We thought you only sued people for money (associated with stress, aggravation, wasted time, real estate costs and moving costs if we need to move, etc) but apparently not. They said that the judge could also force the owners to take certain actions (e.g. barking collars or eventual removal of the dogs if necessary) and fine them or have them arrested if they don't comply with the orders.
We didn't want to pick a fight with neighbours because we don't want them to retaliate by submitting infractions on us (e.g. if we haven't mowed our lawn recently enough, etc) leading to infringement notices and fines for us, but we need to do something to get our sleeping situation under control.
Has anyone sued over barking dogs? Or maybe there's a legal professional here who has seen such lawsuits play out? If so, do you have any advice for us? Thanks for your help!
(Edited 10/12/14 to make it clear that I was updating an old thread for anyone following, rather than kicking off another storm :)