The City of Brownsville's Health Department has intervened in a dispute between neighbors off Tara Place upset about a flea infestation.
Ben Benavidez told Action 4 News that one of his neighbor "Maria" has been negligent in taking care of her dog and now everyone in the neighborhood is paying the price.
Action 4 News aired the story as a Call 4 Action on Monday night.
Neighbors said the Brownsville Health Department and Animal Control showed up.
Maria was cited and ordered to spray insecticide for fleas, but she wasn't the only one.
Gracie Austin said she also got a warning and given seven days to spray incecticide on her yard.
She said she didn't think it was fair.
"I dont have no pets," Austin said. "I dont have cats."
Austin lives on a fixed income and says she'a already had to go to the doctor to get treated for flea bites
"I had to go to the doctor to get antibiotics because they were all over here and i didnt know what was happening," she said.
This fuels Benavidez's anger even more
"Why should she have to pay for somebody else's mistakes," Benavidez said.
But Maria says she does not have a flea problem at her home and blames an abandoned trailer just two homes down for the problem.
"This just a combative person," she said about Benavidez. "He even curses at me he's just a combative person but since i live across the street from him he thinks the problem is coming from my home but it's not me."
Maria says the trailer is a nest for opossums and rats and which are the ones harboring the fleas.
She said her dog "River" does not have any problems and she doesnt have a single flea bite on her.
"Even the city told me not to worry about it," she said. "They know about dogs and they told me my dog is healhty. They cited several of us and im the only one that has sprayed my yard."
But benavidez says he's not buying it and stands by his belief that the problem is coming from Maria's home
And so it seems this neighborly dispute will continue
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