Unscrupulous Neighbors

I have these neighbors (not the ones who put their house on the market recently) who drive me a bit nuts. The kids are poorly supervised and somewhat nasty – which they get from their parents, apparently.

When we had our yard cleared a while back, we saved ten or so big oak logs. We kept meaning to start chopping them into firewood, but were having trouble finding time to do so.

Last fall, the husband part of the neighbors, along with the wife's brother who lives in town, approached us with a deal: they'd cut all the wood in exchange for half of it. We thought, okay, that sounds pretty good.

So in the fall, they cut and split six or seven logs, stacked it near our shed and carted away wood for their wood piles. Fine and dandy. But they keep coming back for more wood. They have taken FAR more than half the wood – more like three-quarters or more! – and they think we haven't noticed. The brother comes at odd times of the day when we typically aren't home and takes more, or the wife walks over and gets some. The other neighbors watch this.

They're playing all innocent about it. It's really pissing me off.

I don't really know how to resolve this in a comfortable manner. This is a small neighborhood – only four houses on our little road. I can't just ignore them, much as I might like to. But I also don't want a huge blow up.

It's just wood, I know, but it's also symptomatic of other concerns we've had – paying for their part of the yearly plowing, the way their kids treat my kids, and so on.

Mostly, I just don't get why people develop such an attitude of entitlement.