Help a Homesteading Family Escape Dangerous Neighbors

First things first, I want to sincerely thank you for taking the time to be here and read our story, it’s going to be a rollercoaster. If you could please help us either by posting this to your social media or contributing financially to our cause, it would help so much in keeping our children safe and putting our lives back together.

My name is Erin, I’m a wife to a wonderful man, and a mother to two beautiful girls and one very clever little boy. My family had a long-time goal of buying a small homestead, which after much hard work, we finally thought we achieved this goal just over 3 years ago. After more than a year of house shopping, we found a fixer-upper farmhouse on 5 acres with a beautiful front range view in rural Colorado. We signed the papers prepared to start our new life as homesteaders, raising our kids to grow food and work with their hands and enjoy the outdoors, freedom, and fresh air. This house was in the middle of wide-open fields, but quite close on the back of the house to the only nearby neighbor. Had we known the type of people who lived in that house, we would have run when we had the chance. I could have never imagined the havoc that “bad neighbors” could unleash on you.

Upon purchasing what we thought would be our dream home, we immediately began renovations on the house, as well as erecting fencing and barns for the animals that we would soon adopt, rescue, and purchase to build our dream. That’s when the problems began. The neighbors immediately had a problem with our existence and couldn’t resist making it very clear to us that they did not like us. Their harassment, intimidation, and trespassing became a constant source of anxiety for us. From our beloved pets being poisoned and physically attacked, to these people digging through our trash, to them just entering our property and animal enclosures without permission, to them just hanging over our fence recording our kids on their phones while our kids play in their own yard, we had to do something. Our poor dogs have been poisoned so many times at this point we keep emergency veterinary supplies on hand and scan the yard before we can let them out. We also discovered one of them is a convicted felon with multiple counts of child r*pe, which added a whole new depth to our anxiety, and made the fact that they record our kids even more disturbing. In the last year, they began erecting telephone poles a few feet from our property line and covering them (literally) with high-tech, AI motion tracking cameras that video and audio record us and our children 24/7. There are currently at least 7 cameras pointed directly at our backyard and kid’s playground equipment, and it’s very clear we are not safe here. It’s so gross and uncomfortable, we barely let the kids play outside anymore. The camera they have monitoring our driveway let’s them know when we come and go, so they know when our property and animals are unattended. The local police have come out to help us with them several times, but the neighbors run and hide when they see the police pulling into our driveway after an episode of harassment. Again, all I want is for these people to just leave us the hell alone.

As it’s been 3 years of dealing with these people by now, I really can’t go through every single thing we’ve endured, but it’s been miserable, and EXPENSIVE. These neighbors just seem to feel completely entitled to our property. It turns out that they own the vacant fields around us, and that our house was historically a mother-in-law house to theirs. Essentially, our 5-acre plot is dead center in the middle of their 40-acre plot. Rather than purchasing the property back when it was for sale, it seems they just are trying to run us off. We hired a lawyer to try to protect ourselves so that we can go back to our lives. We moved out here to be left alone and do our own thing, after all.

Another recent nuisance, the neighbors have a MASSIVE landfill in their backyard. I’m talking dozens of broken down RVs, trucks, trailers, STACKS of bathtubs and sinks, huge underground chemical tankers.. For the last year, these people have been using industrial equipment late at night to rearrange their garbage around our property. They dragged their landfill up around our property to just kind of encase us in trash. I really don’t care what they do with their land; if they want to be encased in garbage, I really could care less. I would just like the same respect when it comes to what I want to do with my land. So now their trash blows onto our property all the time, where we pick it up and pay to dispose of it, without complaining to them mind you. Additionally, the movement of literal tons of trash up to the property line has brought an absolute infestation of mice, feral wildlife, and stray cats onto our property, which poses health risks to us and our pets.

Again, I am so barely scratching the surface here of what we’ve dealt with over the past 3 years.

Here’s what I am asking for help with: our legal bills over the past couple years became a huge hinderance to us being able to renovate and build our dream, let alone just live comfortably. Many of the projects I started have stagnated due to the cost of trying to fight for our right to simply exist on our own property. We need our peace back, and our safety and privacy. At this point, they win. We just want to get back to our lives. I can’t discuss any of the legal proceedings or litigation here, but it has been so expensive it’s just not even worth it anymore. I can say though that they are fully willing to lie under oath to try to justify their heinous actions. Absolutely ridiculous and not even vaguely believable lies, like that my kids are training our farm animals and family pets to attack them. Claims that my children threaten them. My oldest child listens to music when she does her farm chores to try to protect anything she says from being recorded, and they claimed in court that she’s “sending them messages” in Blink 182 and Offspring lyrics, and it makes them fear for their lives. That would honestly be kind of silly if it wasn’t devastating our lives at this point.

We don’t have any fight left in us. The case is ongoing, but we just cannot keep living like this, as there’s no end in sight. Our legal debt has been so substantial that the last year we have had to take out loans. Then in a stroke of additional bad luck, my husband’s company laid everyone off last fall. We had no savings, debt and loans from our legal battles, and his student loans. As he was laid off with no severance, we immediately began defaulting on loans, and our previously stellar credit score tanked, making the prospect of moving somewhere safe a plan that would be significantly delayed. My part time job barely kept meals on the table as we sank deeper into debt. He has since found new employment, but the damage is done. We desperately need to move, as soon as possible, but first we have to pay off legal bills and repair our credit enough that we can qualify for a mortgage. Every day we stay here, our animals and children are at risk of further abuse and exploitation.

Anything helps. A share of this post. Any small donation. Well wishes. We know we will take a loss on this house since it’s in various stages of remodeling, not to mention I have no idea who we could even sell the house to with all these cameras pointed at it and the walls of trash and filth they put around us. We’ll take a hike in interest rates by moving at this point, but you can’t put a price on reclaiming your family’s safety and peace. We’ll get what we can from this house, move on, and never look back.

I know that there are many, many worthy causes on GoFundMe, and I sincerely appreciate you considering mine. 3 years of perpetual harassment combined with being 24/7 surveilled by creeps with ill intentions against my children has really beaten us down and left us emotionally and financially drained. At this point, we are looking at new properties and looking forward to closing this horrendous chapter and moving somewhere safe. I never could have dreamed that nightmare neighbors could so fully destroy your life and sense of safety. Thank you so much for reading and please consider donating to our cause or sharing this fundraiser on your socials. All money raised will go to helping us relocate to a safer home to protect our children and animals from further abuse. Thank you again, and if you need something to take away from this: make sure you meet the people you’ll be living next to before you sign those papers; bad neighbors can make your day to day life a literal hell.