Dear Family With the Massive Pile of Decomposing Food Behind My Fence,

Whether you live right outside Tyler, TX, like me and my family do, or you and yours are living it up in a Houston, TX suburb, for the most part we've all got neighbors. But only some of us have oblivious neighbors like this.

Dear Family With a Compost Pile on The Backside of My Fence,

It was a very hot summer, but we had been excited to enjoy our great new patio once anyway. And we did, for most of spring anyway. Then, around late June, our porch became completely unusable.

It all began when my young daughters decided, on their own, that they didn’t want to play in the backyard anymore. We chalked it up to the heat, after all it was very hot. But then a few days later my wife was working in the yard and flies of all sizes and varieties started dive bombing her so much she was forced to escape inside.

After that my wife became super vigilant, and timely, about picking up after our small dog anytime he went number two in the yard. The poor little guy could barely get it out before a plastic bag would attack it.

Despite all of this...

... the damn little town of flies commuting through and living in my yard quickly boomed into a bustling fly metroplex. Next we got these amazing fly traps and put them all along the fence line.

It was so disgusting, it was ridiculously stinky, and to witness dozens of flies swarming and being trapped in a bag -- all while dozens more crowded the entrance like it was the Studio 54 of their Fly Metropolis -- was gross.

One time I swear I overheard a fly saying “look, I know the flies inside are saying ‘don’t come in! It’s a trap!’ But they’re only saying it because they want to keep whatever smells so terrible in there for themselves!” Before elbowing its way in with its tiny little fly elbows. Sucker.

And it was working.

We were catching flies -- and as long as the wind was blowing in our favor, we could enjoy our patio once again.

And so we spent the summer on our patio with the nastiest of stenches wafting about, but it was better than the alternative; swarming flies.

That takes us to Labor Day weekend, and my wife is doing some work behind our property, and there it is in all it's rotting glory: one big a$$ compost pile, freshly filled with decomposing veggies, and whatever else our neighbors didn't eat from dinner the night before.

This compost pile is about 6 feet from our fly bag covered fence, and not much further from our perfect patio, and oh so obvious the majority source of our fly infestation.

Listen, we understand and applaud a compost pile,

While neither my wife nor I believe this compost pile was placed with ill intentions, we need it gone, it's football season now and I need my patio. So, please, if you have any advice on how to approach these people it'd certainly be appreciated.

Keep in mind that we have no idea who they are, and to be honest we have never seen a single person in the backyard. But we know that they are there and that they don't eat all of their vegetables.