In a decision I have long regretted, a while back, a neighbor conned me, I mean convinced me, to join the Covenants Committee of our local homeowner association. My job, essentially, is to ask difficult people if they would be willing to “be a good neighbor” and clean up their property or lower the height of their trees. Their job is to tell me to kiss off and leave them alone. Or just ignore me altogether. That seems to be very effective too.