OK, so I'm beating a dead horse here, bringing up an old thread. But I have an example that pretty much defines the point I am trying to make.

My house is tucked way back in the trees, off the road. I share a common property line with neighbors who are adjacent to the road. After I lived in my house for 15 or 20 years, my neighbors moved away and new people moved in... with the Hell Hounds.

The Hell Hounds are four incredibly stupid beagles who have nothing to do with their lives except bark at any change in their environment. The noise is physically painful if I am close (<20 feet) to them. If I turn the light on in my kitchen or crack open a door that will set them off, and that is from 70 feet away. God help me if I want to walk down my driveway -- I will be aurally assaulted, non-stop until I am at least half a block away from the edge of their property.

OK, it's annoying. But it's more than that. I figure that those fscking beagles have cost me somewhere between thirty and fifty thousand dollars. My house is for sale, and at least two people declined because of the beagles. I finally received an offer last week -- for $70,000 less than my original asking price. I'm going to take it.

I was supposed to be retired and in Mexico nearly a year ago, and because I am keeping two households (I'm working in Alaska, my wife is working in California) and because the real estate market has declined sharply (can you say: "collapsed", and we're seeing just the beginning of the fiscal train wreck) and because Alaska and California expenses are vastly greater than they would have been in Mexico... I figure I am somewhere around $110,000 worse off than I would have been had I been proactive and fed those beagles a nice bowl of anti-freeze the day I put my place up for sale.

I have a short video clip of the Hell Hounds, but it still runs about 11 MB which I think is too big to post here. If anybody would like to host it for me... ??

Do I sound bitter?

tanstaafl.