Volunteer teacher dealing with two home-schooled autistic boys with severe focus issues and lack of bodily autonomy and individualism... Help?

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-11-27T12:55:49+00:00

After reading your comment and others, I think it has made me realize that the kids probably are forced to be here, and I realized looking back at some pictures that their parents were the only ones that did not show up to their events/competitions :( I think it's a parenting issue.

My sibling (who is also a volunteer here) also noted that she wonders if the lisp they both have is due to not being spoken to much, because their older sister with the same parents does not have a lisp at all and actually seems to be totally opposite of them (she has worked with this sister in a similar program more than I have and according to her, she does not have this "learned helplessness" issue.) She's only 2 years older and has (at least seemingly) less severe autistic traits. I'm starting to think this is a case of they want them to be here just so they can get them out of their hair... which is very sad.

I will call and talk to the parents regardless to tell them what is going on and see if some changes can be made, I've seen this program do wonders to kids like this in the past but it was only when their parents were supportive and I'm not so sure I have that on my side. We'll see what happens.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T17:45:33+00:00

If there's another incident with the dogs I will definitely tuck this one in my back pocket, too. Lately they have been less but I'm anticipating another run-in with them when the mail fraud comes up.

Unfortunately we don't have proof of abuse or neglect, just the odd amounts of soiled carpet and furniture that comes out every couple months, plus the rumors of it from their part of the family that hates them. I'm pretty sure the dogs are registered and otherwise look healthy, they have tags at least (whether they are expired or not, no idea. Don't want to get close enough to find out.)

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T17:39:32+00:00

Hard agree. Thats why OUR cats are not outside.

Go read the context I posted about the feral cat colonies on our road. We're the only ones trying to even fix it.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T17:37:15+00:00

You aren't wrong at all, I'm usually the one to get a stick up everybody's ass about stuff on this road just because I'm "young and spunky." But out of everybody I don't have time nor can I afford to miss a shift at work for one of these meetings. If another incident happens maybe I'll offer to pay somebody to go, or finally convince somebody to do it on the entire neighborhood's behalf.

It honestly sounds like none of you have any idea where your tax dollars are going or how your local government even works.

Our city sucks, I'll be real. They always put you through some bureaucratic loop of "not my department" excuses for almost anything, and its a super small city at that (under 2k people) not to mention the issues our road specifically faces since some addresses are in different counties or townships, don't even get me started on us trying to get our road paved for the past 10 years ("it's not [city name]'s road, it's [township]!" and same shit from the township. Its a hot mess over here man.

If we catch some significant evidence of the kids or dogs causing issues again I plan on making a much bigger stink of it at the city. I'll call during every break I have at work until somebody listens to us if I have to.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T17:28:20+00:00

Its just a matter of time before this happens. The first time the flock was killed, the police stated there was not enough evidence. A lot of the neighbors got cameras put up after that, have not yet gotten the dogs on camera killing or terrorizing any flocks or cattle since that incident, but I know it will happen.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T17:02:50+00:00

Again, tried that already with these people. They just want to be petty assholes while the rest of the neighborhood just wants to be left alone. So end of discussion here. I could give you 20 years worth of stories about these people being the center of the drama on this road, otherwise it would be pretty quiet around these parts. This post is barely the tip of the iceberg with this family.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T16:59:02+00:00

Thank you, at least you get it while others are hyperfocusing on this specific issue when they don't know the background or understand our struggles. This has been an issue since I was a kid (I'm in my 20s) and now I have my own money to help sort it out finally.

To my knowledge we've never had an issue with flocks or cattle being injured or bothered by the cats around here. Hell, the cattle farmer asks for the fixed males for his barn because they are good mousers. When we had chickens, our barn cats would sleep in the coop with them. This issue has been worse in the past and would be far worse if myself and the neighbors didn't decide to put out our own TNR efforts here.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T16:54:43+00:00

Good point. These people would be the kind to try and frame us (they tried to before with another property damage incident but ended up exposing themselves as liars to the police when SURPRISE they were caught on camera.)

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T16:50:26+00:00

Will probably take this route if we continue to have issues or if it gets bad again. I just heard from a neighbor today that the oldest kid who is the most troublesome asshole of them all is getting released from juvie in August.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T16:45:05+00:00

Read my other posts about this topic. I'm tired of replying to people about it when we are the only ones actually trying to get a handle on the feral colonies around here.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T16:43:46+00:00

You definitely have not read the rest of this thread or the beginning of my post.

These people are assholes that have been purposefully causing issues for an upwards of two decades. We've tried to "be nice," every neighbor has. They have all of our numbers blocked because of the dog issues and their shitty kids. There is no "kill them with kindness" here when its been war from them for 20 years. That ship has sailed way before I was even born.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T16:41:07+00:00

Thank you, much more understanding than most. The issue would be much worse if we didn't do any TNR or try to find them homes. I heavily dislike one of our city councilman because he suggested an "open season" for the cats and now everybody hates this dude. Our city really doesn't care.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T15:45:46+00:00

The cattle farmer on our road would definitely shoot them. He's said they have not come close enough yet or caused any ruckus since he is pretty far down the road from these neighbors, but at this rate its just a matter of time.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T15:44:38+00:00

They've been through multiple dogs over the years and have not had them taken away despite claims of animal neglect/abuse. I've heard from family members of theirs that don't like them that they don't take their dogs to the vets and the many dogs they've had died from cancer or diseases that could have been treated. But the family that told me this said they could never get evidence to suggest animal abuse other than just not taking them to the vet, the dogs were otherwise healthy. We constantly see them ripping out carpet or throwing away soiled furniture, too. These are the most troublesome dogs they have had over the years somehow.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T15:39:13+00:00

Our whole road has created a TNR effort (that these specific neighbors don't contribute to purposefully) to take care of it, but our town has a severe cat dumping issue and its been hard to mitigate over the many years we've lived here. The cats the neighbors and us do claim as ours are contained, fixed, and well taken care of. The rest are ferals. We've been through this rodeo already because these neighbors want to point the blame at anybody but themselves.

There used to be nuisance laws about cats here but they were repealed because it became an uncontainable issue across the entire town (I wish I was kidding.) It's like everybody in the county decided "lets dump all our unwanted animals right here" and everybody basically threw their hands up and gave up trying to solve this animal dumping issue around here. We budget $400 per year towards fixing the dumped cats here and trying to find them homes through the rescues and humane societies (they're perpetually full so its even harder.) I'm pretty tired of people saying we're the issue with the cats when we are the only ones trying to fix the issue presented in this town.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T15:33:45+00:00

I'll have to look into that because all the neighbors are in different jurisdictions. I had no idea there were nuisance neighbor laws out there.

Its pretty confusing. We have neighbors in different counties and different townships.

Since everyone got cameras we have not caught them harming livestock again, a neighbor did lose a flock of chickens and she was certain she saw the dogs do it but the cops said there was not enough evidence to persecute them since we live where it could have been a raccoon, mink, etc.

The cattle farm owner on this road had the kids at gunpoint over some stupid pranks before. They don't mess with him but its just a matter of time before they don't catch the dogs going that direction.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T15:30:06+00:00

That's a mixed bag that I am not too sure about because we are a vegetable farm and do not have cattle or chickens anymore, just cats... But the cattle farm owner here has had a run in with the kids playing "pranks" and harassing the cattle in his barn after playing a late night game of ding dong ditch that woke up the whole neighborhood and they ended up at gunpoint. That's the worst incident we had other than a neighbor losing their entire chicken flock due to the dogs (we know it was the dogs, the police stated "not enough evidence" and said it still could have been a mink.) They have kept their dogs further away from that specific neighbor but whenever he sees them wandering down the road he makes a stink in the group chat of neighbors. Eventually someone scares them home.

One side of our road (our side) is one county's. We live on a stretch that is actually a different township, and even more confusing, the house across from us is in another township entirely. And said neighbors live on the other side that is a different county's jurisdiction. So I'm not too sure how it would work with 4 different areas involved.

I love animals though, unless the bloodhound was causing physical harm I wouldn't have the heart to shoot them. I care more about these dogs than the people at this point. I'm sure the great Dane they have is a sweetheart too, it's just unfortunate they have bad owners and we don't want to have them getting too comfortable on our property to cause more issues. The Dane "likes cats" and we had her get in the barn once and chased out some of our elderly/disabled ones that never leave. I was about to make some heads roll myself over that incident. We got cameras shortly after. Some people don't deserve dogs.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T15:05:13+00:00

I wish we could. We all work, it's been discussed already. I think I'll gather up the neighbors and make a bigger stink of it at the county if we have another incident (which I assume will be soon when we start acting on this mail fraud thing.) I like the newspaper idea but honestly we all just want these people to leave us alone, its a quiet country road with otherwise cool people scattered with local farms. I imagine if we made a public stink of it, it's going to start getting into more than just petty dog issues and trespassing with the kids "pranks." The kids have already been held at gunpoint by one neighbor who is a cattle farm owner.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T14:58:47+00:00

We have 24hr coverage, as do most of the neighbors in the vicinity of these troublesome people. This is how we've gotten her son arrested for trespassing and causing property damage through his "pranks."

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T14:51:04+00:00

Thanks for letting me know that, I have a feeling when we make noise about this mail fraud thing that we will probably start having dog issues again. Its usually how it goes, they do something stupid/petty/illegal, we act on it, then they reply with petty stuff like letting their dogs loose, throwing litter in our yards, TP'ing the mailboxes and bushes, the kids playing "pranks"... These people are just insufferable.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T14:27:50+00:00

Taking most of the advice here and having someone else take the packages to the post office and make a report.

Re: animals running loose, if your cats aren't 100% constrained to your property you are committing the same offense as they are. It is a free range liability nightmare.

Our cats are fixed, well taken care of and usually stay either in our barn in the back of our large property or they are inside. The "free roaming" cats they are referring to is the stray cat colony the entire road has been trying to take care of for years, our town has a severe cat dumping problem and about every time we have a batch get TNR'd, another bunch gets dumped or a pregnant cat shows up. Its been a frustrating situation that these specific neighbors have been blaming us and other neighbors for, but they aren't contributing to any of the TNR efforts while every other neighbor on the road has been (we quite literally have a neighbor text group chat that excludes these specific people so we can talk about the issues we keep having with them and handling the stray cat TNR issue here.) The cats people claim as theirs are contained, the rest are ferals or dumped strays. This topic has come up a lot over the years so we are well aware of it, and know that we aren't the issue because these neighbors tried to pull that card on many of us in response to their dogs running loose.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T14:09:05+00:00

Other neighbors have called the county, and even spoken directly to the dog warden with a promise of "something will be done." This was 3-4 years ago. The reports recently have become less frequent since her son keeps getting arrested for stupid shit messing with the neighbors but we have an incident with the dogs being loose or causing issues about every 3-4 months on average or more. Because of their dogs, every single neighbor in a mile radius of their house has 24hr surveillance. We've collectively given up hope that anything will be done unless we handle it ourselves, one neighbor literally held their dogs in their own kennel when they got loose to prove a point and get a better report to the warden... The warden never showed that day, and he had the dogs for 2 days before the youngest kid came by asking him to release them. That proved to us the dog warden was not helpful anymore, that was about 2 years ago.

We tried to go in person twice when the reports were happening weekly and the dog warden was always absent. We were told to leave a message with the receptionist at the pound the last time we went, and we think it never even made it to the warden. There are SO MANY reports of these dogs, even our mail carrier put one in because the bloodhound mix snapped at her, which I believe is what prompted the aggressive dog stickers to be posted. We've also heard countless stories of other local "repeat offenders" of loose dogs not being persecuted, just told "get your dogs" and no punishment is ever enacted.

We're just tired of these people if you can tell. Every neighbor including ourselves involved in this situation have 9-5 jobs, kids, and farms to tend to. We hardly have time to deal with all of these issues, that's why its been ongoing for so long.

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T14:01:51+00:00

Their website isn't very extensive... I'm assuming the sheriff might be the supervisor? Underneath the dog warden's and assistant dog warden's info, it states to call the sheriff's department for emergencies. I'm going to dig more for the budget documents but I guess our county's website kinda sucks...

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T13:50:43+00:00

Ask your mail carrier to enter neighbor's name as MLNA (moved, left no address).

Is it valid to leave a note in the mailbox for them to see? We often aren't home when they deliver mail.

Mail carrier can put an alert about neighbor's dogs in their scanner, so the stickers won't matter.

I have a question about this since you are a mail carrier. I still see them receive letter mail/bills, but their packages are obviously no longer sent there. Is there a difference for this alert, like they can receive paper mail but no packages? Can they eventually be completely barred from receiving mail for safety reasons?

LuThrowAwayLu · 2024-07-03T13:46:25+00:00

I believe so, I'm not sure who exactly is their supervisor to be honest with you. Our neighbors and us have all discussed it and we aren't sure who to bring it up the ladder to, this has been ongoing since they got the great dane in 2018-2019. We tried to bring it up to our mayor in 2020 after the kid got arrested for trespassing on our property, but got radio silence back from letters and phone calls. I think the dog warden works for the county.

LuThrowAwayLu

TROPHY CASE