When Feuding With Your Neighbor Over a Fence Gets Out of Hand
— -- Here’s the situation:
In the Wildwood neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas, police have responded to the homes of neighbors Yolanda Martinez and Rick Dominguez roughly 140 times.
“We’ve been back and forth to those residences over and over and over again,” police Chief Bill McManus told ABC News’ “20/20.”
Except for an incident that resulted in Rick Dominguez being charged with an assault -- he later pleaded no contest -- McManus says the feuding neighbors aren’t breaking the law. And though McManus’ officers report the Dominguez family members are the main antagonists, he said there is blame on both sides.
Trouble Online:
At one time, the Martinez and Dominguez families were close and spent time at each other’s homes. Rick Dominguez even attended the wedding of Yolanda Martinez’s daughter, and the families were friendly on Facebook.
About two years ago, the Dominguez family posted on Facebook how they were getting into juicing and living a healthier lifestyle. The two families disagree on what happened next, but there's no doubt there were unfriendly Facebook comments posted, which helped end their friendship.
Today, there is a huge barricade between them, a roughly four-foot-tall wooden and latticework fence Yolanda Martinez's husband Tony Martinez constructed, and about 12 feet of corrugated metal on top of wood Rick Dominguez built. In addition, there are cameras everywhere pointing back and both, some put up by the Martinez family and nearly 20 for the Dominguez's.
The Martinez Family’s Side of the Story:
Yolanda Martinez said the fences were just the beginning. “They started painting pictures of pigs on the walls,” Yolanda Martinez told “20/20.” “[I thought] that they were calling us pigs.”
She said Rick Dominguez would harass her family as soon as they walked out of the house by making pig noises, and she claims at one point that he even put a banner in his backyard showing a pig in a simulated sex act with an obscene message directed at them.
The Dominguez Family’s Side of the Story:
Rick Dominguez said he has proof that whatever he is doing is a response to what Yolanda Martinez and her family next door have done to him.
He said he’s seen Tony Martinez repeatedly knock down garbage cans using what he is convinced is a cattle prod. The pig references he’s made, Dominguez said, are nothing more than him getting back at people for provoking him with a farming implement.
And the banner showing a pig in a simulated sex act, according to Dominguez, is because the Martinezs had used a 13-foot high camera to invade their privacy. The banner was not visible otherwise, he claims.
A Solution?
Each side says the other is lying, but paperwork is now flying in both directions. The Dominguez’s and the Martinez’s sued each other. A judge’s injunction orders both families to stop everything, and a city agency is demanding Dominguez tear down his beloved metal borderline once and for all.
As for the rest of the residents in the neighborhood, they say the feud is ruining their peace and quiet, not to mention their property values.
The only thing the Martinez’s and the Dominguez’s do agree on is that it may take one family to move to finally end it all. But they would both prefer it to be the other family who leaves.
