Dear Prudence,
Three months ago, a couple moved into the house next to my family’s. To say they are awful would be the understatement of the century, the husband, “Jerry,” especially.
A few weeks ago, Jerry made some lewd comments to my 17-year-old daughter about her breasts when she and her 12-year-old brother “Kenneth” were getting out of her car after school (she drops him off and picks him up). I was furious, but my husband told her to ignore him. The next day, I was in my kitchen when I heard a torrent of profanity coming from the direction of my backyard. I went outside to hear Jerry screaming every obscenity imaginable (and some I didn’t know existed). I asked him through the fence what was wrong, and he said that someone had put soap in his koi pond and all the fish were dead.
A day later, I overheard Kenneth and his sister laughing about his “aim.” When I confronted them, my son admitted to throwing dishwasher pods into Jerry’s koi pond. While I certainly don’t condone killing fish to get back at that POS, I can’t say I entirely blame Kenneth, either. I also have a sense that he might not have taken matters into his own hands had my husband been a man and stood up for our daughter. The fence that is next to the koi pond separated it from a much-traveled sidewalk on the other side, so Jerry doesn’t know who was responsible for the koi’s demise. Do I have permission to look the other way?