City in Minnesota is fed up with feuding neighbors who share 1 driveway — police responded 232 times in a year. Whose side of the line are you on?

Police have been called to the same address 232 times in a single year, spending more than 260 hours on scene, according to the Shakopee Police Department [1]. What began as a personal conflict has now turned into a public-resource crisis — one that has cost local taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.

A tale of two neighbors: Driveway divided

The driveway at the center of this dispute has been shared for decades, an unremarkable strip that both neighbors rely on for access. But that shared space has become a a constant source of headache.

Each side accuses the other of harassment. Each has taken out a restraining order. And each claims the other refuses to respect their space.

According to police reports, Salas says the trouble began when Keil repeatedly parked in his section of the driveway. In frustration, he put up multiple hand-painted signs accusing her of being a drug user — specifically that she's addicted to "crack."

“After I wrote this, because she kept parking there and her friend, it stopped. Everything has stopped,” Salas told FOX 9 News [1].

Keil denies ever using drugs. “I’ve never used drugs in my life,” she told Fox 9 News, adding that Salas’s signs — along with cameras and floodlights aimed at her property — are harassment.

Keil has access to park on her property via an alley but says it's much more difficult to get her car in that way. Salas is only able to access his property is through the shared driveway.

An escalating feud — with no end in sight

The feud has since taken surreal turns. Police say Salas has been recorded shoveling snow in costume, recording Keil when she steps outside, and painting more signs near their property line. Sometime he drags a giant nutcracker to the end of his portion of the driveway to prevent access.

Keil, for her part, has been accused of hanging an “ICE flag” apparently directed at Salas, who is Mexican, throwing roadkill into his yard and putting spikes down to damage Salas's tires.

Both neighbors have violated their restraining orders at least once, according to local court records, and both claim the other provoked the confrontation.

Draining public resources

Shakopee Police Chief Jeff Tate told FOX 9 that the feud has generated more calls for service than some of the city’s busiest landmarks.

“To put that in perspective, that’s more calls for service than we’ve had at Valleyfair this year, more than we’ve had at our hospital,” Tate said. “If you take our two largest apartment complexes with more than 400 units combined, that’s still fewer calls than we’ve had at this one property.”

He estimates that by the time police, prosecutors and city staff are factored in, the feud has already cost tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

For a mid-sized city like Shakopee — population around 48,000 — those resources are meaningful. Every hour spent mediating a shouting match between neighbors is an hour not spent responding to real emergencies elsewhere.

That drain adds up. A 2021 report from the Vera Institute of Justice, found that when police are asked to handle social or civil disputes — situations involving “conflict, nuisance, or quality-of-life concerns” — the true costs extend far beyond overtime and paperwork. They include time diverted from serious crime response, prosecutorial workloads, and contributed to growing mistrust between officers and residents [2].

Chief Jeff Tate told Fox 9 the department has tried mediation, warnings and even joint meetings with both neighbors — but nothing has worked. “We’re at a point,” he said, “that unless we haul one of them off in handcuffs, the other party is not going to be satisfied.”

Neighbor disputes a common problem nation-wide

Neighbor disputes are widespread across the U.S. A national FindLaw survey found that 4 in 10 Americans say they’ve had a conflict with a neighbor, and about a quarter of them have called the police at least once [3]. Most end with a complaint or mediation — not 232 police calls.

According to the same survey, about 17% of disputes involve property boundaries, creating the kind of territorial friction that often kickstarts shared-driveway conflicts.

The Shakopee case underscores how small civil disputes can escalate when they mix personal animosity with unclear property rights.