How Do You Handle Horrible Neighbors?

Throughout your lifetime you will have a variety of neighbors.  Some young, some old, some nice, some not so nice, but I guarantee that at some point you will encounter a neighbor that is just horrible.  How do you deal with someone like that?

I try to be nice and polite to everybody.  I can honestly say it takes a lot for me to get angry.  But one thing that sets me off is when people have no consideration for others.  Within this past year, several different people have lived in the house next door.  And most of them were very cool and I never had any problems.  But the people who live there now are a nightmare!

To begin, their yard is an eyesore!  Now I understand that not all people think yard work is fun or even necessary so I can over look this.  I mean trash all over the yard, boxes on the porch, brooms and mops thrown in the yard, even a car seat in the yard isn't really hurting me, right?

Next, they have a bad habit of parking and blocking my driveway.  This gets on my nerves.  If I need to go to the store or run any kind of errands I have to go and knock on the door, sometimes bang on the door, to get them to move their car.  There has never been an emergency situation, so I can overlook this also.

Now the thing that really gets me and I cannot overlook is when they are not being responsible for their pets.  Now I understand that dogs dig, so when I see huge holes dug between our fence I just fill them up and go on about my business.  But this past weekend I went into my backyard and saw that my fence was broken.  So now there is a huge hole in my fence.  I did the adult thing and went next door to talk to them.  No response.  To this day, they haven't even made an attempt to fix it.

And what makes this situation even worse, is that their dog has been in my backyard destroying other things, including my son's toys.  So I went back to their house, and they wouldn't even open the door.  Take responsibility people!

I know that you can sometimes report junky yards to the city, but don't want to take it to that level.  I don't want to have to get ugly at all, but how do you deal with horrible neighbors?  I need some help.  If you have any advice for me, I'd greatly appreciate.