zlacker

My wife and I had CPS called on us (in Texas, no less) because I had some construction leftovers inside my fence, waiting to be taken to the dump, and my neighbor was concerned that my kids would be hurt playing around it.

We were interviewed, they found there were no issues, and the case was dropped. Very stressful experience, though.

And for what? I grew up on a farm in Nebraska. We had endless fields and roads around us to explore. The only off-limits area was an abandoned hog confinement, which to be fair, absolutely could have killed us (by falling into the open trench of porcine waste) – naturally, we still went there.

I know that reeks of survivor bias, but given the length of time Homo sapiens have survived, I think it’s a reasonably safe assumption that kids, when left to their own devices, are unlikely to be seriously injured or killed. Though, that’s probably only true if they’ve been exposed to it gradually over time, and are aware of the risks.

>>sgarla+(OP)
In my experience most neighbor complaints are not about the complaint but rather about the neighbor and/or the neighbor relationship, especially if its the first approach to the "issue". To my understanding, the majority of complaints (to all form of neighbor complaints) are false and made by a small number of complainers.

However this doesn't mean the government should not act. An interview of a false complaint is a small cost to pay compared to not doing anything when there is a real problem. Most of the time those employed to do the investigation known to look for signs of false reports and neighbor conflicts in order to filter them out, but at the same time they do need to make sure as to not miss-classify a real complaint.