We moved into our new house in February 2009. Almost immediately, I realized that the neighbors had two young dogs who barked.
And barked a lot.
And barked exceptionally loudly.
The dogs barked early in the morning, late at night, and -- on most days -- for hours on end, while their owners were away.
And the dogs' owners were away a great deal of the time -- all day long, and for days on end.
Because I often cannot fall asleep for hours because of the pain in my eyes -- particularly once I remove the special contact lenses -- I was being awakened, over and over and over.
Upon awakening, it feels like there's ground glass in my eyes. Like there's molten ground glass in my eyes. It's terrible. The pain is excruciating. I was losing hours of sleep each day, and -- because of the all-day barking -- couldn't even take a much-needed nap.
This began a spiral of fatigue and increasing pain that led me back to the doctors at the pain clinic for relief. Increased medications led to increased fatigue. Increased sleep deprivation led to increased pain. It was a vicious cycle. I was trapped in it. It was just a horrible nightmare.
I told my wife that the dog owners were probably used to living next to an empty lot. I was sure that they would adjust to having people live next door. I chose to give them a bit of time to see if the problem resolved on its own, before bringing it up.
But the problem didn't resolve. The hour after hour, day after day, barking just continued.
The barking echoed throughout my house, no matter how many doors and windows were closed, or what kind of earplugs or background noise I used to minimize the noise. The houses were mere feet apart. The barking dogs were as close as about arm's length from the entire side of my house.
Without the barking of the neighbors' dogs, the neighborhood -- well, at least our house -- was just about dead silent, nearly all the time. It was unbelievable to me just how intense these barks were, coming against a background of such profound quiet. It was like a bomb going off. Not only was it horrendously loud, but it was what they call an "impulse" noise -- very sudden -- as opposed to sounds like traffic that are pretty constant.
After a couple of months of this, I finally wrote a kindly-worded note to the neighbors, explaining my medical circumstances, and the toll it was taking on my health. I invited the dog owners to come to our house, to meet, chat, and talk about the barking issue.
For a week or so, things seemed to get better. I sent the neighbors a fruit basket to express my thanks.
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