I love Jonna's comment about "small town, big hell." That is so true.
I lived in a small mountain community that consisted of an interesting mix of ranchers, environmentalists and skiers.
It was an incredibly difficult environment to function in. You fit in or you don't. If you don't, your life is going to be a
living hell. Many in this community had sort of a "what's mine is yours." attitude and vice-versa.
This was very difficult for me as I'm a very private person. DH and I were running a small business so that made
things twice as bad.
We lived in a big old house that belonged to some relatives of my husband and we did quite a bit of work to it.
It was not uncommon for people to just come in the house when we were not home just to see what it looked like.
I don't know how many times we changed locks while we lived there but I swear these people knew how to pick them!
I had plants taken right out my yard. Someone sees a plant they like, they just come and take some of it (or all of it).
If you had a tool or a piece of equipment someone wanted to borrow, they would become horribly offended if you didn't
let them borrow it and less than a day later it was all over town that you wouldn't.
DH and I really tried to be polite and just stay to ourselves and that created additional problems.
Town folk had us made out to be drug dealers, cult members and a host of other wacky stuff that they created over nothing
but rumors and the fact that we were not liked because we didn't follow the "what's mine is yours" mentality. We eventually had to move because it was just too much and it
was destroying our business.
So, my point is, if you feel that being rude to these neighbors is going to create more problems for you than it might be
best to consult with your pastor or come up with a creative approach that will protect your privacy but not piss off the neighbors too much.
I would be really annoyed with these neighbors too but sometimes you have to walk on egg shells in a small town.