Here's what I went with:

Nice.

We just had a survey done. We own the walls on both sides of our property. We'll be raising the existing cinder block wall and adding a privacy fence towards the front of the house.

The current yahoos next door brought a boat. Only they can't get the lift down. They launched from the dock yesterday and the wind pushed them way too close to our boat. We let them know that was not okay.

hard to see which neighbor can hit or where on your boat. but if its in the back side you can put a swing away 4 by 4 behind the boat to protect it from boats drifting into your back end. it looks like your sides are protected. if not put a permanent one on each side.

good fences make good neighbors.

I "might" have solved the issue with my cameras losing connection. Turns out the wifi thingy that talks to the cameras (not the router) was hard connected to the router. But I found out that it can be taken off the direct line once it is set up and placed somewhere else. I moved it to the center of the house and, so far so good. The camera that wasn't getting a good signal now is. Hopefully this works. Much better than setting up a whole new mesh system.

Today I found this in my boat. The line was wrapped all over my boat. Maybe 100 yds or so. This is from next door. I gave them an earful. Never ends.

you got a free soft bait. and when the beer cans start appearing you can recycle them. back where they came from.

The lemonade ain't worth the lemons.

wait what? how does that even happen with the lure?

Well, that was the result after I pulled it from my boat. The lure was wrapped about 3 times around the top beam of the lift. It then was around the boat leaning post, then around the outrigger, then twice around a piling, then stretched all the way (maybe 30') over to my other neighbor's sailboat. The line went over their sailboat - about 20' off the water, and was hung somewhere on their dock. I cut it and told them about it so I'm not sure what it was caught on.

I honestly cannot envision how this might have happened.

Flying fish

I finally got to talk to the guy next door. Well, not the owner. This guy literally did all of the work fixing the place up. He is a real estate agent. He insists that he has no monetary interest in the place and is really sketchy about how he gets paid. I really don't trust him.

I gave him an earful and we ended up talking through a lot of stuff for about an hour. I'm not sure he's very sympathetic but he did give me the owner's number and told me that the owner would be here next week so I can talk to him in person.

He told me the owner bought this solely for being a place where his family could come for vacation and was not intending on turning it into a rental. However, in his next breath he told me he bought it as a 1031 exchange.

So, I'm calling bullshit on this one.

He gave me grief for the security camera and the signs. I let him know that as long as we have problems here, things won't change.

I'm not sure this will go anywhere but downhill, really. But, we'll see.

the 1031 only means he sold something someplace else and got to use all the funds for that purchase of the place next to you. and didnt have to pay taxes.
so it could be for any reason he owns it. rental, or vacation, or resale.
so if from say n.y. he beats the cap gains tax from irs, tax from n.y.state and new york city tax.

smart move. the tax could be as high as 50% of its value depending on circumstances.

ive done a few of these.

1031 must be for an investment or business property. In order for a vacation rental to qualify you cannot have personal use of the property for more than 14 days in a tax year.

Kinda what I figured.

From the IRS

The guy I was talking to is somewhere between not straightforward and an out and out liar. No way did the owner buy this for a vacation home then later decide to make a few bucks on the side.

yes it will probably be a rental or part time rental. yes the 14 day rule is in effect. but of course hard to prove if they come and go.
also while you are improving your rental/ investment property. you are allowed to stay there. and if you keep it advertised as a rental and have market value rents received you likely will have no problems. and all expenses are deductible.
and if held two years no problem at all. even one year has been determined to suffice.

of curse the realtor isnt going to tell you what is going on. he represents the owner not you. and the owner at present may not even know what he plans to do with it.

and i am confused as usual. isnt this the house next door that is a rental already? as you mentioned the signs and camera.

Yes, it is the house that is a rental. I haven't seen this guy or the owner since it went up on VRBO. So, this is the first time I've had an opportunity to talk to either one.

It was purchased about the same time we bought ours. However, it wasn't officially a rental right away because they have been working on it. It was empty for months.

The realtor guy is also the guy that has been doing all of the repairs on the house since we moved in. It's a really weird thing he has going with the owner. He INSISTS that he doesn't have a vested interest in the house and that the guy isn't paying him. Just a friend and/or a guy that might send him some business. His story stinks. As does his story that the owner never intended this to be a rental. The guy just isn't straightforward at all.

They just got the house in shape to rent it about a month or so ago.

I would bet my life that both the owner and his realtor purchased this house solely to be a rental property. It would be difficult for me to believe anything else at this point, given the b.s. this guy has been feeding me.

The first thing he told me is that it's good that this is a rental because it will help our property values. Pisses on me and tells me it's raining.

One more thing to add. The realtor guy mentioned something like he may not even keep the place that long. Well, we have a buyer if he decides to sell and I told him this several times in our conversation.

Back to the security camera debacle.

The issue is the front and back ones lose connection almost daily and I have to take them down and reset them. I thought this might be solved with a mesh system, then I decided that wasn't really going to help.

However, I had it and I thought I might just set it up to see what would happen. LOL me.

You are supposed to plug it into a modem and an app walks you through the process. However, the process just came to a grinding halt. It simply didn't work. Fortunately they put their tech support number right there so I called.

There is a lot to what happened next. I'll just say it took almost 5 hours on the phone with the tech before it even worked. After all that, my cameras are not getting any better signal that what I was getting before. In fact, it was really glitchy walking from room to room. So, I went back to the old router, packaged the new one up, and requested a refund on Amazon.

I did also talk to tech support for the cameras. She said it might be that I have them mounted on metal. This might be a thing since the one mounted on the wall (not near anything metal) above the door has never had an issue.

I have the solution; Do it the Italian way - kill everyone you have a disagreement with! Trust me it works very well. Of course you may have to flee to Switzerland; Id suggest moving to Lucerne which has many benefits. It’s a great city; I’ve been there. Trust me. And international banking is a breeze.

Do they have airbnb in Lucerne?

I just had an idea that might help with both noise and privacy. I think I'll put a masonry wall on one side of the lanai. They can't see in, dampens sound, win win.

Although I'm still debating how much to spend to airbnbproof my home. I'm not totally sure I'm committed to living here the rest of my life with that next door. If I was alone, my house would be up for sale. But, my wife has been through so much just to make this move and I don't want her to go through that again. At least not until she is able to retire.

you said you had some interested in buying. send him an offer.

we'll talk next week

I think I found a pretty good idea.

ICF (insulated concrete form) blocks. They are made of some sort of bad ass foam and you pour concrete in the middle of them. They have a ridiculous noise absorption/reduction rating. Higher than anything because the foam aborbs and the concrete reflects. I figure I can go up 7' or so from my pool deck. The pool deck walls are cinder block so the load won't be an issue. I'm not exactly sure how to brace it from sideways forces but there is a company here that consults so I'll talk to them.