How would you handle neighbors that continually leave small dog poop piles on a shared lawn?

Have you talked to your neighbours?

I’d either talk to them directly or get the association to pass out a note to everyone that they need to clean up after their dog and if they don’t it will be considered a violation of the HOA agreement. Or, however the HOA typically words such things.

I had a situation at my apartment where people where bringing their glass bottled beer into the pool. Idiots. I said something to people a few times. One time a couple with their infant baby got pretty annoyed with me and basically said to mind my own business. I went to the rental office and didn’t mention the rude, stupid, couple, but I did tell them I kept observing people bringing glass into the pool. They told me not to address anyone because it’s not my problem to deal with it. Eventually, they posted an additional sign right on the pool entrance gate about it.

The point of that story is sometimes if people aren’t reasonable enough to see what they are doing is wrong and they never will be without fear of punishment.

I had a neighbor years ago whose dog was coming onto my lawn and scratching the screen on my patio. When I told her she apologized and fixed it right away. I don’t think she realized he could get that far on his leash.

You have to kind of evaluate how receptive the people are going to be.

”without proof of which dog(s)/owner is doing it they won’t act”

Your answer is right here. Plainly you cannot coerce them into behaving like responsible dog owners. If you can’t knock on doors and make a direct plea, the only thing you can possibly do is gather evidence and present it to the HA. And I think it’s too late for a direct plea if you’ve already been carrying out a passive aggression campaign for some time.

PS Good to see you!

There’s always the flaming paper bag if it get’s too annoying.~

I don’t know the layout of the land but you could set up an inexpensive Trail Camera like one of these by Moultrie , for example. You can program it to start taking photos or video when it detects motion in a preset area. That would give you the evidence you need. Any sporting goods store will have them. For $80 you can get something reasonable. The more expensive ones have features like infrared flashes, low light capability, deep IR sensitivity, temperature, atmospheric pressure, phase of the moon, gps location…. You don’t need that. You just want one that will take a picture during the day and print date and time on the frame.

You leave it there. You don’t mow, or water, rake, weed, anything! Or you put up a fence. “Good fences make good neighbors.”

If you’re hunting down the poop, try sprinkling it liberally with ground red pepper. You can buy a decent sized bottle at the Dollar Tree for a buck.

Pooping is a way of marking territory. A dog will seek out it’s previous poop and sniff it.
I had decent luck with the red pepper – I just didn’t have the follow-thru to get it stopped.

A plus is that the dog’s owner will know someone is paying attention, and may be concerned for the dog. Another plus is that it makes a red splotch in the yard at poop, so it’s less likely you will step in it.