I met a neighbor of mine out by the mailboxes this evening. I'd never seen her before, but she's lived just a few houses down the street as long as I've lived here. We struck up a casual conversation about a guy whose enthusiastic dog was towing him down the street at a trot around dinner time before it had started to cool off a bit. Its owner is very nice, and the dog's a sweetie. I don't know the guy's name, nor his dog's. After about 15 minutes the woman and I introduced ourselves, but then the conversation continued another 15 minutes before I went in the house and she got her mail.

I learned some interesting things about the homeowner's association, the current property manager, and my next door neighbor. I'm not the only one who thinks my next door neighbor is a doll, and loved her first dog, but really couldn't befriend the second one she got, as much as I tried.

The first was a lovey-dovey golden retriever who would just run up to everyone, flop over, and demand a tummy rub. He was 95 lbs., which was a bit too big and strong for her (she's been retired for a decade, and is no bigger than that dog was). She'd have to drop the leash, and just let him make a break for the object of his attention.

Her next dog was about half his size, but she was a real barker that got on everyone's nerves beccause she would assume an attack stance even when her owner and I were carrying on a conversation. Nothing could stop that dog from barking--not even doggie training at St. Hubert's Animal Shelter.

Apparently, she did the same thing to everyone in the neighborhood, except for one neighbor who doesn't work. I haven't seen my next door neighbor walk that dog in weeks. Now I know why. She dropped her off at St. Hubert's. Supposedly the reason was that she just wanted to run all the time, and a retired woman couldn't exactly run along beside her. I never saw that dog want to run; she mostly sniffed around my yard. I'm convinced the real reason she got rid of the dog, which wasn't quite a year old, was that no amount of training would get that dog to stop going into near attack mode at the neighbors. And we all love dogs. It wasn't a matter of the dog having a sixth sense about who was hostile toward it--none of us were. We tried to make friends with it, but it was just way too high strung.

The other interesting tidbit is that my neighbor shares exactly the same opinion of our current property manager vs. a previous one we remember. The current one blows us off whenever we call to bring up an issue, makes up by-laws on the fly to suit her whim, claiming it's "the spirit of the bylaws" not the letter of them that counts. Um, no--they're called bylaws because they are there for a legal reason. In that case, it's the letter of the law that matters.

Several years ago, the woman couldn't show me a bylaw that prohibited more than X number of plants on my patio, yet her letter told me I "had too many plants on my patio." If someone complains that they think something looks a little untidy, then she's all over us like hot glue, regardless of how ridiculous the complaint is. I refused to comply with getting rid of some of my orchid collection, but swept up the patio, in a show of conciliation. That was my mistake.

This year, she came after me for having an orchid bench on my patio. She claims a couple of neighbors complained about it looking untidy. I disassembled it, and shoved it in the basement. Then I called to demand that any future complaints she has with me will have to be delivered in writing, citing the specific bylaw I've violated.

That did not sit well with her, so she refused to deliver my pool pass this year, after I called to inform her that the one she delivered had my incorrect street address and name. She promised to correct it, never did, and gave me a hard time when I called to inquire what the status was. So, I'm showing a badge for a street address that doesn't even exist, and signing in as "Collins." The high schooler hired to be the lifeguard would never know the difference.

The former property manager was a doll to deal with--her background was in banking before she got into property management, so she came at it from a business perspective. The current one comes at it from a petty perspective like someone at the DMV, who'll give you a really hard time simply because they can.

It turns out that I'm not the difficult one with whom to deal. A number of other neighbors find the same thing I do when dealing with our current property manager. Even my next door neighbor, who's on the landscaping committee, finds that this woman just goes off and does whatever she wants whenever about giving the landscapers planting directions, without following the rules about clearing things through the various committees or the board of directors. It's her mini-fiefdom.

I wonder if there's anything we can do to get the board to force the management company it hired to request a new property manager who is more responsive to homeowners, and doesn't have an attitude problem. This occasionally happens in business. If a client has a real problem with an account manager assigned to them, they can call the supplier and request that someone else be assigned to their account. I'd love to see this happen.